How's this for quick thinking: You're the general manager of the

Tampa Bay Lightning, a debt-plagued NHL franchise fighting for

its very existence, and your most charismatic asset, the

sizzling young talent who's the future of your

organization--bruising 6'4", 218-pound center Chris Gratton--has

just received a five-year, $16.5 million free-agent offer sheet

from the Philadelphia Flyers. If you're Tampa Bay general

manager Phil Esposito, you know you can't afford to match the

offer, so you come up with a brainstorm. As Esposito later

explained to arbitrator John Sands during a hearing on the

Gratton matter, he couldn't figure out Philly's proposal to the

22-year-old Gratton because some of the numbers on the sheet

that was faxed to him were, uh, smudged.

Even for Tampa Bay, a team with an inglorious history of

bumbling, this was rich--the equivalent of saying the dog ate my

homework. But when it comes to the Lightning, slapstick has

always ranked higher than slap shots. An article in Forbes last

year called Tampa Bay pro sports' most leveraged team. You could

also make the case that the Lightning, which at week's end had

already gone through three coaches this season and had the

poorest record in the NHL (16-43-9), is the worst franchise in

sports.

Tampa Bay's seven-year history is full of episodes just as

ridiculous as that August 1997 smudged-fax claim, which, no

surprise, didn't dissuade Sands from ruling that the Flyers'

offer sheet was valid. (Gratton ultimately ended up in Philly as

the result of a trade with Tampa Bay.) The Lightning has been

for sale since the fall of '96, and nobody seems interested in

buying it. Lightning Partners, Ltd., as the franchise is

formally known, has a mystery owner from Japan named Takashi

Okubo, who bought a limited stake in the team in '90 through his

Tokyo golf resorts company, Kokusai Green, and is identified by

a source in one lawsuit as being a "gangster." The Lightning's

two Japanese-born top executives, president Saburo (Steve) Oto

and executive vice president Chris Phillips, blame much of Tampa

Bay's financial woes on Okubo's accuser, Marc Ganis, a

Chicago-based developer who failed in his efforts to build the

Lightning an arena in time for Tampa Bay's 1992 NHL debut.

The franchise is more than $100 million in debt, and NHL sources

say that bankruptcy or a league takeover isn't out of the

question, an assertion that Oto and NHL commissioner Gary

Bettman deny. Through the years Tampa Bay's ownership has tried

to save money in many ways, some of them counterproductive.

Example: NHL teams usually employ as many as five pro scouts to

do advance work on trades or to stay current on rival clubs, but

the Lightning didn't have a pro scout until it hired Peter

Mahovlich before last June's entry draft. Esposito's

explanation? "We don't need a pro scout. We have our satellite

dishes," he said.

Tampa Bay's front office has often aired its dirty laundry in

public. In mid-December, Oto and Esposito engaged in an exchange

in the St. Petersburg Times about the Lightning's faltering

fortunes. Oto said he didn't want "Band-Aid" or "Mickey Mouse"

trades and said Esposito's job wasn't in jeopardy "yet."

Esposito countered by saying, "I'd like to make the final

decision, but I don't, and that's the truth." The Times reported

that Oto was vetoing trades, and Oto admitted he killed one, a

swap that would've sent a minor leaguer to the Anaheim Mighty

Ducks for journeyman center Kevin Todd. "To me, that's a

Band-Aid trade," Oto said.

What does Okubo, the first non-American or non-Canadian owner of

a North American major league sports franchise, think of the

sorry spectacle his team has become? Who knows? He has never

attended a Lightning game, never been to Tampa and never granted

an interview to a member of the North American media. (Okubo

didn't respond to an interview request for this story.) Among

Lightning players and top management, only Oto and Phillips have

met Okubo, and no one at the NHL offices has met him--not former

league president John Ziegler, who approved Kokusai Green's

acquiring a stake in the Lightning, and not Bettman, who has had

to live with the aftereffects of that investment.

Since Kokusai Green became involved with Tampa Bay, the NHL has

mediated disputes involving the Lightning on at least three

occasions and has advanced the franchise money or investigated

Tampa Bay management for conduct at least once. Though Bettman

is loath to admit it, he has been kept in the dark about Okubo

as much as anyone. When he went to Nagano in February for the

Winter Olympics, he scheduled a meeting with Okubo--only to

receive a note when he arrived stating that Okubo was sorry, but

he had been pulled away by a business emergency in China. "He

sent me a tie clasp," Bettman says.

Esposito and Tak Kojima, a former investor in the Lightning,

tell similar stories of last-minute cancellations by Okubo. Tony

Guanci, a consultant for the Las Vegas-based Maloof family,

which considered buying Tampa Bay last summer and later

purchased the NBA Sacramento Kings, says jokingly, "Not only did

I never speak to Okubo in our eight months [of pursuing Tampa

Bay], I began to wonder if he exists."

Why the shroud of secrecy? In a lawsuit filed last year in Tampa

federal court by Ganis against Lightning ownership, management

and former team lawyer David LeFevre, Okubo is described by one

potential Japanese source of financing for Tampa Bay as a

"gangster." In Japan there is a mob organization called yakuza,

which has been known to enter the sports world, most notably to

launder money through such enterprises as golf courses. Stephen

Wayne, the New York lawyer who has handled Tampa Bay's search

for a buyer for the last 14 months, contends that any

implication that Okubo is involved in organized crime is

"entirely unfounded." Adds Phillips, "We deny the charge tenfold."

Regardless of the veracity of the "gangster" allegation,

questions remain about the Lightning's tangled finances, about

Kokusai Green's business practices and about whether the NHL

sooner or later will feel compelled to do something about the

Tampa Bay ownership--or will just keep praying that the

Lightning will get sold and the problem will go away.

Kokusai Green initially set a price of $230 million, according

to Wayne, for the team and its 40-year sweetheart lease with the

Ice Palace, which finally opened in 1996, thanks to public

financing. The price has dropped to $167 million, but even that

has been too high to attract serious bidders. New Jersey Devils

owner John McMullen says a prospective buyer recently asked him

to evaluate the Lightning as an investment. McMullen's response:

"You'd be a fool to consider buying that team for that number."

Oto, a former partner with the Big Six accounting firm of

Deloitte & Touche, says the Lightning's debt is about $103

million, not the $177 million that Forbes reported. This fiscal

year Tampa Bay is on pace to lose $16.9 million, which would

push the Lightning's total losses since 1992 to $85 million--or

$35 million more than the original cost of the franchise.

Because of the delays in building the $153 million Ice Palace,

Tampa Bay played its inaugural season at Expo Hall, a drafty

10,400-seat barn on the grounds of the Florida State Fairgrounds

in Tampa. It spent the next three years at St. Petersburg's

Thunderdome (now Tropicana Field). Internal memos and team

financial records from '92 through '95 show that the Lightning

was so cash-strapped that Tampa Bay executives worried about

making payroll and about the collapse of their team.

In November 1994 the IRS and the state of Florida were ready to

file liens on the Lightning for $750,000 in past-due taxes.

Tampa Bay owed Sportservice Corp., its concessionaire, $4

million. The Sunshine Network, which televises Lightning games,

was demanding $768,000 it was due. Tampa Bay's ad agency

threatened to remove the team's billboards from around the city

unless it was paid $345,407 in back bills. TWA suspended credit

for nonpayment of $73,000.

To pay those bills, Kokusai Green borrowed against many of the

team's revenue streams. Under its lease with the Ice Palace,

Tampa Bay Arena, L.P., a subsidiary of Lightning Partners, Ltd.,

gets all revenue from arena events, according to the club's

outside lawyer Paul Davis. But much of that income is committed

to paying down the Lightning's debts. Beyond that, Tampa Bay

owes the NHL $6.5 million on the $10 million loan the league

quietly gave the Lightning in 1996 as an advance on Tampa Bay's

share of national TV revenue. Because of that arrangement, the

Lightning would receive no further NHL broadcast and royalty

revenue until July 1999. Then there's Ganis's lawsuit for $123

million for which a trial date has been set for next March.

Bettman said three weeks ago that Tampa Bay was current on all

of its financial obligations, but when asked the same question,

Oto said, "No. Just like any business, some [bills] you pay in

30 days, some you pay in 60 days. We try to stretch some like

you try to stretch your MasterCard payment, to the very last

day."

Hanging over the Lightning Partners, Ltd. as Oto spoke was at

least one large bill. A former limited partner, Tokyo

Development Corp. (TDC), sued the franchise last year for

failing to repay a 30-day, $1 million emergency loan from 1994

and won a $1.5 million judgment. On March 4, with that judgment

still unpaid, TDC obtained a writ of execution empowering it to

garnishee Lightning bank accounts if it so chose. When SI

interviewed Oto and Davis on March 12, Davis said the team's

relationship with TDC "is not an antagonistic situation." Two

days later Davis called SI and said the club had agreed to pay

TDC the $1.5 million by June 30.

The original Tampa Bay ownership group, led by Esposito; Mel

Lowell, a former vice president of finance and business affairs

with the New York Knicks and Rangers; and Tampa businessman

Henry Paul, was plagued by cash shortages even before it was

awarded the franchise in December 1990. Four months earlier one

of the group's major investors, the Pritzker family, which owns

Hyatt Corp., among other important holdings, pulled out. The

Pritzkers had promised to put up Tampa Bay's $50 million

franchise fee, which was to be paid to the NHL in three

installments over the course of a year.

Esposito and Paul scrambled for financial help and in November

1990 landed a modest $2 million commitment from one of LeFevre's

clients, Kojima, president of Nippon Meat Packers. Buoyed by

that success and urged on by LeFevre, Esposito went to Japan to

troll for more investors, including Kokusai Green. During that

trip Esposito cut deals with Kokusai Green, TDC and Nippon Meat.

Thanks to the Japanese companies, the Lightning was saved for

the time being. When a triumphant Esposito was asked how he

wooed the investors, he cracked, "The more we drank, the more it

made sense. I said hockey. They thought I said sake."

Former NHL president Ziegler says "normal checking" was done on

Kokusai Green when it expressed interest in purchasing a stake

in Tampa Bay. "Remember," Ziegler says, "we didn't have a Mr.

Spano by that moment," referring to John Spano, the 33-year-old

who duped the NHL and essentially took control of the New York

Islanders last year before pleading guilty to fraud.

Gil Stein, the NHL's general counsel under Ziegler, says the

reason Okubo and Kokusai Green got in the door was simple: They

promised to deliver the franchise fee the league was owed. "I

compare it to that old Groucho Marx show, You Bet Your Life,"

says Stein. "Just say the magic words and win an expansion

franchise. What were the magic words? 'We'll pay the $50 million

fee! Up front. In cash.'"

Oto says that Kokusai Green never wanted more than a limited

interest in the Lightning but that because of Tampa Bay's

financial woes--in June 1991, the team missed a $22.5 million

franchise installment payment--the company felt obliged to take

a majority stake in September 1991. A former Lightning

executive, however, says Kokusai Green and LeFevre plotted to

grab control of the franchise almost from the time Kokusai Green

became a limited partner. "We have copies of the letters that

LeFevre sent to John Ziegler offering to step over us and go

directly into [majority] ownership of the franchise," the

executive says. "He wrote those letters while he was

representing us." (LeFevre says he doesn't remember those

letters and that he worked only for Kokusai Green.)

LeFevre's efforts soon paid off. At a September 1991 meeting,

the NHL's Board of Governors approved Kokusai Green as the

franchise's new majority owner, replacing Esposito's group.

McMullen says that at this meeting he warned other NHL owners

not to trust LeFevre but that his words fell on deaf ears.

"There was no way that LeFevre should have been awarded a

franchise," says McMullen. "That is when I came to the

conclusion we had to get a new [league] president."

Lightning coworkers have called LeFevre the Count--as in

Dracula--behind his back. Others have called him worse. LeFevre

has been accused of double-crossing his bosses and sabotaging

business plans that didn't work to his advantage. These charges

come from rivals he has outmaneuvered and from people he has

worked for, notably Oto, Lowell and McMullen, who says LeFevre

was his personal lawyer when he purchased the Houston Astros in

1979. McMullen broke with LeFevre when he sided with limited

partners against McMullen in a disagreement over the Astros'

partnership. LeFevre says the claims of sabotage and

double-dealing are "absolutely not true," and he denies serving

as McMullen's personal lawyer.

In his lawsuit Ganis charges that LeFevre and Kokusai Green

caused his company, Tampa Coliseum Inc. (TCI), to lose a $60

million financing pledge for the Ice Palace project because they

failed to provide routine information to his lender, Fuji Bank.

Walter Herbert, who was Fuji's loan officer on the arena deal,

and Lowell agree with Ganis's characterization. Herbert, who

worked on the building of the America West Arena in Phoenix, the

United Center in Chicago and the Fleet Center in Boston, says,

"This character David LeFevre was just somebody we didn't want

to be involved with. And Kokusai Green was a strange company.

Very small, yet sort of controlling the deal. It was a negative.

Kokusai Green embellished the problem by not complying with our

requests for normal due diligence."

That was far from the last of the complaints about Kokusai

Green. In October 1995, at least three of Tampa Bay's six

limited partners wrote angry letters to Bettman just days after

Kokusai Green issued an "emergency" cash call to cover Lightning

operating expenses. The partners who sent letters--Kojima;

Andrew Williams of Equity Resource Group, based in Indian River

County, Fla.; and the John Chase family, from Boston--charged

Kokusai Green and LeFevre with "self-dealing" and with a

transparent attempt to drive the limited partners from the team.

The cash call and its terms--$885,000 per partnership unit, to

be paid within 30 days or the limited partner would forfeit any

previous investment--were within Kokusai Green's rights as

controlling partner. But when the limited partners got a look at

the Lightning's finances as a condition of the cash call, they

were surprised. In addition to showing that Okubo owned Kokusai

Green, the records revealed that LeFevre was owed a $2 million

fee for securing the arena financing in Ganis's stead and that

Kokusai Green had been investing in the Lightning in the form of

loans rather than equity, which allowed Kokusai Green to charge

Tampa Bay as much as 12% interest. (The Lightning now "owes"

Kokusai Green $59.9 million--$45.6 million in loans and $14.3

million in interest, but Oto says, "Not a penny of interest has

ever been paid by the team.")

Bettman confirms that the NHL investigated and eventually helped

broker the exit agreement that allowed the three aforementioned

limited partners to leave at what the Lightning's Davis

describes as "a slight loss." Davis concedes, "They [the limited

partners] may not have been given some information. There may

have been some errors of omission, some misrepresentations."

Whether Kokusai Green says it intended to or not, the result was

that Okubo's company ended up with what it was accused of

seeking: total control of the Lightning and of the arena project.

In some ways Kokusai Green remains as mysterious as Okubo. The

company says it's in the golf course management business, but

when SI contacted a variety of sources in Japan, including the

Japanese Pro Golf Association, golf course management firms,

trading companies, prominent businessmen and golf writers, none

had ever heard of Kokusai Green. SI also found that Kokusai

Green, which on company documents gives its address as being in

Tokyo's Ginza district, isn't listed among that city's 10,000

largest businesses, nor is it one of Japan's 500 biggest

recreational golf, leisure-sport or recreational companies.

Three of the four courses that Kokusai Green claims to own are

located in out-of-the-way spots in Japan's Hokkaido, Ibaraki and

Miyagi prefectures. Nevertheless, Oto says that primarily

through the sale of memberships at those courses--memberships

priced at $50,000 to $70,000, according to Oto--the company has

built up more than $100 million in cash reserves. Like Oto's

assessment that Okubo's personal wealth is $250 million, you'll

have to take his word for it. There's no way to document either

figure. Kokusai Green, like the 20 or so other companies Okubo

purportedly owns, is privately held, and its financial

statements aren't public.

This is a story in which hardly anyone escapes unscathed.

Esposito says he ruined a marriage and risked his shirt to land

an NHL club for Tampa. "There were so many times I was scared

s---less," he says. Oto and Phillips say they've tried to do the

honorable thing, only to find their motives questioned. Ganis

says he has lost millions. When Lou Lamoriello, the general

manager of the Devils, was walking to the Ice Palace on Feb. 26

for a game against the Lightning, LeFevre pulled up alongside

him in a car and offered him a ride. Seven months after

resigning from the Lightning when Oto accused him of lying about

his involvement in the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' stadium deal while

he was still on the Lighting payroll, LeFevre is trying to pull

off his biggest power play yet. "I'm working on buying the

Lightning and the arena," he told Lamoriello. Says McMullen,

"He's got nine lives."

If a solution to the Lightning's financial struggles remains

elusive, so does Okubo. One day while Tampa Bay forwards Mikael

Andersson and Mikael Renberg were in Nagano as part of the

Swedish Olympic team, they found two boxes--one for each of

them--outside the door to their apartment in Olympic Village. In

each package was a Japanese table decoration and a note from

Okubo welcoming them to Japan. "It was a real nice thing for him

to do," said Andersson later. "I mean, I guess it was from him.

The note had Okubo's name on it, but...." Yes? "It was

unsigned."

COLOR PHOTO MAIN MEN While the Lightning's on- and off-ice losses mount, the only executives in the organization--or, for that matter, in the NHL--who have met owner Okubo (above) are (from left) Phillips and Oto. [Takashi Okubo]

TWO COLOR PHOTOS: JONATHAN HAYT(2) [See caption above--Chris Phillips; Saburo (Steve) Oto]

COLOR PHOTO: JIM MCISAAC/B. BENNETT STUDIOS [New Jersey Devils player scoring goal in game against Tampa Bay Lightning]

COLOR PHOTO: JOHN BIEVER "The more we drank the more it made sense," said Esposito. "I said hockey. They thought I said sake." [Phil Esposito]

COLOR PHOTO: RICK STEWART/ALLSPORT The smudged-fax claim used to challenge Philly's offer to Gratton (77) was like saying, "The dog ate my homework." [Chris Gratton in game]

COLOR PHOTO: RALF-FINN HESTOFT Ganis (right) alleges that LeFevre helped kill $60 million in financing that Ganis had lined up for a new Tampa arena. [Marc Ganis]

COLOR PHOTO: JONATHAN HAYT [See caption above--David LeFevre]