Hey, it’s actual good news, kind of, from Glendale! Arizona Coyotes owner Anthony LeBlanc says that he expects the parking fees, ticket surcharges, and other revenues his team shares with the city to rise this year from “between six and seven” million dollars to “between seven and eight” million. That’s almost as much as the $9 million a year he promised when signing his new lease deal in 2013! “I mean we’re trending this thing completely towards [our goal],” LeBlanc told Sportsnet.ca.
Of course, the other way of looking at this is that Coyotes payments to Glendale are still falling more than a million dollars a year short. Or that, when you add in the $15 million a year Glendale is paying the Coyotes to run the place, in exchange for less than $8 million a year in revenue shares, that’s a loss of more than $7 million a year — actually an $8.7 million loss this year, according to projections by the city last week, though that may not take into account LeBlanc’s latest rosy projections. Plus add in that the Coyotes owners aren’t paying any rent to help pay off the $12 million a year in annual debt payments on the arena’s initial construction costs and, yeah, this still isn’t working out so well. But it’s maybe working out $1 million less horribly than everyone thought it was last week! Glass half full! Glass half full!
The $12M/year has nothing to do with current Coyotes ownership. I guess you’re saying it as a warning for other cities that are thinking of building entertainment districts anchored by sports arenas?
Also, the team had their worst season in a long time. Literally every team in pro sports would see arena revenues fall below expectations if they had a season like the Coyotes’.
More crap. The arena is paid for from the same revenue sources that were set up when it was built. its not the Yotes responsibility for the arena debt payment. The ONLY year they arena debt wasnt met was the lock out year. You sir, are full of manure.
You continue to spew crap to suit your purpose. You dont lie, but you fail to tell the entire truth.
Sounds like there’s a counsel member or part-team owner in here.
People still believe Anthony Leblanc when he talks?
Without revenue sharing from teams in cities that actually care about hockey, this team would be losing money even worse than they already are. It was a good 20 years, but the desert experiment has failed. Let’s pack up and move this team somewhere more appropriate, like Quebec City or Seattle.
Hey, “full of manure” and “spew crap to suit your purpose”! It’s a violation of the “no personal attacks” rule two-fer! (I’m leaving it in because it’s an attack on me and I don’t particularly mind, but reminder: No personal attacks, people. They will normally be deleted.)
The reason the $12m/year in debt payment counts, Ben, is that typically when team owners pay rent (or share revenue), it’s to offset the cost of the arena that the public built for them. Here Glendale is on the hook for its entire arena cost, then is getting back $8 million in payments in exchange for giving the team $15 million to play in its otherwise free arena. I guess you could argue that the worst part of the deal is building the arena in the first place, but when you have a landlord who says, “Hey, I know I paid for building your house and barely charge you anything to live there — how about I raise your rent but then pay you more than your rent to go on living there?” it’s really hard to isolate which part is the most stupid.
Should have let them go to Seattle (or QC or almost anywhere else) when they had the chance. But the NHL, in its infinite wisdom (massive use of sarcasm there), decided to keep the team in the desert where nobody cares about them.
“its not the Yotes responsibility for the arena debt payment”
That, of course, is just one of the reasons why it was such an incredibly stupid idea to build the arena in the first place. Hey, let’s build a hockey arena for a hockey team that won’t have to pay for it!
Neil, it sounds like there was not a pro negotiator involved in this deal. Do you you know who cut the bad deal?
Why doesn’t that town/city/burg mandate the team change its name to the Glendale Coyotes? If they’re paying millions for “civic pride”, isn’t naming rights part of that? Unless they are too embarrassed to have their involvement publicized.
They made them change it from Phoenix Coyotes to Arizona Coyotes. Guess that was the best that they could do.
And as for the city’s negotiator, funny you should ask:
https://www.fieldofschemes.com/2013/08/26/5795/former-glendale-city-attorney-switches-sides-to-work-for-coyotes/
While it Is best economically for Glendale to keep the Coyotes (not by much) I am left to wonder why Leblanc who hassaidoften that they won’t talk finances, all of a sudden starts yapping about all the good stuff they are doing for Glendale to media (Sportsnet, various talk shows) right after Councillor Hugh starts yapping about the arena deal and an auditor resigns claiming that the City Chief bean counter changed her findings and ignored her calls for an independent review of her version to solve the issue. Sounds like emergency damage control and distraction techniques to me.