In a move that came out of nowhere, the city of Glendale announced yesterday that it was putting an end to lease extension talks with the Arizona Coyotes, and would instead be evicting the hockey team at the end of the 2021-22 season. The explanation: With the city having to pay the Coyotes around $5.6 million a year to run the arena under its current lease, and team owner Alex Meruelo behind on his rent, city officials figured they’d be better off booting the NHL and just staging concerts:
“With an increased focus on larger, more impactful events and uses of the city-owned arena, the city of Glendale has chosen to not renew the operating agreement for the Arizona Coyotes beyond the coming 2021-22 season,” a statement from the city reads.
And this wasn’t just bluster. According to The Athletic, a economic impact study calculated that concerts and other events bring in more than double the sales tax revenue of Coyotes games:
Recently, the city requested a study to identify the impact of monthly sales tax collections for retail, restaurants, bars and hotels within the Westgate Entertainment District from attendees at Coyotes home games versus other live events. According to that economic-impact study, which was reviewed by The Athletic, “it would take approximately 20 additional concerts or large other events (with attendance of 10,000+) to equal the same amount of sales tax revenues to the city as 43 Coyotes games” in spending at the Westgate Entertainment District (outside the arena).
“What we think is not being tethered to the Coyotes really allows us to take the asset of the arena and do something really special with it,” Phelps said.
This isn’t a totally new idea: The operators of Kansas City’s arena, for one, have previously said they’re not eager to land a sports team as a tenant, because sports teams demand sweetheart lease deals while concerts actually pay decent rent. But actually telling the team that’s played in your arena for 18 years to go pound sand is a bold move, one that’s usually reserved for teams that go so long without paying rent that they end up with a tractor parked on home plate.
In a statement, Coyotes president Xavier Gutierrez declared the team “disappointed” with the turn of events and “hopeful that they will reconsider a move that would primarily damage the small businesses and hard-working citizens of Glendale,” which makes it sound like he didn’t actually read the economic impact study.
Presumably the team will start looking for a temporary home for the 2022-23 season — the Phoenix Suns‘ arena, where the Coyotes formerly played despite one of those arena layouts that required the hockey rink to be off-center with one whole end of the stands not able to see the ice, is one option, as is the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum, which is at least laid out for hockey and hasn’t been used for much in decades. In the long term, though, this makes it all the more likely that Meruelo will step up plans for a new arena in Tempe, even though no one is exactly sure yet who would pay for that or how.
Or, you know, maybe not. In most circumstances, a team owner would be crazy to consider leaving the nation’s 11th largest media market, but the Phoenix area has always been famously disinterested in attending hockey games, making a move to a new city not an entirely crazy idea. Unfortunately for Meruelo, his options are fairly limited there: A Yahoo Sports article on potential new homes for the team lists Quebec City, Houston, and Hamilton, Ontario as the top three choices, but both Quebec’s and Houston’s arenas are controlled by local owners who would want to own the team as well, and Hamilton has traditionally been considered by the NHL to be too close to the Toronto Maple Leafs‘ doorstep, so if Meruelo wants to stay in charge of his team, it may be Tempe or bust.
All this is still breaking news, obviously, so expect to see more fallout on Monday. For now, though, Glendale is one of the few cities to take a long, hard look at what it takes to host a sports team in this era of massive subsidies and gone, “You know what? We’re better off without.” If it means the Coyotes leave town as a result, that would suck for local fans, but given attendance figures you could make a good case that they’d have a better time going to the added concerts the city could book during hockey season instead.
Makes sense for Glendale. They still have the Cardinals stadium, and these ballpark villages have become viable on non-game days.
I would think Merulo’s best move would be to flip the team to Quebecor guy or Tillman Fertitta or the Bucks’ owners or someone else who already controls an arena.
It’s probably a longshot, but moving them to the GTA probably makes the most sense. I doubt Merulo would agree to the type of relocation fee it would take. The upside would be that in ten years or so he’d almost certainly be able to sell the team to a wealthy Torontoan for a bounty.
The Toronto Maple Leafs are never, ever, ever going to allow another team in the GTA.
If the Globe & Mail and the rest of the lefty Canadian press start haranguing about a second GTA team, the Leafs will capitulate.
False. Take your political hackery elsewhere. The Leafs will never allow a second team in the GTA unless they somehow manage to own it.
You do know that the team is owned by the two biggest media companies in Canada, right?
Actually Ben, the Leafs ownership (both MLSe and previous ownership groups) have been asked to name a figure for allowing a second NHL team in Toronto many, many times.
They have never named a number. Even a ridiculously high one. Their reason for refusing to name a price is quite simple: Someone would likely pay it.
And the press in Toronto has been haranguing both the league and Leafs ownership about this very thing for decades.
Apart from that, your post was a good conversation starter though.
I’m not really sure what your personal politics or the media have to do with this. The Leafs will do everything in their power to stop it. It doesn’t matter what the media says or what the popular opinion is. They won’t capitulate. That all said, under Canadian competition law another team could move into the Greater Toronto Area. It doesn’t really matter what the NHL’s own rules are. The Leafs and the NHL would have to challenge it in court.
The good people of Toronto already have one NHL team that will never win the Stanley Cup (again). I’m sure you would not want them to suffer by giving them another.
This is the lone intelligent reply. Thank you, Andrew Ross.
Yes! Finally logic wins!
Actually, the city hasn’t been paying the Coyotes 5.6M to run the arena. They have been paying their contracted arena management company, which I think it Global Spectrum, $5.6M/yr, and there is a shared agreement between them and the city about incoming arena revenues.
The team has simply been paying 500K in rent, with all game night revenues going to the team, and a share of the Naming right as well
It’s good to see a city looking at their relationship the same way the team owners and the league do: as a cold, hard business decision that has nothing to do with “loyalty” or the fans. If the Coyotes could find another city to shovel money at them, they would be gone in a moment. Why should the city’s decisions be made any differently?
I can’t see the Suns letting the Coyotes into their arena, especially not after their extensive renovation. Tempe and ASU already punted on building them an arena a few years ago, and would seemingly be even less interested now with the Coyotes having virtually no leverage.
I’ve always thought Phoenix would be a good market for hockey, but the bottom line is this organization has been so poorly run from a business standpoint and burned so many bridges in the community, if (when) they can’t find a suitable long-term solution in the valley, it’s time for them to explore a move. Quebec and Hamilton aren’t happening – NHL doesn’t want the headache of fluctuating foreign currency, and MLSE isn’t letting another team in the GTA. My bets would be Houston, Milwaukee or Portland. All three have excellent facilities and could be strong markets for the NHL. Only issue would be existing ownership in both venues would probably want a significant stake in the Coyotes.
Does Arizona State have a hockey arena? Could the NFL stadium be repurposed for hockey, like Tampa’s baseball stadium was for the Lightning? And presumably there’s time for the team to try and get a deal from another city, although they’ve lost a ton of leverage.
The NFL Stadium is also in Glendale.
ASU is getting a 5000-seat arena, which should open in 2022 according to this article: https://www.uscho.com/2021/03/30/new-arizona-state-arena-making-progress-on-schedule-to-open-in-2022/
“…, but given attendance figures you could make a good case that they’d have a better time going to the added concerts the city could book during hockey season instead.”
I don’t know why, but economists always make this mistake. Substitution effects are not 100%. If I’m not going to a game, I’m not going to a concert or museum instead. I’m staying home and the money remains in my pocket. If I choose to go to the those other events, it is in addition to any sports events, not a substitution/replacement.
That may be the case for you, but there are plenty of people who are the opposite and would go to more concerts and non-sporting events at the arena if they were held. That’s why this isn’t actually a substitution effect, because we’re not talking about the same population. It’s a matter of opportunity cost and a city concluding that hosting hockey games is preventing them from accessing a larger market of consumers who spend more money in the area.
I think Neil is making a joke here more than anything though, because the Coyotes are usually terrible and attending a half-empty venue where the home team usually gets destroyed sounds far less enjoyable than rocking out at a concert.
But making the arena available for more concerts is a scheduling issue rather than a substitution one. Those who want to attend concerts do so (budget permitting) while those there to see hockey won’t default into attending random concerts.
Joke successfully identified!
I don’t think the economists (not that they all think the same…) have ever argued that substitution works at 100%.
A proportion of the population has discretionary spending income (or excess/surplus income as they sometimes consider it). For sports fans, some of that will be spent locally regardless whether there are 1, 2, 3 or more professional sports franchises to spend it on. Some will leak to other communities if they have pro sports but the local community doesn’t, but it’s not a huge amount.
Most moderate to middle income people spend the majority of their money locally. That is why giving welfare to billionaires is amongst the worst ways to stimulate a local or regional economy (the Swiss or Italian economies, maybe so), while handing money to poor people generally results in the greatest local economic improvements.
I can’t see a municipality in the Phoenix area ponying up for a third arena. Even for the size and growth of Maricopa County, that’s still way too oversaturated of an arena market for the concerts and other large events needed to stay profitable year-round. Only question now is if Bettman will continue to play Captain Ahab with Phoenix or just finally let it go. Sucks because Phoenix could have been a good market for the NHL, but ironically Bettman’s insistence on propping up shitty owners and shittier deals meant that the club never got any traction. Due to the sheer number of arenas in the US and Canada, there are no shortage of other markets for the NHL to try its hand.
Salt River. There’s your landing destination in Maricopa Co.
The tribe wants to make money and would want ownership if they build a billion dollar arena. I’m sure Bettman doesn’t want a tribe owning or controlling the Coyotes, or sharing TV revenue with them. Coyotes fans will still find something to complain about, and attendance, corporate sponsorship and ticket prices will still be insufficient. With all 4 major sports in Phoenix, the Coyotes will always be the runt of the litter.
Milwaukee is too small a market for a 3rd team, especially when you consider that the NFL team 100 miles away is more popular than the local teams, thus making it practically a 4 sport market if the NHL were to arrive.
I’ve said it over and over. Portland is one of the largest one major sport towns in America, has an NHL ready arena, is near Canada and supports minor league hockey really well. They really need to be in on this.
No way will the NHL move a team to Portland after the Kraken owners paid for an expansion fee and are still building a fan see. Maybe after the Kraken are established, but not now.
There are a crapton of cities the NHL could go to. Besides the ones mentioned, Charlotte, Cleveland, a second crack at Atlanta (now that the Predators and Lightning have shown the blueprint for building a successful club in the South), the Bay Area (which absolutely could support a second team, especially if it’s in the Bay proper and not the Cupertino Valley), Salt Lake City (don’t laugh, they’ve had a hockey team since the late 60s and have a huge ice skating culture out here) and a bunch of other places with large newer arenas. It really just depends on what the NHL would want to do next.
It would be a third crack at Atlanta. But sure, the NHL has done dumber things than make the same mistake three times.
I actually think Atlanta could work given the right ownership and vision. Nashville and Tampa figured out how to appeal to a bunch of Sun Belt transplants. Vegas has worked out. The Ducks have a loyal following. And outside of hockey, Atlanta United has been successful even with a ton of naysayers claiming it would fail. The idea that Georgia sports fans are all indifferent is just a lazy take these days.
Atlanta United attracts transplants that didn’t grow up with a favourite MLS team and transplants that don’t (and won’t) care about hockey to begin with. Most of the former already have a favourite NHL team and aren’t about to pick a new one. I don’t know how many times that has to be repeated for people to realize comparing United to the prospects of a NHL team in Atlanta is *not* apples to apples.
The only way the NHL would go back to Atlanta a third time (and I’d place the odds at less than 1%, which admittedly isn’t zero)? If someone is dying to build an arena in one of the northern suburban areas. If the team isn’t bonded to an arena lease, it’d just end up moving, just like the Flames & Thrashers. The Hawks have always been priority 1 at SFA/Phillips/Omni/whatever the arena is called any given day.
The problem with Atlanta is that the renovated their arena to be basketball specific. In order to bring the NHL back, they will have to go through another extensive renovation and as John Bladen mentioned, it would be a 3rd crack. They aren’t going to make the same mistake again, especially in the sun belt. Vegas worked and Houston could work. Other than that, they aren’t making any more sun belt mistakes so that eliminates Charlotte as well.
I’m all for Quebec City but they would have to re-align again. Part of the reason that they wanted Vegas and Seattle so much was so that they could have an even 16 teams in each conference. Going to QC would mean that Columbus or Detroit would have to go back to the WC, something they were strongly against.
I won’t laugh at SLC. That would be a great spot. Just not sure if their arena is NHL compliant. If it is, I’d love to see them in the game. Winter culture and strong minor league hockey support makes it a good spot. What I laugh at is that the NHL is in Vegas and the NBA in SLC. You would think that it would be the other way around.
SLC is truly one of the strangest NBA markets. They’d bled money for years until they were bought and effectively propped up by Larry Miller as a vanity project. Then they got really good in the 90s which kept them afloat, fell into financial trouble again in the early 2010s, were turned into a trust by the Miller family to ensure the team would stay in family hands, then promptly sold the team to a nouveau-riche tech billionaire only a couple years later. The “Silicon Slopes” companies will ensure the market has enough corporate backing now, and it helps that Utah has been one of the fastest-growing states for a couple decades now. But in almost any other circumstances, the team would have bailed for another market long ago.
If you’re wondering why Vegas doesn’t have a team, you can thank the 2007 All-Star Game for that.
https://www.reviewjournal.com/sports/basketball/nba-in-vegas-2007-all-star-game-a-disastrous-weekend-2021799/
Forget Charlotte, his Airness has a slight preference for orange 30.5 inch hockey pucks and the goal placed 10 feet in the air. With an expanding Hispanic population, North Carolina is a better baseball market.
Salt Lake City has a young and rapidly expanding demographic, and a rapidly expanding corporate base. A new arena could be worked into the state prison site redevelopment, but we’re looking at least 5 years out.
Quebec has a rabid fan base, but Quebecs gain is the Canadiens loss, and that is what Bettman has been trying to prevent for25 years.
I think the Carolina Hurricanes might have something to say about a team moving to Charlotte as well.
Cleveland doesn’t have the economic base to support a 4th major league team. The Indians/Guardians barely draw (yes there is a lot of dislike for ownership) but over the last 20 years Cleveland has lost a lot of major employers just off the top of my head: British Petroleum, OfficeMax, TRW, LTV/International Steel Group all left town after merging with out of town companies. National City Bank was headquartered in Cleveland but was acquired by PNC so while it still has a lot of employees in Cleveland it’s HQ is in Pittsburgh.
Good points. My thoughts on Cleveland were that it’d have natural rivalries with Detroit, Pittsburgh, Columbus, and Chicago.
Forget Atlanta, hockey fans don’t go downtown at night and it is questionable if a hockey team could generate the revenue that concerts could.
Milwaukee might work, drawing a lot of fans (not necessarily Coyotes fans) from the northern suburbs of Chicago. There would be an instant rivalry with the Blackhawks, like the Bears and Packers.
And we can just forget, and I mean *forget*, about Indianapolis. Same with Milwaukee in already having two sports teams, and is practically drowning in major sports towns in virtually every direction.
Louisville remains the biggest city, in my opinion, in the United States to not have a team in any major sport, but it has to be the NBA. There’s no other option. And the only reason they didn’t get a team for so long was because the University of Louisville with their corrupt AD and the only vampire to ever coach a basketball team to the Final Four said so.
That sort of leaves our options kinda limited when you stop and think about it; can’t be too congested, but has to be big enough to actually support the franchise, and isn’t in an area where adding a team won’t result in a massive hissy fit.
To be fair, at least this time around they would be playing in a downtown arena instead of outer suburbia like the Barons did.
In a league with a storied history of poorly located arenas, the Cleveland Barons had to play in the worst located arena of all-time.
Another option would be Hampton Roads (Norfolk/Virginia Beach) but one of the perpetually proposed arenas would need to be built since the current options only seat 10k.
Nothing is ever getting built in Virginia. All of the large venues in that commonwealth are pushing or beyond 50, yet nobody can come to a reasonable agreement on decent replacements, either cuz they won’t share (Norfolk/Virginia Beach) or they nuked reasonable pricing out of the orbit (downtown Richmond).
Great analysis and is exactly why Portland works so well. The theme of this thread is filled with markets too overly saturated to the point where it’s spread too thin to welcome an NHL team. OTOH, Portland is the 2nd largest metro area with only 1 major sports team so they work from that standpoint as well. Throw in the NHL ready arena, demographics, proximity to Canada and support for minor league hockey and you have a match.
I don’t think that Kraken are a problem. They have a waiting list that stretches around the state. I actually think this work’s in the NHL and Portland’s favor. If you’re based in southern Washington, instead of waiting around forever to get Kraken tickets, you can get in on a Portland team at least until you’re up for Kraken tickets.
I hope the Columbus Bluejacket are paying attention. I believe they are operating on a similar subsidy deal.
Finally!
It’s just such a shame for Glendale taxpayers that it took their elected officials 18 years to figure out what anyone looking at this business with a critical eye has known since 2009: There is nothing to save.
There have never been enough people willing to pay NHL prices to see NHL hockey in the area. Yes, the arena is out in Glendale and not easy to get to. But every owner (Burke, Ellman, Moyes) in the first 15 years lost their shirts on this franchise regardless of what arena it played in. Burke, famously, said he’d have lost less money if he had stayed in Winnipeg for another five years (where he and his former partner were losing $20m a year by 1996).
It will be really interesting to see whether present or future ownership does try to get a new arena in the area (and quickly – none of the other short term options are very appealling) or whether they immediately apply to relocate somewhere else.
The franchise has been sold (at least officially) several times since Moyes was ousted/ousted himself. Maybe Meruelo would be fine with taking a 100-150% return on investment and walking away?
“There have never been enough people willing to pay NHL prices to see NHL hockey in the area.”
Quite so. People have made more arduous treks to get to lesser arenas in other cities, but it was to watch a good team. The arena is one of the nicest sports venues I’ve seen, and moving it a few miles wouldn’t do anything to change the culture of mediocrity and the lack of continuity that have troubled this franchise. Pretending that the arena’s location is the problem is a convenience that allows one to ignore the real issues.
One thing that hasn’t been mentioned is there is no longer a need to slog through Downtown Phoenix to reach the Gila River Arena from the East Valley. In December 2019 ADOT opened the $2 billion South Mountain Freeway from Chandler to within 5 miles of Glendale. The 101 from North Scottsdale just added a 4th lane and a carpool lane, with speeds averaging 70 mph even during the rush hour. Traffic flow leaving the Westgate area is far faster than leaving say the United Center and all freeways leaving are wide open after the game.
I found this article interesting as well. Seems like ownership has been doing a lousy job. If Meruelo doesn’t want to walk away then maybe the NHL forces him to if he doesn’t get his act together.
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2932081-coyotes-alleged-to-have-toxic-work-environment-its-a-s-tshow
Fascinating.
Speculation on where the Coyotes will go next. Why. Reasons for failure in the Phoenix marketplace.
The name of the book, website, Twitter, Facebook is “Field of Schemes.”
A municipality has finally said, “the game is over.” Done. Finito. The fat lady has sung. Turn out the lights, the party’s over. Get lost. Get out. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out. Adieu. Adios. Auf Wiedersehen. Bonjour. Ciao. Arrivederci. Sayounara. Shalom. Mahalla. See you later, alligator. Don’t call us, we’ll call you. Hit the road, Jack! Ramble on! Yes you heard me clearly now, “I said, it’s over!” Bye bye bye! The Power of Goodbye! Goodbye to you!
D Boz. Appreciate the analysis. “It’s nothing personal, it’s just business.”
Fans will move on. Not the first time a franchise has folded or moved on. Certainly not the last.
Rejoice!!! One of the few times a municipality hasn’t gotten on their hands and knees, clutching and begging the billionaire franchise owner to stay, saying “I’ll do anything, if you just stay.” A franchise of the National Hold’em-Up League not only got the boot, but got the boot good.
Time for the Ki-yotes to go their own way!
I agree it’s good that the city finally terminated the lease. The problem is the $100m+ they’ve already paid on the construction bonds and the hundreds they have to go, as well as the subsidies they have paid various carpetbagger owners to play in the arena that they tend not to pay rent for anyway that is the tough thing to stomach.
I am pleased they finally have terminated the agreement. I am worried they will agree to negotiate an extension under heavy pressure from both (of) the local hockey fans.
Even if they stick to their newly found guns, however, they are still hundreds of millions in the hole on the arena gamble. It’s a sunk cost, but still…. hard not to think about what else that could have paid for in Glendale.
John, there will be loud calls from fans (yes, both of them), local press, and idiot pols who ignore the concept of sunk cost as well as the alternate revenue opportunities. I hope that the people and officials of Glendale will stand by this decision. They are the ones who have learned by hard experience just what is the true economic value of a sports franchise and arena. When it’s your own money, it concentrates the mind wonderfully. And it’s hard to hide the damage of subsidized professional sports in a small city.
J Bladen. No disagreement from me.
Cities who love their franchises too much, every once in awhile (as in this case) come to their senses. Unfortunately, it’s their taxpayers who end up paying the price. Not to mention the opportunity costs to Glendale. Infrastructure. Bridges (to this day, still shocked Golf Links Road ran through Pantano Wash in Tucson in the early 70’s. Not over. No bridge! During monsoon season, every year like clockwork, someone drove into the Wash only to be was washed away), roads, schools. Fire (over 90% of our city’s calls were for emergency services, not fires) and protection services.
Not even going to mention social programs (after school meals and programs, meals on wheels to seniors, etc). Glendale would’ve cut back or eliminated them years ago, all in the effort to maintain its professional sports franchises.
Unfortunately, our esteemed FoS editor will never be at a loss for work (commentary ends here. I don’t entirely fault billionaire franchise owners, business leaders, Chambers of Commerce, corporations, elected officials or MSM. I wouldn’t expect anything less. Humans with no moral compass, driven by greed, money and power. Whose sole focus is the accumulation of wealth. The average Joe or Jane of this nation also bears some responsibility for their choices, as education and ignorance are also choices. Safe enough, N).
Correction: Cities who love their professional sports franchises too much …..
I get it when the city loves its team but Arizona clearly doesn’t love this team. When a city like Cleveland or Pittsburgh pays for a football stadium I get it. Prople in those areas love football. Its a part of the culture of the city etc. However, hockey has never caught on in Arizona
Sorry guys, minor correction… the first pgph should have read $200+ million they’ve already paid. Ok I guess it’s not that minor now that I think about it…
Fortunately few of the Coyotes fans that squeal so loudly actually live in Glendale. During the Coyotes bailout/ownership soap opera around 2010 all of the Coyotes supporters were from outside Glendale, while the usual Glendale resident activists were strongly opposed to bailing out the Coyotes. Unfortunately Mayor Scruggs and Councilmembers Knaack, Martinez and Clark were completely enamored with Steve Ellman and Gary Bettman. There were several city officials, especially City Attorney Craig Tindall and the City Manager were far less than honest in their dealings with the NHL. Today’s Glendale officials have finally woken up to the scam the NHL is running.
Who knows whether this will spell the end of the hockey team in Glendale or if there are yet more twists and turns to come. For the sake of Glendale taxpayers, I hope it is the end.
It’s impressive that the city staff have actually run the numbers and figured out how much better off they would be without an (alleged) anchor tenant. All too often pols and their manager employees like to twist logic and facts to justify past mistakes. Maybe this one was finally just too obvious.
Great news for the NHL… they can now market their business as having “about half the impact of a few concerts” on your local economy. At least in non-core markets.
My favourite Coyotes memory is from right after Moyes put them into chapter 11 so he could try to arrange a sale to Balsillie. Bettman went on national television to discuss this and claimed that Moyes assertion that he had lost $35m a year on average owning the club was ‘pure fiction’ and that while there had been losses, they were ‘nothing like’ what was being reported.
As you may recall, Bettman then tried to assert ownership of the franchise before Judge Baum under league forfeiture rules. Judge Baum promptly advised that if the NHL wanted to own the franchise it would need to supply the highest or best bid for the asset.
The NHL paid $170m or thereabouts to get it’s property back. Bettman then held an impromptu presser on the courthouse steps “thanking the court for upholding the league’s rights”. Said it with a straight face too!
It then operated the team for two years, losing $38M and $36M on operations after paring back costs (which they had claimed – with some justification – that Moyes had inflated through non-arm’s length transactions).
Yep. Nothing like $35m a year at all. Just goes to show what competent and professional management can do for a business.
One of the other things that came out as a result of the court case was a glimpse at the Coyotes’ total game day revenues. In 2008/09 it averaged about $450k per home game. Ouch!!!
For starters, good on the city of Glendale for evicting the Yotes. I know sports defenders will argue “they’re missing out on dates!” but when you look at attendance figures, the Coyotes often ranked at or right near the bottom of season attendance figures, thanks largely to a combination of poor play (no Stanley Cup Finals appearances, one WCF appearance, one division title in their entire existence), ownership turmoil (six majority owners in 18 years, including the NHL), and not paying back rent, they’re more of a liability than an asset. Bettman and the NHL want to keep them in NHL for television market purposes; however, what good is having a team in a market if they suck and prove to be too much of a burden for all parties?
The Gila River Arena would certainly become a white elephant without a major tenant, of course, but as we’ve seen with other cities like Kansas City, you don’t need a full-time sports team to operate an arena. Frankly, there’s the matter of there being too many arenas in the area, with the Tempe arena project likely being a bridge too far.
So, while it is tragic for people who do love the Coyotes especially now that they’re on borrowed time, it’s fait accompli.
As for landing spots for the Kachina Dolls, I’m a firm and adamant supporter of Houston, in spite of Tillman Fertitta being a few screws loose (and that’s being nice) with regards to business investments as well as his concept towards hockey in terms of growth potential in the South and the value of having the sport in the Bayou. Houston does have a rich hockey history that has been dormant since the Aeros were forced to move to Des Moines back in 2013, which means it’s not plopping the team in a market just cuz it’s big.
The drawback would be that having two tenants in the Toyota Center would inevitably open talks of yet another new arena that would likely be built with taxpayer money despite the young age of the arena as well as the concerns of another televangelist buying the Toyota Center once the NBA & NHL teams move out, but in the short term (I’d say 5-10 years), the Center is ready and able to host both major leagues. Regardless, the positives (location, venue, no need to change division alignments, ready-made rivalry with Dallas Stars, possible locations for minor league affiliate throughout the area in Beaumont, Laredo, or Brownsville, to name a few) seem to outweigh the negatives (stupid arena owner, Rockets would have first rights to scheduling, need to win immediately, prone to bad weather, still won’t appear on national TV).
A cool, never gonna happen, but a boy can dream scenario… the Coyotes move to an asbestos free, remodeled for hockey Astrodome.
1. The Sun’s just completed a $200 million renovation of their arena, I’m sure they don’t want it trashed for a reconfiguration to allow hockey. Read the Coyote fans comments about America West Arena from 20 years ago.
2. There has been mention of Chase Field, but the Diamondbacks have been complaining that Chase Field is too big for baseball.
3. The proposed Arena location in Tempe is in essentially the same location where the FAA said the proposed Cardinals Stadium 20 years ago was too close to Sky Harbors runways.
4. The cleanup and roadway improvements needed will climb into the hundreds of millions. The site is boxed in between existing development and the Salt River, and slightly over a mile from the Mill Avenue entertainment district. Light rail is a mile away, versus stopping at the front door of the Sun’s Arena.
The NHL doesn’t want to mess with realignment. That seems like dumb reason to keep a team in place where it loses millions.
Quebec can’t have a team just because Mike Illitch prefers the Red Wings play in the east.
That’s all this comes down to.
When the choice was between Seattle and Quebec, that made sense because there were so many other good reasons to be in Seattle.
But holding up everything because of alignment now is dumb.
The population of the continent is not evenly distributed. Somebody (Detroit) will always have to travel too far than they’d like.
If Houston, Austin, San Antonio or KC can’t work, it will have to be Quebec or Southern Ontario.
The idea of another team in the Leafs’ same rink is stupid, but one down the road might work.
Or just temporary suspension of the franchise for a few years. That’s not been mentioned, but it seems more likely than some of the scenarios mentioned.
I wish the NHL cared more about the people who already love hockey rather than begging for new fans, but businesses always want to expand rather than just be good at what they already do.
I agree on all counts. The NHL is treating QC like crap in the same manner that the NBA is treating Seattle but yeah, moving Columbus to the WC or even Detroit shouldn’t be an issue.
FWIW, Mike Ilitch passed away but that works in QC’s favor as well. Mike’s wife Marian and their son Chris don’t really care about the game of hockey but rather the revenue that the sport can line their pockets with. Knowing that, the alignment thing shouldn’t be an issue anymore. Let’s get QC in the game.
Muruelo should consider selling off half the team to owners in Quebec or Houston and get them in a city ready to buy tickets.
By no means am I saying Arizona fans were not buying tickets, fans will go to the games, but you need to pull in businesses that will buy those extra seats, boxes ect.. and that’s where ARZ failed. It’s the desert, normal you don’t have hockey as a favorite sport. That move was a Bettman reasonning which is bad news for hockey. He figured that since it was a top media market that it would work… Nope. Bettman failed..
Muruelo should move out the team and get into a hockey market. Quebec wants a team, Houston wants a team, Hamilton wants a team.. the only negative for Hamilton is that it’s a smaller market and doesn’t have an NHL ready arena. Houston, again a weird market for the NHL but they seemed to have a desire for a team. Quebec is a logical choice, but again smaller market than Houston, yet have a capacity and knowledge to get the team going right off the bat.
And ps.. by selling half the team, he would get ownership of the arena, plus get money back from losses over the past few years in ARZ.
He gets free local marketing by associating himself with a partner, ect.. It’s a win for him.
The Houston Rockets owner drove the AHL out of Houston by only offering the Aeros bad dates and high rent to use the Rockets’ arena.
Why does anyone think he’d be a better partner for the NHL? Just because it’s the NHL and not the AHL?
That was Les Alexander, the previous owner of both the Rockets & the Toyota Center.
Tillman Fertitta owns both now and is more open.
And would presumably want to own any NHL team, so that’s the bigger hurdle, not finding dates.