This was a short week but it felt long to me, though at least nobody interrogated my cat about whether I would be resigning, so there’s that. Anyway, we have a big stack of Other News ahead of us, so let’s dive in:
- The Arizona Coyotes will start the 2022-23 season mostly on the road thanks to Arizona State University’s new arena not quite being ready for them, with only five home games through early December. Still, Coyotes president Xavier Gutierrez says the team can make just as much money at the new arena as their old one that held more than three times as many fans (and drawing more than twice as many as the new one holds, according to official attendance counts, anyway), all without “gouging people” for tickets, by … he didn’t exactly say. Something with quantum teleportation, I’m guessing.
- Manchester, New Hampshire seems set to give the New Hampshire Fisher Cats $2.8 million to pay half the cost of upgrades to their 17-year-old stadium, mostly because of MLB’s new demands that minor-league ballparks get upgraded or else they’ll take your team away. MLB’s whole downsizing of the minors to put pressure on both players and cities has gotten the attention of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is starting to explore whether baseball’s antitrust exemption is allowing MLB to do crimes; that’s a far cry from actually doing anything to repeal the exemption, but at least it’s a start.
- That $79.4 million that the Chattanooga Lookouts owners want for a new stadium is drawing lots of questions, from both elected officials and economists (hi, J.C.!), and will require federal EPA funding to clean up pollution at the site, and now a Republican running for mayor of the county that Chattanooga is in says the Chattanooga plan is “haphazard” compared to Knoxville’s Tennessee Smokies stadium, mostly because the Smokies owner is planning to build a private development next to the stadium, sounds like? This surely has nothing at all to do with the Smokies’ owner being a Republican who once ran for governor; anyway, here’s a reminder on all the ways the Smokies deal sucks for the public if you needed a refresher.
- Turns out that rumored San Antonio baseball stadium would be just for the Missions after all, not an MLB team. “There’s a little bit more of a push to get [a new stadium] or we’ll probably lose the franchise,” Bexar county judge Nelson Wolff said by way of explanation, can you maybe hurry things up a bit, Senate Judiciary Committee?
- Some trash caught fire at RFK Stadium, so D.C. is going to push up the schedule for tearing it down to 2023 no matter what the cost, that makes total sense, yup.
- “Hurricanes Fans Are Gonna Love What PNC Arena Has in Store for Them” reports The Hockey Writers (yeah, I dunno either) on how Carolina Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon plans to spend his $81 million in city and county money; examples include a new roof and some office buildings, and what fan doesn’t love those things, right?
- The Maryland Stadium Authority voted to look into building a 10,000-seat soccer stadium in Baltimore, because that’s the kind of thing the Maryland Stadium Authority loves to do when it’s not just cutting checks to local sports teams for no reason. The prime tenant would be a Ghanaian football academy that says it can bring in a USL team; the authority says it doesn’t know how much a stadium would cost or where it would go or how much land it would need or who would pay for it, but it’s doing a study of those things now.
- The Ignite, an NBA G League (that’s the minors) team that apparently only plays exhibition games outside of the G League season (okay, that’s not actually the minors?) and which is based in Walnut Creek, California, may move to the Las Vegas suburb of Henderson, Nevada, says some reporter on Twitter. Walnut Creek fans who bought baby onesies featuring the Ignite’s horrifying purple anthropomorphic lightning-bolt logo will no doubt be all choked up about this.
I abhor vacuums. Since I really like the Friday roundups but this one has NO comments. I want to say…
Great job Neil.
Keep up the great work
Thanks, will do my best to!
After posting this item, I went to the post office and mailed a whole lot more Vaportecture prints and magnets, so those of you abhorring vacuums on your walls and fridges should have something to fill them shortly.
Too much abhorring in the world!
If need be, I’ll buy a second fridge just to accommodate the magnets.
Thx.
The Arizona Coyotes situation is a complete embarrassment, not that the Coyotes and NHL care. Would like to see the magic trick of Arizona not losing even more money playing in a small arena without “gouging the fans”.
Glad to see the Arizona Coyotes’ clown car continue.
Not sure of the end game, but I’m still hoping for a collapse of AZ hockey and the team to sold to a Houston owner to resurrect the Aeros.
That would probably be the best outcome all round… (I have nothing against another team in Canada, but I struggle to see the NHL or Montreal welcoming a return of the Nordiques. IMO, it could only happen if the alternative was folding the franchise and I don’t see that on the horizon).
…still…. Oakland has an arena just sitting there and I would love to see someone with money and energy #bringbacktheSeals…
Houston may be a top-10 TV market in the US, yet the region’s ethnic and economic make-up signals a no-go for the NHL. It would be a reprise of the league’s two spectacular failures in Atlanta.
Quebec City makes more sense for the league as far as geography, economics, and cultural relevance.
Taking a western team and moving it to an eastern city does not make geographic sense for the NHL. Houston (or another western/midwestern city) could simply take Glendale/Tempe’s place in the same division.
As for economics, well, Houston is a much wealthier and larger city than QC (which is small, and a government town). Demographics may be against Houston, but they have 8-10 times the population to generate fans/support from.
I agree with you on the cultural front though… but that doesn’t seem to matter to the NHL.
You would have the NHL pandering to Murica at the expense of a more sustainable audience.
The NHL is very sensitive to charges that it favors the US over Canada. When the league chases TV markets in the States, its overall image suffers. When the league goes for sustainable audiences, it thrives.
If there were an owner and/or arena in Houston that wanted an NHL team, Houston would have an NHL team already.
Houston is bigger than all of cities that have gained NHL teams since Dallas got the Stars, and yet it has been bypassed by all of those relocations and expansions.
No doubt, an NHL team will never *matter* in Houston as much as it would in Quebec or Hamilton or Providence, but TV advertisers don’t care about that.
Money ruins everything.