Two big votes yesterday affecting arena plans: First up, Tempe, where Arizona Coyotes owner Alex Meruelo needed to win three separate ballot measures to be able to proceed with his $2.1 billion arena development project (with around $500 million in tax breaks). It wasn’t close:
Tuesday’s unofficial tally shows similar trends among the three ballot items ― Propositions 301, 302 and 303 — all of which needed to receive a majority of “yes” votes in order for the Coyotes project to move forward. Each one was losing by a 56% to 44% margin, with the exception of Prop. 303, which was losing 57% to 43%.
This isn’t super surprising given the way the public debate around the arena project was going — not to mention the fact that the Coyotes’ fan base is, let’s just say, not as robust as one might want when trying to muster support for a half-billion-dollar subsidy. Still, losing while outspending the opposition by $1.2 million to $35,000 has got to sting, and is another data point in why team owners would much rather deal directly with elected officials, who can be more easily, uh, let’s go with “influenced” by dropping a bunch of cash on lobbyists.
As for what’s next for the Coyotes, who last season made what was supposed to be a temporary move into a 5,000-seat college arena, Meruelo and his henchmen didn’t immediately say, issuing a statement saying they were “very disappointed” and that “what is next for the franchise will be evaluated by our owners and the National Hockey League over the coming weeks.” (The NHL released a similar statement.) Twitter is ablaze with talk of the team moving to Houston or Quebec City or Atlanta or Saskatoon, and while some of those destinations might make some sense — the Phoenix area never really took to the team, at least not in terms of buying tickets — each has problems as well, so none is especially a slam dunk, or whatever the corresponding hockey term would be. Could Meruelo and NHL commissioner Gary Bettman emerge in a few weeks with yet another arena plan somewhere in Arizona? That’s presumably what they’re discussing right now, though you would think they would have had a Plan B ready to go, given how fickle voters can be about rubber-stamping billionaires’ subsidy demands.
In yesterday’s other big vote news, the Philadelphia mayor’s race Democratic primary — which may as well be the general election, because Republicans are never elected mayor in Philly — went to former city councilmember Cherelle Parker, who collected 33% of the vote in a tight race with multiple candidates. This could prove important to Philadelphia 76ers owner Josh Harris’s plans for an arena near the city’s Chinatown, because while late frontrunner Helen Gym had been a vocal opponent of the arena, Parker had this to say about it last month:
“As the poorest big city in the nation, Philadelphia doesn’t have the luxury of engaging in reflexive opposition to any project that has the potential to offer a game-changing economic impact, especially for Black and Brown workers and businesses. However, we still have not seen a full plan that shows the economic impact of the arena and we will continue to hear from the residents in the neighborhood who have a right to have a say in what land use takes place in their community.”
That is some classic pol-speak, as befits a lifetime politician. (before serving on the council, Parker spent ten years in the state house of representatives, and before that she had worked for a city councilmember since she was in high school.) Rough translation: It’s the mayor’s job to approve development projects, because they enable me to claim I’m creating jobs or at least hand out some contracts to construction unions, but of course I’ll make sure there’s at least some lip service to addressing “community needs” or whatever. The Sixers deal has a lot yet to be decided as well, but having Parker in City Hall instead of Gym should make it a lot easier for Harris, even if he really wanted the white supermarket owner who finished 5th to win. It’d be nice if Philadelphia voters could actually decide on the arena themselves, but East Coast cities don’t typically play that way, because reasons.
Other outlets are reporting basically the opposite re:spending on the Tempe vote. I’ve seen $2.5 million spent by the opposition reported. Why?
I saw that too. Total opposite.
I’m only seeing one story saying the Coyotes were outspent, and it cites only “NHL sources”:
https://www.dailyfaceoff.com/news/tempe-voters-decide-future-of-coyotes-franchise-in-arizona-on-tuesday
Anyone see any other hard figures?
The “No” side was certainly more visible. They had signs, radio ads, TV ads, door to door people, social media, etc. The only “Yes” stuff I saw was at a Coyotes game at Mullett Arena and maybe a handful of yard signs. I know that the local trade unions were working hard against it after Meruelo didn’t commit to using local union labor for the project, presumably because he wanted to use his own construction company. I’d find it hard to believe the team spent millions on this. They were basically invisible.
It would be interesting to know *why* people voted against it.
In all the reporting I’ve seen, the proposed tax breaks don’t seem to rank very high among the concerns. I would have thought that would have been the main issue.
Reed: Best guess, because the people of the Phoenix MSA are utterly fed up with this carpetbagging franchise and would not care if it is $1 more, they don’t want to pay it.
I didn’t read Parker’s comments as necessarily supporting the 76ers arena. It sounds like she still wants to do more politicking on it and is leaving herself an out either way.
“Game-changing economic impact” isn’t promising. But, sure, it’s possible Parker is just both-sidesing it for now to hedge her bets.
Yeah, she seemed to be carefully positioning herself slightly to the right of Helen Gym. She wants to be more pro development, but also pro labor. She’s also trying to thread the needle on being tough on crime but also tough on police brutality, but that’s a whole other thing.
BTW, can we pass a law banning the term “game-changing” and its variants? It is almost always used to describe something is not changing any game whatsoever.
The introduction of the three-point line. That was game-changing. Developers bulldozing a working class neighborhood is not game-changing.
The Coyotes have probably learned a valuable lesson: It’s not that hard to get the local pols on board, it’s the voters who are the problem. My guess is they will try to make sure the damned voters have no say in their next expedition in pursuit of Other People’s Money. Watch out, Scottsdale.
Scottsdale land is way too valuable to waste on the footprint of an arena. Unless there’s a deal to build on tribal land, most of Phoenix metro is out.
Would they dare consider Tucson? An MSA 1/4 the size of Phoenix.
The Suns would probably love to see the Coyotes leave, so there’s little chance for both teams going in together on a new arena.
Tucson would be an incredibly fun pro-sports city, but unfortunately the size/demographics don’t make much sense.
Wasn’t there talk of the Diamondbacks trying to get a new stadium on tribal land a few years?
There still is. The Diamondbacks fought to assume the responsibility of maintaining Chase Field and have proceeded to let it fall apart while claiming it’s an inferior facility in order to get taxpayers to build them another stadium. Word is they want land at the Loop 101/202 interchange just east of where the Coyotes arena was supposed to be. Whether that happens or not is anyone’s guess. I’m going to bet against it though. There’s no appetite among taxpayers for it.
The Suns arena was just recently re-done, even with accelerated sports timelines, I’d say that it’ll be at least 7-10 years before they start talking about the “necessity” of a new arena.
This is true although the ousted Robert Sarver was the driving voice behind the renovated arena. The NBA and NHL both agreed that a shared venue between the Coyotes and Suns was the way to go but again, Sarver got in the way. With Mat Ishbia taking over the Suns, that’s something that could be revisited assuming the Coyotes haven’t split by then
This has gone full circle, for 5 years the Coyotes were griping, moaning and blaming everything on the terrible sightlines at America West Arena. Do the nitwits currently running the Coyotes realize that America West Arena = Footprint Center? Phoenix owns the Footprint Center and I doubt if there’s a welcome Coyotes mat out front.
Coming soon … the second coming of Le Nordiques de Quebec.
Not. Going. To. Happen.
I say that because a) The odds of it happening are about 1000/1. b) Saying it’s not going to happen may jinx it so that it does happen and that would be great for hockey.
Get in line behind the third coming of the Houston Aeros.
WHA, IHL/AHL and now [drum roll please]…the NHL Houston Aeros.
I’m game for this. I haven’t really followed hockey as much since Les Alexander jammed the Aeros on rent and they hauled off to Iowa.
Any idea if the new Moody Center in Austin can handle hockey? It was built by the Oakview group, who did climate pledge in Seattle and UBS on Long Island. Houston’s market size makes it appealing, but being the lone big 4 team in Austin brings with it a certain cachet.
Austin DOES have a top-flight pro team, it happens to be in Major League Soccer.
Houston has zero appeal to the NHL because of demographics.
MLS is triple A baseball at best, and I say this as someone who’s been to several matches this season and follow it pretty closely.
Also that stadium near the domain stinks
The more appropriate MLS comparison would be to the EFL Championship, the second tier of British football.
Except for Championship teams probably beat 80% of the MLS.
Houston’s demographics are fine. They’ve had hockey there since the 1970s. The city is huge and rich with corporate HQs. But just like Phoenix, they don’t have an arena. (Rockets will not share) So they’d be in the same predicament. But at least they’d have water, sometimes too much water.
I don’t know where the Houston demographic junk comes from. If that demo is new to hockey, Bettman will definitely try to pull in some concerts.
That aside, Meruelo has shown to be a deadbeat, which tells me there is no way he stays put when the teams moves. In that case, it’s all on Tillman Fertitta getting the chiller going and clearing out the Zamboni storage at Toyota Center.
The Houston region is one-third Spanish-speaking and one-sixth Black. Add in the South Asian community and you have a metropolitan area that’s majority non-white. All of that makes Houston similar to Atlanta when it comes to cold-weather sport.
Face it, forcing the NHL into the Toyota Center would be like building a NASCAR race track in the Fifth Ward.
Milwaukee might make sense. It’s traditional hockey country, and they can stay in the same division with regional rivals like Chicago and Minnesota.
Except one of those regional rivals (Chicago) will try and block them. Also, Milwaukee seems too small to support an NBA, NHL, MLB and 1/4 of an NFL team.
Milwaukee was tipped for an NHL club in the 1990s, but the people involved didn’t think the economics would work. This was before the first NHL lockout.
Yeah, Lloyd Pettit felt $50 million expansion fee was too high for the time. He was probably right. Before the lockouts, the only US teams making a profit were Philadelphia and the Rangers. And not all NHL teams increased in value until the 2010s. At one point around 2000 Forbes listed the St. Louis Blues value $0, the only value was the arena lease.
Good. That team in the desert should have been moved 10 years ago. I see Brooklyn or another Northern city with a good tv market that doesn’t have a pro team to take it. Now 76ers moving to City Center is not bad. Like transportation infrastructure is there and don’t really need to do a lot on development if Harris is building his own towers. Just look how the Taylor Swift concert do to the poor little BSL.
I don’t do “3 Things” but I can tell you the New York Islanders couldn’t wait to flee the Barclays Center because of the poor rink layout.
As well, any nation that destroys a Chinatown to build a pro sports palace will feel the wrath of Beijing in more ways than one.
That’s just racist, dude.
That, and also dead wrong, given that D.C. did just this to its Chinatown and nobody exerted any “wrath.”
Exactly. They can get more development to modernize their Chinatown to look like Hong Kong and Shanghai than 1800s look they still have . The problem in DC was at that time development was iffy in a culture community but now you can work with the Asian community and have atheistics and vibes and modernization with them
I would assume people living in an American Chinatown and the Chinese government have zero common interests. Most Americans of Chinese descent are people who fled the Chinese Communist government. If China were to complain, it would be a hollow PR tactic to score points at home.
This is going in some weird directions, but: Having been to the Philly Chinatown, I don’t think the issue its residents have is that they love their “1800s look.” It’s that new development would likely be used as an excuse to push them out for deeper-pocketed residents.
Poor rink excuse. Didn’t they sellout there games and had good attendance. Good transit infrastructure with LIRR being terminal there. They just wanted the concert dates, concessions and parking $$$. That’s all
I went to an Islanders game at Barclays — with Ben Miller! — and the sightlines from the upper deck were indeed abysmal. Though I also went to a Neil Young concert at Barclays and the sightlines were abysmal, and people seem willing to put up with that.
“and the sightlines from the upper deck were indeed abysmal”
Oh, check out Count deMause & his demands for fancy views!
Isn’t any seat with a view of Neil Young pretty much by definition going to have abysmal sightlines?
Sorry, it was there, I had to use it…
I downloaded a seat map from the Atlantic Yards’ Islanders configuration. It’s atrocious.
Neil, if you want to post it let me know and I will forward it.
I hope everyone will recall that Islanders ownership was offered an opportunity to be partners in the arena, refused to do so, and Ratner and co redesigned what would have been a multipurpose venue to basketball/concerts only. It’s not like the Islanders didn’t have the chance to make that arena their home. Wang got a case of the cheapsies.
Forget Brooklyn. NY/NHL is the only region of the country with 3 teams in one of the major 4 pro sports. They aren’t bringing a 4th team and the Islanders in Barclays Center was such a disaster that they wouldn’t try it again even if you only had the Rangers in the city
In other news, soccer IS a major sport and the WNBA has become a major pro sport.
The Coyotes have had completely incompetent ownership from the get-go. The team was decent only every 5-6 years kind of just by accident and it’s tough to get fans to embrace a total loser. I always thought they’d end up in Vegas and it even seemed like the NHL was basically waiting for that to happen before finally going the expansion route to put the Knights there. Just an endless string of missed opportunities on and off the ice.
It’s Not That Difficult
Dreger: ‘As difficult as it is, the league has to consider relocation’ for Coyotes
The Coyotes are once again searching for a new arena plan following a referendum Tuesday that did not go the franchise’s way. TSN Hockey Insider Darren Dreger lists several options for the team to consider with their future in Arizona seemingly up in the air.
https://www.tsn.ca/nhl/video/dreger-as-difficult-as-it-is-the-league-has-to-consider-relocati~2689198
All you have to do is go through Neil’s old posts to see why KC is not a relocation option. AEG’s lease to operate the arena in KC is in place for another 20 years. And, as Neil pointed out, KC gave away the farm to get AEG to operate the barn (arena). No way an NHL owner wants to play in an arena the LA Kings operate and no way AEG is giving up that sweetheart lease.
Hasn’t prevented Kansas City’s most famous citizen Patrick Mahomes from pitching his adopted city as the Coyotes’ next home.
AEG is a partner of the league, not just as owner of the Kings but they manage a lot of arenas and own like 42.5% f the Vegas arena. I am sure if Betman wanted the team in KC I am sure AEG will play along.
Good work, Tempe taxpayers.
It will be interesting to see whether Meruelo immediately puts the team up for sale (and if so, as a portable asset?) or if he attempts to ride this out through the relocation and then sells.
The latter would probably be more profitable in the long run, but his actions thus far suggest he’s not that interested in losing money for several years before recouping it through sale.
Another question obviously would be whether the NHL agrees to let them play at the ASU facility for the full three seasons they approved when there was ‘another arena plan’ in the works. As I understand it the 3yrs was a maximum and was contingent on their being a viable permanent arena plan underway (whatever underway means in this context. An idea? A submitted plan? Another plebescite, proposition or referendum???).
If nothing else, it seems that the Phx experiment will end before it’s 30th birthday. And that is a mercy killing for paying hockey fans everywhere else (who were subsidizing Bettman’s folly).
It’s not all bad news for GeeBee however. He has four stanley cup semifinalists from cities that have either never or rarely (Dallas) seen snow! Hey, Gary, every cloud…
I would say overall Bettman’s sun Belt expansion has been a huge success- with the lone outlier being the coyotes. In these fast growing cities full of transplants- you have to be good, you can’t build anything new without winning.
That Sunbelt expansion came at a cost. Ask the Edmonton Oilers why they had to host a playoff game at 8 PM local/10 PM Eastern on a Sunday night. (Because the NHL pandered to ESPN instead of accommodating Sportsnet.)
The US has been the NHL’s priority for a long time, well before Bettman.
The priority is not the US. The priority is to be in the biggest cities. The NHL is already in all of the Canadian cities with at least a million people plus Winnipeg. The NHL would put teams in Tokyo, London, and Mexico City if it thought there was a remote chance that could work.
You can say it has been a success, Al, but that doesn’t make it so.
In a 32 team league, you can’t be good all the time. While the Coyotes have certainly failed on ice, their business failure is far more significant.
Tampa struggled badly at the gate early on. They aren’t now, but lets see how the numbers look when the team isn’t a perennial cup contender (as recently as 10yrs ago, friends of mine from Toronto were able to fly down, stay in a hotel, watch the Leafs road game, and fly home for less than four tickets at the ACC would have cost them).
Atlanta failed. Again. Carolina attendance has been very poor quite recently (again, long playoff runs help with that. But how many fans will be in the seats when the team is well out of playoff contention by Feb 1st?). Florida, Nashville and others have all had attendance issues relatively recently. Even the richest of owners will only feed the beast for so long.
But overall, the real measure of success in the US market would be the money pouring in from the national TV deal. Yet it isn’t, despite the fact that 25 of the league’s 32 teams now reside in the US.
Rogers is still losing 9 figures annually on it’s $5.2Bn/12yr deal (their plan was to generate new revenue from streaming and digital. It didn’t work). No-one expects the next tv deal to be as rich.
NBC’s much ballyhooed $2bn deal (over 10 years) ended with a whimper in 2021… and no-one at NBC was lamenting it’s passing despite it costing just $200m annually for as many games as they wanted to show including playoffs.
The league’s new deals with ESPN/Turner look like an improvement on paper, but with more than 2/3rds of it coming from the streaming partner (Disney), lets see how that pans out. It hasn’t worked for many other rights holders that have properties much more attractive than US NHL rights.
In a marketplace where rights fees for other sports have gone stratospheric (The Dodgers RSN rights went for more than the entire NHL was earning from US sources just a couple of years ago), the NHL’s tv income is pathetic.
1) the crux of your argument is that the espn deal hasn’t come to fruition- but the fact that they have weekly games on Turner and ESPN is a real achievement.
2) owners want to get into the league. The numbers being thrown around for Ottawa are pretty mind boggling.
3) Attendance in most cities is not going to be good when the team is bad. No one wants to watch a bad team. Picking and choosing markets and bemoan their poor attendance when they’re bad is a fool’s errand
Someone just paid $6bn for a moribund NFL franchise. Rich guys abound these days, unlike sport franchises.
To make that investment pay off, Harris would have to generate $600-800m in profit every year from his football team and associated enterprises. That’s more than the TOTAL revenue of all but one of the league’s teams, and represents a 500% increase in net operating profit for the Washington franchise.
There’s always a bigger fool around wanting to join the club no matter what the cost.
The 2022 net operating income of the four stanley cup finalists per Forbes:
Florida $4.7m; Carolina $18m; Dallas $43m; Las Vegas $64m
Even the so called revenue tigers in the NHL can barely top $100m in NOI on alleged valuations in the $1.5-2bn range.
That is not evidence of success. It is evidence of the sports bubble that exists within the Billionaire class.
Staying?
https://twitter.com/wyshynski/status/1658903164488151042
https://twitter.com/TheFourthPeriod/status/1658906800568115208
https://twitter.com/andystrickland/status/1658907548605456387
As far as I can tell, they’re just saying that the plan to stay at ASU *next year.*
It would be good to have more detailed historical precedents on the timelines of previous moves. The last one in the NHL was the Thrashers. That happened on May 31 2011. But that one had obviously been in the works for at least a few months.
I suppose they will continue to say they are staying at ASU until the moment the team is sold somewhere else. There’s just no upside to saying otherwise. Threatening to leave doesn’t gain them any leverage, while it does alienate whatever fans and sponsors they have left.
I haven’t heard of any other prospective owners having made an offer
Indeed, the NHL and the Coyotes have confirmed to Sportsnet that they’re playing next season at Arizona State.
They said they plan to. They also said last year that they planned to play in Glendale.
Craig Morgan, an Arizona writer who seems to know a lot about the Coyotes, believes the other owners want to get rid of the current ownership, whether they stay in Arizona or not. They’ve screwed up too many things.
In recent years, we’ve seen the NBA and NFL manage to force sales without actually voting on it.
And the players union is increasing pressure on the league to do something that will resolve this long-term.
In this NIL era, couldn’t the Coyotes just stay put and join that other professional league, the NCAA?
I might of been at the same neil young concert, in 2013. Disappointed then in how ordinary Barclays looked, horrible seating in the upper level.
The Islanders did not sell out at barclays, more like 11,000 during the week.
The problem was not just the ice, the seating was horrible for hockey.
I don’t think the three current teams would allow a forth but it makes for a great divisional race! At least brooklyn’s a bigger market than quebec.
Yep, that was the concert! (Patti Smith opened, in her stocking feet.) The wall of luxury boxes makes the upper deck perched on top of it feel like you’re watching from the lip of the Grand Canyon.
I’ll probably go to a Liberty game there soon, and it’ll be interesting to see if the place feels as soulless from downstairs.
Don’t understand why the Coyotes are still playing in Arizona? This is NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman 10 Days ago on @mccownpodcast talking about why the NHL is still in Phoenix.
https://twitter.com/JShannonhl/status/1659001396685881346
Nothing Gary Bettman actually says has any particular relationship to what the league actually intends to do.
Coyotes ‘Plan B’?
Latest: Mesa officials tell me the @ArizonaCoyotes
reached out yesterday following their loss in Tempe. The team is eyeing the Fiesta Mall site – prime land in the East Valley‘s largest city. Caution: any potential arena deal there could require another public vote. #azfamily
https://twitter.com/dennis_welch/status/1659235847495876623
The Mesa location would still require a public vote.
Per City Charter, City can’t expend public funds, grant tax concessions/relief, incur debt and/or exchange City-owned land for construction of sports complex above $1.5 M without a vote
https://twitter.com/KatieJStrang/status/1659273057549131779
Fiesta Mall area does not have the demographics that support hockey, and is nearly as far from downtown Phoenix and North Scottsdale as Glendale. The Coyotes will still have the same problems as in Tempe, how to finance a nearly billion dollar arena and a surrounding development. The Salt River tribe will demand too big a cut of the action and neither Phoenix or Scottsdale have any interest in an arena on state trust land along north 101. The obvious answer is to rake in all the loonies a hockey team in Hamilton will capture. MLSE has been making way too many loonies while putting a losing team on the ice decade after decade, it’s time for competition in Southern Ontario.
For all we know, Fiesta Mall might be right smack in the middle of the fabled Coyotes Fan Base, which has never actually been sighted. But it’s gotta be out there somewhere!
In fairness to the Coyotes, building a seating bowl with the proper sightlines for both Unicorns and Yetis is not easy…
Tempe: we’d rather have a landfill that may or may not be toxic than the Coyotes
NHL: But we love Arizona
Other Arizona cities: We’re good
NHL: But we love all of you
Quebec City: You know we have a state of the art arena and rabid hockey fans that will fill the arena
NHL: So Arizona let’s work this out
Arizona: You’re still here?
Quebec City: WTF?
Detroit especially will object to moving a team from the west to the east because that would push them back into the Western Conference.
And because Quebec is so small, there’s not enough enthusiasm from any other owners to overcome those objections.
Nor was there enthusiasm among the owners club for a return to Winnipeg (which is the same size as QC).
What made it happen is that there was no-one willing to buy the Thrashers and either keep them in Atlanta or move them elsewhere. I don’t necessarily think that will be the case for the soon to be portable Coyotes, but their are legitimate obstacles to moving the team to Houston or Kansas City or San Diego or Hartford or…
Detroit is the obvious choice if the ex-Jets do move east, but it doesn’t actually have to be them that moves… Nashville (nearly as far west as Chicago) and Columbus (basically the same longitude as Detroit) are also candidates.
*”their/there/they’re….” I give up….
It would make much more sense to just move Columbus to the west. Less history and ranked 3rd to last in the Forbes rankings of NHL team values. They are in no position to complain
Personally, I’d prefer that the Yotes just move to Portland
The comedy just writes itself.
Pack, we want to hear from you. Where should the Coyotes build our new home?
https://twitter.com/ArizonaCoyotes/status/1659303475073916932
Huh, they are missing an option or two… I didn’t see “We don’t care, just get the F out” in the list
As a Calgarian, I am very proud of the city of Tempe saying “No” to this. It’s good to see a city stand up to these sports owners.
But as a Calgarian, it got me to question. Why weren’t we given a choice to vote on this monstrosity of an arena deal? It’s like Neil said, it’s a failure in democracy. I emailed every single member of Calgary city council asking for an answer to this question. No response from any of them.
It’s time to storm Calgary city hall and let the scumbags know their deal won’t fly. Is there a recall provision in Alberta? The Flames should be offered 3 alternatives
1. Keep playing in the Saddledome
2. Build an arena at 100% your expense arena on 20 acres of the Stampede Grounds
3. Go to Gwinett County and play in the Gas South Arena
Does Calgary have a legal mechanism to put things like that to a binding referendum? It might not.
Arizona Coyotes in Scottsdale? Valley city dominating NHL team arena vote
https://www.azcentral.com/story/sports/nhl/coyotes/2023/05/19/arizona-coyotes-scottsdale-valley-city-winning-nhl-team-arena-vote/70235792007/
Is Mesa the next city on the Arizona Coyotes radar? Here’s how Mesa leaders are reacting
https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/mesa/2023/05/19/heres-how-mesa-leaders-are-reacting-to-a-possible-coyotes-arena/70233675007/
Bettman can’t tell the difference between 3M and 3M. Minnesota LOVES hockey, but he let the Northstars leave. 3M in Arizona means Mesa, Mormons and Mexicans, and that doesn’t mix with hockey. Mesa actually has a lower per capita income than Glendale. How are the Coyotes going to have a real payroll (not dead contracts) and interest and operating expenses on a new arena when they were losing tens of millions without either? The snowbirds came out big time when their team played the Coyotes in Glendale, and was a big chunk of their revenue. Locating in Tempe, Scottsdale, Mesa or even Coolidge won’t change opposing fan revenue. Bettman needs to wake up and realize Phoenix will never have a fan base sufficient to support an NHL team. Cut your losses and move the Coyotes to Hamilton before the First Ontario Center closes for renovations.
You seem to think that certain nationalities or religions are inherently predisposed to not like hockey. That’s ridiculous and a bit racist, really.
The Minnesota example proves the exact opposite of your point.
The North Stars died because their owner was a bit of a schmuck and because they couldn’t figure out an arena deal at the time. Dallas made a better offer.
At that time, a number of people – like Mike Modano – were claiming that Minnesota just couldn’t support an NHL team because it didn’t have the business community or whatever. All of that was obviously stupid and has been proven to be so by the Wild.
Nowhere in America cares more about hockey than Minnesota and yet that wasn’t enough to overcome a bad owner and a suboptimal arena situation.
Denver is another example. The NHL Rockies failed by the Avs are doing ok.
All of the Canadian reporters I’ve found who saw the Coyotes play in Phoenix and Glendale seem to agree that the team could work there if it ever had good ownership and an arena that people wanted to go to.
It’s definitely going to be a tougher sell than it would be in Hamilton or Quebec, but there are a lot more people in Phoenix so you have to convince a lot fewer, per capita, to succeed.
Now clearly, Arizona cannot find a decent owner and an appropriate location for an arena right now. And it probably will not soon.
But things can change. The Coyotes could come back if a better owner came along and had a plan to pay for his/her own arena and could find a suitably accessible place to put it.
Maybe there isn’t a place like that available right now. Ok, fine, but that’s got nothing to do with the potential of the populace to embrace hockey.
That also means that hockey could work in Atlanta, potentially, if it got the right arena with deep-pocketed owners. Common wisdom used to say that Atlanta was just a bad sports town, but then somehow it’s MLS team – yes MLS – does huge numbers. Anything is possible with the right marketing and the right product.
But yeah, I assume they are approaching the “cut our losses” stage. They really want to keep the team in the west, but there’s nowhere in the west with an arena and owner totally ready to go.
The best bet seems to be Utah, because the owner there has stated he’s interested. The problem there is that, like Phoenix, the arena isn’t really suited for hockey. Utah wants to build a new arena as part of its Olympic ambitions, but as we’ve seen, nothing is certain until the arena is actually built. It would be a bit of a disaster for the NHL if it moved the team to another market, have the same arena problems again, and had to move again.
Hamilton and Quebec have (or soon will have) arenas ready to go. But the potential owners there have not, as far as I can tell, actually put an offer on the table to buy the team, pay off the other owners, and move the team.
But maybe if the Coyotes are still at ASU in six months and nothing else has worked out, either of those two options will be viable.
Neil, I think you could get 50 comments by putting up a post with nothing in it but the word…
“Coyotes.”
The story that keeps on giving. Where’s Jim Balsillie, Richard Rhodier, and Redfield T. Baum when you need them? I understand Hartford wants the Whale back.
….. and the saga continues.
Is Santa Fe viable? What about Salt Lake City? (I am genuinely curious)
Salt Lake is definitely one of the options.
The NHL Players Association has entered the chat.
https://twitter.com/WALLACHLEGAL/status/1660142546884984832
The problem with the Tempe vote was partially due to the fact that the majority of fans could not help with the vote. Most do not live in Tempe. I have a coworker who lives in Tempe and voted NO and his reasoning was due to the lies the NO vote group were spreading. So it appears the message did not get out well enough to the Tempe voters so the NO group won. We don’t even need to discuss who funded the NO vote….I have lots of questions when the Tempe voters now have to pay to clean up a dump and there I would not be surprised if a large high rise of mixed commercial and residential goes in alone the area even after Phoenix threw a fit when it was going to be an arena. My hope is the team can find a location here in the valley because they can be successful if they have the location and talent.