Confirmed with Link: All-Purpose Coyotes Arena Talk: Land Auction Date Set - 6/27

[rt]

It’s probably too truthful that if your team requires hotels and restaurants and all these other things in order to survive, then maybe the team isn’t viable and shouldn’t exist. There are plenty of other examples in southern states that don’t require all of these other things in order for the hockey team to be profitable like Dallas and Vegas.

I won’t argue that’s the situation the Coyotes ended up. But they made their own bed. The market wasn’t uniquely anti hockey. It should’ve been easily as successful or more successful than Anaheim, Vegas, Dallas, Tampa, or Carolina. Phoenix is bigger than most of those markets, and had a richer hockey history than several and a greater cold weather transplant population than the average of that list. It’s not the fault of the valley. It’s the fault of the coyotes. The valley turned on the coyotes. But the coyotes gave the valley no choice. This is the fault of a string of horrendous ownership.

I wouldn't want to pay more tax to support a billionaire. Even if it meant keeping or gaining a team. Obviously the topic requires some nuance, since tax-increment-financing is very different from direct funding.

It’s an on-site surcharge. Don’t want to pay? Don’t go. That simple.

 

[Kai Yo T]

@Dead Coyote @TheLegend

Got me thinking twice on if not going for it really was a pretty stupid move Tempe voters. I'll admit it.

 

[MIGs Dog]

I'm still not convinced that the Tempe voters were dumb for not voting yes. Time will tell.

Time won't tell because the "yes" scenario will never play out thus we will never truly know.

However, it's a good chance Tempe taxpayers will foot the bill for the cleanup.

 

[Dirty Old Man]

Time won't tell because the "yes" scenario will never play out thus we will never truly know.

However, it's a good chance Tempe taxpayers will foot the bill for the cleanup.

Best case for Tempe is that fairly soon an environmental group starts beating the drum about cleaning it up and it happens...worst case is that never happens and weird stuff starts happening around and downstream of the lake.

But for now, the No people get to continue to drive past an eyesore at Priest and Rio Solado, and think "man I wish someone would do something with that land. It looks so nice past the dam.."

 

[MIGs Dog]

No people get to continue to drive past an eyesore at Priest and Rio Solado, and think...

"...why can't we build more affordable housing...here's a great spot."

 

[NMacrules]

I wonder if Utah has to keep the Coyote name or can they rename their team?

Utah Thunder or Salt Lake City Thunder would be a good name for a few reasons. First, it thunders there a lot. Second, it would be fun with all the memes that would be created when they play the lightning. Thunder and Lightning. But Utah Thunder seems fitting.

 

[DaBadGuy7]

I wonder if Utah has to keep the Coyote name or can they rename their team?

Utah Thunder or Salt Lake City Thunder would be a good name for a few reasons. First, it thunders there a lot. Second, it would be fun with all the memes that would be created when they play the lightning. Thunder and Lightning. But Utah Thunder seems fitting.

AM keeps the Coyotes name, history, and IP. The Utah team is technically a “ new franchise” with the Coyotes players, hockey ops, and other staff that they are bringing over.

 

[TheLegend]

"...why can't we build more affordable housing...here's a great spot."

At $500k per unit. Sure. That’s what it penciled out as.

 

[TheLegend]

Time won't tell because the "yes" scenario will never play out thus we will never truly know.

However, it's a good chance Tempe taxpayers will foot the bill for the cleanup.

They were going to anyway. Tempe can’t sell it as is.

What TED did was absorb the clean up costs via three separate revenue sources only from within the district. That way the current residents of Tempe wouldn’t have had the burden fall on them….. at all.

 

[LAIslanderFan]

I was at the Tucson game last night. After seeing how attached the fan base is, I hope AM keeps the Roadrunners in Tucson. Fans had signs all throughout the arena pleading to stay in Tucson.
I think AM should keep the Roadrunners in Tucson for most of the season, but play 1 or 2
games in Mullet to give fans in the Phoenix metro area a chance to see AZ hockey.

By the way, Gunther was the best players by far last night, not even close. He really has that look of determination when he's on the ice and he's all over the place. My impression of Geekie is that he needs to get stronger physically and improve on his skating. Not a large sample size, but that's what I saw. Unfortunately the Roadrunners lost. They had the better of the play, but their discipline level wasn't on the same level as Calgary. Calgary scored on breakdowns and turnovers.

 

[rt]

The relocation of the AHL out of Tucson was a foregone conclusion the moment the Coyotes left Arizona.

 

[Jakey53]

Anyways, my only point is that the reason Tempe overwhelmingly voted no is not because they were stupid or uneducated. There really was a lot of risk. People are STILL doubting AM's capabilities.

No, they didn't take the time to be educated on TED, which means they were not only stupid, but f------ stupid.

 

[MIGs Dog]

They were going to anyway

With new revenue. As in money they don't have unless they convince another developer to give them a sweetheart deal like AMs.

 

[Dirty Old Man]

At $500k per unit. Sure. That’s what it penciled out as.

Thank you. Define "affordable" ...ain't never gonna be no po people houses right on the salt river. Ain't happening.

 

[MIGs Dog]

Thank you. Define "affordable" ...ain't never gonna be no po people houses right on the salt river. Ain't happening.

"The Riviera of the Southwest!!!

 

[Canis Latrans]

Long screed incoming, been busy trying to follow this and deal with heaps of non-hockey stuff that's come up at the same time:

I ultimately blame the NHL for their absolute lack of foresight in how they put the team in Phoenix. There was zero set-up for the team to make a profit without a proper arena in place from the start. They shot themselves in the foot telling Phoenix hockey wasn’t coming anytime soon when they built America West Arena, and then they threw the team here as an afterthought when Minnesota said it wasn’t enough time to get set-up. The whole history of the Coyotes has been a distressed asset stanching the losses while the owner somehow comes up with the funds to finance a new arena.

It's a problem that has cascaded into a more expensive problem owner after owner as debt rings up and the arena problem remains. The only solutions have been property developers, one of which disassociated with the team so he didn’t have pay for the loss leader part. No other potential owners want to pick up a distressed asset that's laden with debt and one that has killed most fan interest and then also put up the funds for a new arena. Why would they when they could go to a new market that gets a honeymoon period to bolster the coffers while paying off a new facility.

In some part you can see the league learned because they don’t put teams in new markets without giving them proper footing anymore, yet still the Coyotes are denigrated as having received more breaks from the league than anyone else, as if fans should be grateful for the league approving of putting the team in a completely uneconomic position from even before their start. If they hadn’t been so cheap from the start, the market could have been given time to properly set up a foundation that would have let them thrive. Instead, they throw handouts here and there to the team over the years as if it can fix the fundamental issues they ignored from the start.

You don't get these poor owners without the league utterly failing to vet them and utterly failing to do their due diligence on moving to a new market.

I also highly suspect that the NHLPA has a stronger role in the move. With the CBA coming up in the next couple years, I suspect they were going to make this be an issue for the owners where the owners were going to have to accommodate the players to put up with this. They basically were giving the players an additional bargaining chip, and by taking action ahead of time, they’ve reset the negotiations ahead so they could pull that extra percent or two which they seemingly think outweighs the cost of paying Meruelo and losing a full expansion payment to Utah.

I don’t have much hope for Meruelo as too much is coming out about how poorly he ran things business-wise. I figured the team was having losses, but it sounds like they were far more massive than I’d really thought. If that’s the case, I could see why Meruelo may have micromanaged to such a degree. He likely knew he couldn’t do this with his other businesses because they need to stay separate and continue being profitable. This one needs to be isolated so it doesn’t take everything down with it.

If the team was going to struggle with actually increasing the payroll when we needed it in the next couple of seasons to continue along on the proper team trajectory, then I can somewhat understand why he’s sold and insisted on the right to retain. To properly continue the rebuild into the next stage, he needs the arena district set-up first, and he knew we’d have to start selling off assets and perpetuating the rebuild until that came.

Additionally, with the large payout from the league, he should now have the capital to build it. If he had issues with funding the team and the arena at the same time, now he doesn’t have to cover 2 sets of bills. If he’s to pay back that amount in 5 years, then with a district set-up that can produce income, he will be much more likely to get additional investors and to be able to borrow as he has something much more tangible to point to for lenders.

 

[Coyotedroppings]

Long screed incoming, been busy trying to follow this and deal with heaps of non-hockey stuff that's come up at the same time:

I ultimately blame the NHL for their absolute lack of foresight in how they put the team in Phoenix. There was zero set-up for the team to make a profit without a proper arena in place from the start. They shot themselves in the foot telling Phoenix hockey wasn’t coming anytime soon when they built America West Arena, and then they threw the team here as an afterthought when Minnesota said it wasn’t enough time to get set-up. The whole history of the Coyotes has been a distressed asset stanching the losses while the owner somehow comes up with the funds to finance a new arena.

It's a problem that has cascaded into a more expensive problem owner after owner as debt rings up and the arena problem remains. The only solutions have been property developers, one of which disassociated with the team so he didn’t have pay for the loss leader part. No other potential owners want to pick up a distressed asset that's laden with debt and one that has killed most fan interest and then also put up the funds for a new arena. Why would they when they could go to a new market that gets a honeymoon period to bolster the coffers while paying off a new facility.

In some part you can see the league learned because they don’t put teams in new markets without giving them proper footing anymore, yet still the Coyotes are denigrated as having received more breaks from the league than anyone else, as if fans should be grateful for the league approving of putting the team in a completely uneconomic position from even before their start. If they hadn’t been so cheap from the start, the market could have been given time to properly set up a foundation that would have let them thrive. Instead, they throw handouts here and there to the team over the years as if it can fix the fundamental issues they ignored from the start.

You don't get these poor owners without the league utterly failing to vet them and utterly failing to do their due diligence on moving to a new market.

I also highly suspect that the NHLPA has a stronger role in the move. With the CBA coming up in the next couple years, I suspect they were going to make this be an issue for the owners where the owners were going to have to accommodate the players to put up with this. They basically were giving the players an additional bargaining chip, and by taking action ahead of time, they’ve reset the negotiations ahead so they could pull that extra percent or two which they seemingly think outweighs the cost of paying Meruelo and losing a full expansion payment to Utah.

I don’t have much hope for Meruelo as too much is coming out about how poorly he ran things business-wise. I figured the team was having losses, but it sounds like they were far more massive than I’d really thought. If that’s the case, I could see why Meruelo may have micromanaged to such a degree. He likely knew he couldn’t do this with his other businesses because they need to stay separate and continue being profitable. This one needs to be isolated so it doesn’t take everything down with it.

If the team was going to struggle with actually increasing the payroll when we needed it in the next couple of seasons to continue along on the proper team trajectory, then I can somewhat understand why he’s sold and insisted on the right to retain. To properly continue the rebuild into the next stage, he needs the arena district set-up first, and he knew we’d have to start selling off assets and perpetuating the rebuild until that came.

Additionally, with the large payout from the league, he should now have the capital to build it. If he had issues with funding the team and the arena at the same time, now he doesn’t have to cover 2 sets of bills. If he’s to pay back that amount in 5 years, then with a district set-up that can produce income, he will be much more likely to get additional investors and to be able to borrow as he has something much more tangible to point to for lenders.

Well put together thoughts CL.
Never easy being the guinea pig, particularly since there really wasn’t a plan. Plenty of blame to go around after the initial lack of planning as well.

For the record it was Ziegler, not Bettman that told Colangelo there was no chance of the NHL coming here…. not that you implied otherwise.


I think Petey was on the right track basically saying AM was “Trump like” (my analogy, not Petey’s) in his business acumen and that it’s no way to run a sports franchise - particularly when you’ll be needing favors.

Again, well done Sir.

 

[Dirty Old Man]

"The Riviera of the Southwest!!!

Well it sounds like some people want Section 8 level stuff there...but lolz. Now, that site over by Mesa Riverview south of 202 w of alma school OTOH....that could work for that sort of thing.

 

[Canis Latrans]

Well put together thoughts CL.
Never easy being the guinea pig, particularly since there really wasn’t a plan. Plenty of blame to go around after the initial lack of planning as well.

For the record it was Ziegler, not Bettman that told Colangelo there was no chance of the NHL coming here…. not that you implied otherwise.


I think Petey was on the right track basically saying AM was “Trump like” (my analogy, not Petey’s) in his business acumen and that it’s no way to run a sports franchise - particularly when you’ll be needing favors.

Again, well done Sir.

Yes, definitely more blame to go around, but ultimately it's the league that's forced the hand here, and they are responsible for the initial red flags we now all recognize in franchise inceptions. I don't think another team that's moved or expanded, in the NHL, has not had a building upon arrival. Carolina had one under construction during the first 2 years while they played in Greensboro, and Colorado was purchased by the same group who owned the Nuggets, so they had a dedicated arena. The Coyotes had to rent and had obstructed seats. Obviously all the expansion teams had no arenas when they joined.

Sounds right about Ziegler. I moved to Phoenix from Milwaukee in the summer before the Coyotes started, so I immediately jumped aboard and followed the entirety of Coyotes' history. I was too young to know what presidents of the NHL did, but learned that later.

I'm not really clear on why the league went so hard on getting the Coyotes out now though. They had signed off on Mullet for 3+1(maybe another +1), but I guess if behind the scenes it really was not going to happen with Meruelo, then this might legitimately be the only way they foresaw how to save the Coyotes. They've basically can keep him whole by giving him a huge cash injection to build it and remove his operating costs in the meantime.

I just don't understand why they couldn't have just floated more funds to the team to keep them going and then still get a full expansion entry fee out of Utah. It seems like that would have been far more efficient.

Lastly, I want to know what this rumbling about dissolving his share of the team this summer at the board of governors was going to mean. Probably his lack of ability to pay for things and how it was behavior detrimental to the league since it affected their vendors.

I hold out some hope that if the financing is all solid, then Meruelo can be a decent owner. I mean he's demonstrated he could support the team side of things very well. They were very well built up and I think we had the largest scouting department to do the proper rebuild. He wasn't cutting corners on everything. I really do think he was doing some of this behavior of being cheap because it was a sinking ship and he knew that the team itself had to get good to make the payoff once an arena was here. Hopefully, it works out and these behaviors go away when things are profitable for the team.

 

[Jakey53]

Well put together thoughts CL.
Never easy being the guinea pig, particularly since there really wasn’t a plan. Plenty of blame to go around after the initial lack of planning as well.

For the record it was Ziegler, not Bettman that told Colangelo there was no chance of the NHL coming here…. not that you implied otherwise.


I think Petey was on the right track basically saying AM was “Trump like” (my analogy, not Petey’s) in his business acumen and that it’s no way to run a sports franchise - particularly when you’ll be needing favors.

Again, well done Sir.

You guys are piling shit on AM, some may be justified, probably most is not. Whatever AM has done pales in comparison to what M Bidwell has done and now Isbia with his lawsuit.

 

[Jakey53]

Long screed incoming, been busy trying to follow this and deal with heaps of non-hockey stuff that's come up at the same time:

I ultimately blame the NHL for their absolute lack of foresight in how they put the team in Phoenix. There was zero set-up for the team to make a profit without a proper arena in place from the start. They shot themselves in the foot telling Phoenix hockey wasn’t coming anytime soon when they built America West Arena, and then they threw the team here as an afterthought when Minnesota said it wasn’t enough time to get set-up. The whole history of the Coyotes has been a distressed asset stanching the losses while the owner somehow comes up with the funds to finance a new arena.

It's a problem that has cascaded into a more expensive problem owner after owner as debt rings up and the arena problem remains. The only solutions have been property developers, one of which disassociated with the team so he didn’t have pay for the loss leader part. No other potential owners want to pick up a distressed asset that's laden with debt and one that has killed most fan interest and then also put up the funds for a new arena. Why would they when they could go to a new market that gets a honeymoon period to bolster the coffers while paying off a new facility.

In some part you can see the league learned because they don’t put teams in new markets without giving them proper footing anymore, yet still the Coyotes are denigrated as having received more breaks from the league than anyone else, as if fans should be grateful for the league approving of putting the team in a completely uneconomic position from even before their start. If they hadn’t been so cheap from the start, the market could have been given time to properly set up a foundation that would have let them thrive. Instead, they throw handouts here and there to the team over the years as if it can fix the fundamental issues they ignored from the start.

You don't get these poor owners without the league utterly failing to vet them and utterly failing to do their due diligence on moving to a new market.

I also highly suspect that the NHLPA has a stronger role in the move. With the CBA coming up in the next couple years, I suspect they were going to make this be an issue for the owners where the owners were going to have to accommodate the players to put up with this. They basically were giving the players an additional bargaining chip, and by taking action ahead of time, they’ve reset the negotiations ahead so they could pull that extra percent or two which they seemingly think outweighs the cost of paying Meruelo and losing a full expansion payment to Utah.

I don’t have much hope for Meruelo as too much is coming out about how poorly he ran things business-wise. I figured the team was having losses, but it sounds like they were far more massive than I’d really thought. If that’s the case, I could see why Meruelo may have micromanaged to such a degree. He likely knew he couldn’t do this with his other businesses because they need to stay separate and continue being profitable. This one needs to be isolated so it doesn’t take everything down with it.

If the team was going to struggle with actually increasing the payroll when we needed it in the next couple of seasons to continue along on the proper team trajectory, then I can somewhat understand why he’s sold and insisted on the right to retain. To properly continue the rebuild into the next stage, he needs the arena district set-up first, and he knew we’d have to start selling off assets and perpetuating the rebuild until that came.

Additionally, with the large payout from the league, he should now have the capital to build it. If he had issues with funding the team and the arena at the same time, now he doesn’t have to cover 2 sets of bills. If he’s to pay back that amount in 5 years, then with a district set-up that can produce income, he will be much more likely to get additional investors and to be able to borrow as he has something much more tangible to point to for lenders.

We had an arena in Glendale, but no owners with the finances to run the franchise. I still believe the NHL would have worked in Glendale if the on ice product was there. All this location excuses were just that, excuses. At bankruptcy if the NHL brought their own people in and ran it like a normal NHL franchise it would have been successful, made money for the NHL and then could have been flipped for a profit to a well vetted owner.

 

[RemoAZ]

Well put together thoughts CL.
Never easy being the guinea pig, particularly since there really wasn’t a plan. Plenty of blame to go around after the initial lack of planning as well.

For the record it was Ziegler, not Bettman that told Colangelo there was no chance of the NHL coming here…. not that you implied otherwise.


I think Petey was on the right track basically saying AM was “Trump like” (my analogy, not Petey’s) in his business acumen and that it’s no way to run a sports franchise - particularly when you’ll be needing favors.

Again, well done Sir.

If only Colangelo would have bought the team. I remember in the initial press conference him saying something along the lines of they offered him a piece but they were used to or preferred being majority owners or something like that. If they would have given him a bigger piece from the start if he even wanted it, he would have eventually owned the team outright and none of this would have ever come to pass. I need to stop this train of thought because it just makes me want to punch holes him my walls...

We had an arena in Glendale, but no owners with the finances to run the franchise. I still believe the NHL would have worked in Glendale if the on ice product was there. All this location excuses were just that, excuses. At bankruptcy if the NHL brought their own people in and ran it like a normal NHL franchise it would have been successful, made money for the NHL and then could have been flipped for a profit to a well vetted owner.

This is the best post I've ever seen from you (not that anyone cares about my opinion). 100% spot on.

 

[Bonsai Tree]

As one of those who left my Tempe office at 5 in order to arrive at my seat 7 minutes into the game on Tuesdays and Thursdays I can tell you that only diehards like me would fight rush hour traffic to get to the arena.
For those who say a winning team would have filled the arena on weekday evenings, you are wrong. Perhaps a perennial cup contender could fill those weekday evening seats, and only then towards the end of the regular season as the chase for playoff positions heated up.

 

[The Feckless Puck]

As one of those who left my Tempe office at 5 in order to arrive at my seat 7 minutes into the game on Tuesdays and Thursdays I can tell you that only diehards like me would fight rush hour traffic to get to the arena.

Every single arena location in the Valley is like this for the vast majority of the people who live here. The key, therefore, is to market to the people in the immediate vicinity of the building to fill the majority of seats, and then make it financially worthwhile for those living farther away to buy partial-season or single game tickets.

There is no magic perfect location in Arizona. Even the current parcel under consideration is only preferable because of the existing money in the area and a big knot of transplant hockey fans that have no loyalty to an in-state franchise. That's promising for the short-term, but it's not a long-term strategy for franchise health. Essentially, the current parcel is a short-term supercharger for a new franchise.

 

[Coyotedroppings]

Yes, definitely more blame to go around, but ultimately it's the league that's forced the hand here, and they are responsible for the initial red flags we now all recognize in franchise inceptions. I don't think another team that's moved or expanded, in the NHL, has not had a building upon arrival. Carolina had one under construction during the first 2 years while they played in Greensboro, and Colorado was purchased by the same group who owned the Nuggets, so they had a dedicated arena. The Coyotes had to rent and had obstructed seats. Obviously all the expansion teams had no arenas when they joined.

Sounds right about Ziegler. I moved to Phoenix from Milwaukee in the summer before the Coyotes started, so I immediately jumped aboard and followed the entirety of Coyotes' history. I was too young to know what presidents of the NHL did, but learned that later.

I'm not really clear on why the league went so hard on getting the Coyotes out now though. They had signed off on Mullet for 3+1(maybe another +1), but I guess if behind the scenes it really was not going to happen with Meruelo, then this might legitimately be the only way they foresaw how to save the Coyotes. They've basically can keep him whole by giving him a huge cash injection to build it and remove his operating costs in the meantime.

I just don't understand why they couldn't have just floated more funds to the team to keep them going and then still get a full expansion entry fee out of Utah. It seems like that would have been far more efficient.

Lastly, I want to know what this rumbling about dissolving his share of the team this summer at the board of governors was going to mean. Probably his lack of ability to pay for things and how it was behavior detrimental to the league since it affected their vendors.

I hold out some hope that if the financing is all solid, then Meruelo can be a decent owner. I mean he's demonstrated he could support the team side of things very well. They were very well built up and I think we had the largest scouting department to do the proper rebuild. He wasn't cutting corners on everything. I really do think he was doing some of this behavior of being cheap because it was a sinking ship and he knew that the team itself had to get good to make the payoff once an arena was here. Hopefully, it works out and these behaviors go away when things are profitable for the team.

I feel like the optics of the small rink in a potential playoff round, as well as making peace with the NHLPA before collective bargaining are factors, for the why now.
In another note, ever see Todd Channel (below) play? I won a state championship with him many, many moons ago.