Latest on the Arizona Coyotes Arena ordeal

[FriendlyGhost92]

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I've seen this episode before...

Expectation:

Reality:

 

[Chaos2k7]

Still avoiding explaining your ridiculous statement about cold-weather teams never having attendance issues...got it. Winnipeg, Hartford, and Quebec lost multiple franchises. And to get back to topic, it was reported and discussed earlier that the Coyotes were profitable last year. So, just keep being wrong.

As a Sabres fan maybe he wants to explain the current situation in Buffalo? Terrible market, or terrible management has pushed STHs away?

I know it's the latter, but by his reasoning it can only be a bad market apparently.

His own team is an example against his argument, gotta love it.

 

[hangman005]

The whole district looks nice, if they could even do half that. Still a long way to go, but I hope things start falling into place for the Yotes.

 

[Mosby]

Construction can move quickly in Arizona because there are no cold weather concerns.

For example, to build the arena in Glendale, groundbreaking was in April 2002 and it opened its doors in December 2003.

 

[Dr Pepper]

Construction can move quickly in Arizona because there are no cold weather concerns.

For example, to build the arena in Glendale, groundbreaking was in April 2002 and it opened its doors in December 2003.

"Location: Toronto"

C'mon now, you know damn well it can be a perfect day out and there won't be a single shovel in the ground.

 

[FriendlyGhost92]

Construction can move quickly in Arizona because there are no cold weather concerns.

For example, to build the arena in Glendale, groundbreaking was in April 2002 and it opened its doors in December 2003.

Lol. KeyBank Center was built in less than two years. PPG Paints Arena was built in two years. Wells Fargo Center was built in less than two years. UBS Center was built in just over two years.

Not sure what made you think construction comes to a screeching halt in cold weather months. They just plan and schedule around it.

 

[NYRfan85]

The NFL has David Tepper as an owner. OK'd him with much fanfare, after original owner Jerry Richardson had to sell the team for sexual and racial harassment in the team's workplace. He's already showing he's a goddamn disaster as an owner. Pretty sure nothing in his background suggested he'd be this f***ing bad. [Just like I'm pretty sure nothing in Richardson's background suggested he was a serial sexual / racial harrasser, or would become one.] The NFL can't do a f***ing thing about it until he runs afoul of league rules.

Everyone here in the Carolinas would kill to bring Richardson back from the dead to own the Panthers again. Workplace issues aside, he actually cared about the team. It's univerally agreed around here that Tepper has taken over as the NFL's worst owner, and it's not even close. The only good thing Tepper has done is bring Charlotte an MLS team. Anything related to the Panthers has been an unmitigated disaster under his reign of terror. He's a self-centered attention whore who is completely clueless when it comes to running an NFL team.

The owner makes a big difference in the success of the team.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

This right here is the reason Bettman & the owners. Continues to pound that square peg in the round hole.

MLB expanded in 1993 in large part to pay the penalties for collusion vs. MLBPA in the 1980s.

What part of hockey fan are you people not getting. 30 years of distraction, 30 years of false starts, 30 years of endless promises and 30 years of media reporting in the same subject.

Then quit listening.

 

[Jumptheshark]

for those questioning the annoyance at the 30 year battle to get Arizona a proper place? Where was the 30 year battle to save the Nords or the OG Jets? NHL rolled over and played dead when those teams got into trouble. The only reason Edmonton still has the oilers is because at the 11th hour, a consortium of Edmonton business and private individuals raised enough capital to keep the team in Edmonton. The oilers were maybe 12 hours away from moving to Edmonton. As a fan who nearly lost their team and has seen 2 other Canadian teams relocate..I see a double standard being put in place here.

 

[Dr Pepper]

for those questioning the annoyance at the 30 year battle to get Arizona a proper place? Where was the 30 year battle to save the Nords or the OG Jets? NHL rolled over and played dead when those teams got into trouble. The only reason Edmonton still has the oilers is because at the 11th hour, a consortium of Edmonton business and private individuals raised enough capital to keep the team in Edmonton. The oilers were maybe 12 hours away from moving to Edmonton. As a fan who nearly lost their team and has seen 2 other Canadian teams relocate..I see a double standard being put in place here.

Where were they gonna move? I don't remember this story, although sometimes it's hard to keep track of all the "close calls" that have happened with regards to relocation.

Also, goddamn you're almost at 100k posts!

 

[57special]

for those questioning the annoyance at the 30 year battle to get Arizona a proper place? Where was the 30 year battle to save the Nords or the OG Jets? NHL rolled over and played dead when those teams got into trouble. The only reason Edmonton still has the oilers is because at the 11th hour, a consortium of Edmonton business and private individuals raised enough capital to keep the team in Edmonton. The oilers were maybe 12 hours away from moving to Edmonton. As a fan who nearly lost their team and has seen 2 other Canadian teams relocate..I see a double standard being put in place here.

The NHL sees the Canadian market as being maxed out, and the USA as being a place where it can grow. It's all about the potential for growth.

There is no doubt that a franchise in Hamilton/southern Ontario would put 20,000 bums in the seats on a nightly basis, but if that doesn't happen, they will still be hockey fans with allegiances to the Leafs/Red Wings/whoever. There will be no net increase in fans, as opposed to ARI, Texas, Utah, etc. which still is "undiscovered country".

VGK and Seattle are two recent examples where the NHL has created, or at least grown, markets and revenue successfully.

 

[TheTotalPackage]

It sure would be something that a franchise that has used up more than its 9 lives and is playing out of a university-sized arena would all of a sudden have one of the best arena districts in the entire league (based on the renderings).

I'm not the least bit convinced this will come to fruition. But if this plan too falls through, then something has to (finally?) give.

 

[Salsero1]

for those questioning the annoyance at the 30 year battle to get Arizona a proper place? Where was the 30 year battle to save the Nords or the OG Jets? NHL rolled over and played dead when those teams got into trouble. The only reason Edmonton still has the oilers is because at the 11th hour, a consortium of Edmonton business and private individuals raised enough capital to keep the team in Edmonton. The oilers were maybe 12 hours away from moving to Edmonton. As a fan who nearly lost their team and has seen 2 other Canadian teams relocate..I see a double standard being put in place here.

1) there was no salary cap in 95 and 96
2) no revenue sharing
3) poor exchange rate made owning a team in QC or WPG unappealing
4) Ancient buildings with no plans to build new ones
5) Nobody was attempting a hostile takeover of the Jets or Nordiques to gain ownership without the proper procedure and move them into the back yard of TML.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

for those questioning the annoyance at the 30 year battle to get Arizona a proper place? Where was the 30 year battle to save the Nords or the OG Jets?

1. The league tried to find a local buyer. No one wanted Quebec, no one showed up for Winnipeg until after the sale was announced.
2. Bettman has said he wished he'd done better with those. Hindsight is 20/20.
3. Both teams would have struggled even more as salaries exploded in the 90s. Winnipeg would have scraped by at best, more than likely would have been forced to move. Quebec was moving no matter what, the complaint there is whether it would have been 1996, 1998 or 2000.
4. You might as well throw in Hartford as well, even though it had an antiquated arena that was akin to a giant high school gym and still has no new arena that's even semi-NHL suitable.

The only reason Edmonton still has the oilers is because at the 11th hour, a consortium of Edmonton business and private individuals raised enough capital to keep the team in Edmonton. The oilers were maybe 12 hours away from moving to Edmonton.

The "maybe 12 hours away from moving" line wasn't a league-imposed thing. It was was a contractual deadline imposed on Pocklington through the lease he had at Northlands Coliseum. It stipulated that Pocklington couldn't move the team or sell the team to someone who intended to move it, without an ownership group interested in keeping the team in Edmonton from having a chance to do so. That was a 6-week timeline.

Alberta Trust Branches [ATB] was owed a ton of money by Pocklington, and by 1997 had the team in receivership and was looking for a buyer. Les Alexander wanted the Oilers either to (1) move to Houston if he couldn't get an expansion team, or (2) hold until he got an expansion team, in which case he'd sell the Oilers back to someone in Edmonton. It was a leverage play to get an NHL team. Alexander's problem came when he wanted to talk lease: Edmonton wouldn't grant him a lease to play at Northlands where there was any provision to move the team under any circumstances. That left Alexander with one option: buy the team, move it . He submitted a bid to ATB for $85 million with a $5 million deposit, intending to move the team to Houston. This started the 6-week clock.

Cal Nichols was interested in buying the Oilers and keeping the team in Edmonton, but he didn't have $70 million. Or half of it. He did have 30%, though. The best Nichols could do was come up with a group of people, everyone pitching in some money, to get to $70 million + the $5 million deposit required. This required Bettman going and talking to people with Nichols to get them on board, because even Bettman in 1997 recognized the brand value of the NHL with a team in Edmonton and people were reluctant to throw money in even if they really didn't want the Oilers to leave.

Under league rules at the time, Nichols didn't have an acceptable ownership group. Bettman went to considerable lengths to get the Board of Governors to amend its rules for minimum requirements for owning a team. Oh, and ATB had to agree to a delayed payment of the remaining purchase price, where Alexander was ready to cut a check for it on a moment's notice.

Bettman and the NHL can't make a team stay in a market where there's no arena available and no owner who wants to be there. That's what was in place with Alexander and Edmonton, that's what was in place with ASG and Atlanta. Meruelo wants to be in Arizona, the league is giving him a chance to get his shit together for it, but the current situation isn't going to last forever and I think we're very near the end game either way.

As a fan who nearly lost their team and has seen 2 other Canadian teams relocate..I see a double stanard being put in place here.

As a fan who's seen an American team relocated to Canada, ..... wait, I bet that's different.

 

[Dirty Old Man]

Where were they gonna move? I don't remember this story, although sometimes it's hard to keep track of all the "close calls" that have happened with regards to relocation.

Also, goddamn you're almost at 100k posts!

People just feel it's their duty to come on here every so often and whine about this subject. Even for over a dozen years after some places that lost teams got new ones. Just laugh at them and move on.

 

[Jets]

It sure would be something that a franchise that has used up more than its 9 lives and is playing out of a university-sized arena would all of a sudden have one of the best arena districts in the entire league (based on the renderings).

I'm not the least bit convinced this will come to fruition. But if this plan too falls through, then something has to (finally?) give.

While true, I think we've seen about a dozen new Arizona arena renderings in the past decade, none of which have come to fruition

 

[FriendlyGhost92]

The whole district looks nice, if they could even do half that. Still a long way to go, but I hope things start falling into place for the Yotes.

The district is normally a bunch of bullshit to sell the government on financing their arena lol.

 

[hangman005]

The district is normally a bunch of bullshit to sell the government on financing their arena lol.

Look the entertainment district Vegas built around their arena.... so ahead of the game, they built the district first.

 

[Lazlo Hollyfeld]

I've seen this episode before...

Expectation:

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Reality:

Yup.

The billionaire bait and switch arena deal!

Making even more money off the backs of local taxpayers and pretending they're doing a great thing for the city.

 

[12ozPapa]

So over this team being in AZ. Sorry to the fans, but just give it up. Even IF they get a new arena, they won’t sell out or anything

 

[Tryamw]

Never give up. Never surrender. Don't let your dreams be dreams.

Instead let them be Nightmares..
Sorry Arizona hockey fans you all deserve better.

 

[Yukon Joe]

The league could've taken ownership of the Jets, for let's say...4 years, until the new arena would've been built.

YOu don't have to go that far - the league could have brought in the Canadian Assistance Plan a few years earlier.

 

[SupremeTeam16]

What was the issue with the Glendale rink? I know there was some bad blood between the team and the city but with the situation so dire couldn’t they try and work something out with Glendale so they can actually play in a suitable arena?

I may be misremembering but I seem to recall that the arenas location was one of the reason given for poor attendance as it was a bit out of the way but it’s right next to the Cardinals stadium so that seems like strange reasoning, and wouldnt this new potential arena location be even further out of the way then the Glendale location?

 

[BiolaRunner]

What was the issue with the Glendale rink? I know there was some bad blood between the team and the city but with the situation so dire couldn’t they try and work something out with Glendale so they can actually play in a suitable arena?

I may be misremembering but I seem to recall that the arenas location was one of the reason given for poor attendance as it was a bit out of the way but it’s right next to the Cardinals stadium so that seems like strange reasoning, and wouldnt this new potential arena location be even further out of the way then the Glendale location?

If I recall correctly, when the lease was up on Gila River Arena, the city of Glendale, knowing the Yotes wanted to move to Tempe, only offered a 20 year lease.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

What was the issue with the Glendale rink? I know there was some bad blood between the team and the city but with the situation so dire couldn’t they try and work something out with Glendale so they can actually play in a suitable arena?

The official statement:

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.

More accurate reason: the Coyotes repeatedly delaying making payments to Glendale [referenced middle bottom of the linked article] and the city finally said "we're done with this shit."