Phoenix CIII: Sue Me, Sue You Blues

[XX]

So there we have it. Awful doesn't live in Glendale, couldn't care less what happens to the city but expects Glendale to subsidize his entertainment through the exorbitant AMF. And because the COG finally came to its collective senses, they're the bad guys.....

Nobody that cares about the Coyotes asked for them to move to Glendale. The plan - the good one - was to be in Scottsdale. I don't care what happens to Glendale either, because the Coyotes are a tremendously small portion of the budget. If they go under, it won't be because of the team.

 

[knorthern knight]

Since you seem to be a fan of the Jets, you of all should be on our side more than other people.

This is the BUSINESS forum, not a fan forum. We try to talk cold hard facts here, rather than being cheerleaders. Jets 1.0 left Winnipeg because

• they had an ancient arena with virtually no luxury suites
• no share of the concession or parking or concert revenues
• the Canadian dollar was cratering
• there was no salary cap
• city council did not want to build a new arena

Cold hard fact. There was no business case for Jets 1.0 coming anywhere near breaking even in 1996, even with 100% attendance. Jets 1.0 had to go elsewhere.

We were not the worst in the league at the gate.

Are you talking attendance, or revenue? Revenue is the important number. What are ticket prices like, compared to Canadian teams?

And if this was the NFL, our 77%+ attendance would not be an issue.

Oink, oink, flap, flap... and if pigs had wings, they could fly. This is not the NFL. The NHL is still a strongly gate-driven league. NHL TV revenue is nowhere near the NFL's TV revenue. 77.9 percent in the NHL is disastrous, 28th in the league, beating only Carolina (67.4) and Florida (66.1).

Cold hard facts. Even with a new arena, with concert and concession and luxury suite revenue streams, and a sweetheart AMF bordering on outright charity, the Coyotes are massively bleeding red ink. And the COG is bleeding with them. It's so bad that not only are the Coyotes not viable in Glendale, but Glendale isn't viable with the Coyotes,

Just like 20 years ago in Winnipeg, this franchise is not viable, from a business point of view, in Glendale, and moving elsewhere is the only realistic solution.

 

[JimAnchower]

This is the link to kdb209's original post...

Not sure it has been posted, but for completion's sake, 2014 numbers are out. GRA is #148 with 76,906.

http://www.pollstarpro.com/files/charts2014/2014YearEndWorldwideTicketSalesTop200ArenaVenues.pdf

 

[XX]

This is the BUSINESS forum, not a fan forum. We try to talk cold hard facts here, rather than being cheerleaders.

I see more hand–wringing about the morality of the situation or the plight of those poor Glendale taxpayers from foreigners who will never spend a dime there than I do actual analysis of the case. It makes the threads hard to read.

 

[Llama19]

This is the BUSINESS forum, not a fan forum. We try to talk cold hard facts here, rather than being cheerleaders. Jets 1.0 left Winnipeg because

• they had an ancient arena with virtually no luxury suites
• no share of the concession or parking or concert revenues
• the Canadian dollar was cratering
• there was no salary cap
• city council did not want to build a new arena

Cold hard fact. There was no business case for Jets 1.0 coming anywhere near breaking even in 1996, even with 100% attendance. Jets 1.0 had to go elsewhere.


Are you talking attendance, or revenue? Revenue is the important number. What are ticket prices like, compared to Canadian teams?


Oink, oink, flap, flap... and if pigs had wings, they could fly. This is not the NFL. The NHL is still a strongly gate-driven league. NHL TV revenue is nowhere near the NFL's TV revenue. 77.9 percent in the NHL is disastrous, 28th in the league, beating only Carolina (67.4) and Florida (66.1).

Cold hard facts. Even with a new arena, with concert and concession and luxury suite revenue streams, and a sweetheart AMF bordering on outright charity, the Coyotes are massively bleeding red ink. And the COG is bleeding with them. It's so bad that not only are the Coyotes not viable in Glendale, but Glendale isn't viable with the Coyotes,

Just like 20 years ago in Winnipeg, this franchise is not viable, from a business point of view, in Glendale, and moving elsewhere is the only realistic solution.

Good stuff, and got that down cold on the hard business facts, too...

 

[Killion]

I see more hand–wringing about the morality of the situation or the plight of those poor Glendale taxpayers from foreigners who will never spend a dime there than I do actual analysis of the case. It makes the threads hard to read.

Its a mix of objective analysis with some subjectivity & yes a bit of pontificating. Thats allowed. We here Moderating try to do our best to keep it as fair & as balanced as possible without engaging in outright censorship. No easy task at times XX.

 

[Fugu]

I totally agree. Where there's a will, there's a way and IA clearly clearly isn't very interested in booking non-hockey events. That's where Glendale made a critical error in 2013. By not including any sort performance clause in the lease, Glendale left themselves vulnerable to the whims of a less than motivated IA. By tying the AMF to the number of events held, they could've kept the Coyotes and maximized the arena on non-game nights.

I'm not sure we can really say this is the case. They also make money if they get more events into the arena. As some stated when IA was given the AMF, it went to a group with zero experience in running a major arena in the US, and also to one with no experience in running pro sports franchises.

In this sense, an owner like Reinsdorf would have been a far, far better option.

I see more hand–wringing about the morality of the situation or the plight of those poor Glendale taxpayers from foreigners who will never spend a dime there than I do actual analysis of the case. It makes the threads hard to read.

I think we see the things that irk us more than the other types of posts. I enjoy the posts with numbers, analysis, legal input, etc. When I want to be a fan, I go over to the Detroit forum.

 

[Jeffrey93]

I see more hand–wringing about the morality of the situation or the plight of those poor Glendale taxpayers from foreigners who will never spend a dime there than I do actual analysis of the case. It makes the threads hard to read.

Defending the taxpayer in a business forum is a bit different than liking the Coyotes and therefore defending them remaining in Glendale, for no real business/financial reasoning other than 'I like the team, I live here.'

 

[Govment Cheese]

Detroit is bankrupt, but nobody is batting an eye at the fact that the pubic is paying for a huge portion of their new arena. Why is everyone so concerned with the COG?

Apples to oranges comparison. The City of Detroit really wants the river front property that Joe Lewis arena currently sits for another project. But they can't get the property until the Red Wings find a new home. One has to be built for them if they are to stay within city limits. City gets the land, Wings get new arena.

Glendale is flying solo. Detroit Arena funding is split between the State, DDA and Olympia Development of Michigan.

http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20140921/NEWS/309219990/on-cost-financing-of-wings-arena-here-are-answers

 

[Jeffrey93]

Not sure it has been posted, but for completion's sake, 2014 numbers are out. GRA is #148 with 76,906.

http://www.pollstarpro.com/files/charts2014/2014YearEndWorldwideTicketSalesTop200ArenaVenues.pdf

What all does this include? Concerts only? Or concerts and things like Disney on Ice, Monster Truck, etc.?

 

[Evil Doctor]

This is the link to kdb209's original post...

Good find! There's even an aspect to it I hadn't noticed before, Jobing was out performing US Airways until the NHL took over and then bookings at US Airways suddenly skyrocketed, obviously because acts that normally would gone to Jobing went to America West instead.

It's almost as if the NHL was trying to intentionally destroy the City of Glendale...

 

[Jeffrey93]

Good find! There's even an aspect to it I hadn't noticed before, Jobing was out performing America West until the NHL took over and then bookings at America West suddenly skyrocketed, obviously because acts that normally would gone to Jobing went to America West instead.

It's almost as if the NHL was trying to intentionally destroy the City of Glendale...

Could there be any other cause for this? Improvements at US Airways? Some financial aspect? Or is it purely the NHL aspect?

 

[Fugu]

Detroit is bankrupt, but nobody is batting an eye at the fact that the pubic is paying for a huge portion of their new arena. Why is everyone so concerned with the COG?

Good to see you posting here, waffles. I'll add my two cents (or more like 20 bucks) at the bottom.

That's not true. Detroit got raked for that decision. Tons of media attention like this:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...res-get-hockey-arena-as-bankrupt-city-suffers

Waffle means here, SunDancer

No general fund city tax dollars are going to that arena.

Also, giving up the land Joe Louis is on was part of their bankruptcy settlement. Got them off the hook for a pile of debt, developer has a limited time frame to develop it after the Joe is gone or the debt remains gone and the city gets the real estate back to sell/use.

A lot of the tax dollars being used for this are part of a downtown development tax that requires they be spent on projects just like this.

Detroit isn't paying for any of the arena, unless you consider a pre-existing state created authority using corporate taxes collected from a small patch of downtown paying down state issued bonds funding the arena.

The city of Detroit is forgoing tax intake that it was going to forgo anyway, not just giving out millions of dollars. It's a disingenuous comparison

What the hell is the difference? Detroit is in much more turmoil than Glendale is. Yet there isn't a peep about the need for more money for police officers in Detroit. I think everyone would agree it's safer to live in Glendale than Detroit, yet everyone is so concerned about the funds for police and fire in Glendale.....

For the record, I don't live in Glendale. I couldn't care less what happened to that city. I don't live there, and never will. It's personal choice on where you want to live. But the fact that this forum is so hell bent on the Coyotes moving because they don't sell out every game is ludicrous.

Also given that hockey is very popular in Detroit we know that it will bring people for sure. At the very least enough people like hockey its an amenity people enjoy.

Mostly aimed at waffles, but there was quite a bit of discussion, and several Wings fans here voiced their disapproval over the use of state tax dollars for the partial financing of the new arena.

The city of Detroit did ask for some guarantees, like a set percentage of construction jobs going to Detroit residents-- keeping in mind that Detroit isn't actually paying for the arena. As others have pointed out, it's private + public (state development money earmarked for the city). Sure. some people asked why not give that money to the school system, etc.

This also is one case where almost all the fans are coming from outside Detroit and spending money and contributing taxes that will stay in Detroit. They don't foot the bill, but they will reap the benefits from the arena and other facilities/amenities being added.

The better question then is why is the state of Michigan willing to fund part of the arena? I think they justified it as a means to drive money into Detroit as well. Nevertheless, I don't like public money going to sports facilities. I think the billionaire owners of the majority of major US pro teams can afford it.

(And to address the bankruptcy of Detroit gets into decades of politics and corruption by its own government. No one wants to give the city money because it's not going to end up helping the citizens.)

 

[OthmarAmmann]

Why would they? We are a top 15 market with TV households. NHL already lost Atlanta. Think logically for a few minutes. The end goal is a big US TV contract. Yes, the NHL is a gate driven league now, but come negotiation time for a new TV contract, that hopefully isn't the case and these threads are a thing of the past.

Maybe you should think logically for a few minutes?

What is the incremental benefit that the NHL could reasonably expect at the next renewal? What is the increase in the value of the contract with and without the marginal increase in viewership due to the Coyotes? What is the cost of that incremental pick up vis a vis the Phoenix franchise?

 

[OthmarAmmann]

Give me a Fax of Dreams, Motor City, or I'm changing the channel.

Or three hours of public comments from subsidists at a public meeting?

 

[Evil Doctor]

Not sure it has been posted, but for completion's sake, 2014 numbers are out. GRA is #148 with 76,906.

http://www.pollstarpro.com/files/charts2014/2014YearEndWorldwideTicketSalesTop200ArenaVenues.pdf

Gee, all the bookings for First Ontario must have happened in the first quarter. To slip from 59th and finish 132nd....

Anyway, topic wise it was a slight improvement from where it was for GRA, I remember seeing some nice graphs last week I think that showed that non-hockey events were up while the hockey portion was down...

 

[OthmarAmmann]

Now I recall kdb (I believe) Pollstar rankings that showed how the GRA fared pre-bankruptcy and post-bankruptcy that showed the arena at one time was a top draw and I believe ranked ahead of America West. After the NHL took over, non-hockey bookings cratered. Now if an arena that is some 20 years older can bounce back, so can Glendale's arena.

This is the link to kdb209's original post...

This makes it pretty clear the the NHL isn't committed to the market... They are committed to not moving the franchise and the resulting appearance of instability. If they were committed to the market they wouldn't have a cap floor team with 8 digit loses and an empty venue.

 

[Tom ServoMST3K]

If Detroit had a saga that started in 2008, and had as many hilarious and ridiculous moments as Glendale, then you can compare the situations on the HF business of hockey forum.

Where is the last second deals, where is the cavalcade of potential owners, all of them terrible, where are the owners throwing a hissy fit on twitter, where are the schemes to buy parking you already own, where are the faxes, cupcakes and blackberries?

They're in glendale, not Detroit

 

[Brodie]

Can't a U.S. network forgo the tiny number of eyeballs that watch the NHL in markets like Phoenix and Miami? Surely they'd be aware that almost no one is watching hockey there.

the thing is the people in those markets who are watching would still watch. they're not tune in to NBC for Panthers games or Coyotes games. people from Miami and Phoenix watch the NHL on NBC, but they do it to see the Rangers for the Blackhawks.

The NHL never needed a national footprint so much as they needed good teams in big markets where hockey was a thing.

 

[CasualFan]

Defending the taxpayer in a business forum is a bit different than liking the Coyotes and therefore defending them remaining in Glendale, for no real business/financial reasoning other than 'I like the team, I live here.'

Defending the taxpayer? The taxpayers posses numerous mechanisms to exercise their will. I really, really doubt theres any defense to be mounted on their behalf on a message board. Sorry, all out of ooey gooey cupcakes here.

I'm hypercritical of the city staff but it's not in defense of some resident I've never met; don't care about; who already has every opportunity to defend him or herself if they feel disenfranchised. I'm critical of Beasley, Tindall, et al because they took an oath that included a fiduciary duty to the city. Their actions on this matter, fully documented in various courts of law, are a direct assault on the very concepts of loyalty and care that, as fiduciaries, they swore to uphold. I will not hesitate to speak to that injustice.

 

[CasualFan]

Maybe you should think logically for a few minutes?

What is the incremental benefit that the NHL could reasonably expect at the next renewal? What is the increase in the value of the contract with and without the marginal increase in viewership due to the Coyotes? What is the cost of that incremental pick up vis a vis the Phoenix franchise?

If you can get "Glendale pays" into a few of those cells, Gary and Bill will like your presentation a whole lot more.

 

[Jeffrey93]

Defending the taxpayer? The taxpayers posses numerous mechanisms to exercise their will. I really, really doubt theres any defense to be mounted on their behalf on a message board. Sorry, all out of ooey gooey cupcakes here.

I'm hypercritical of the city staff but it's not in defense of some resident I've never met; don't care about; who already has every opportunity to defend him or herself if they feel disenfranchised. I'm critical of Beasley, Tindall, et al because they took an oath that included a fiduciary duty to the city. Their actions on this matter, fully documented in various courts of law, are a direct assault on the very concepts of loyalty and care that, as fiduciaries, they swore to uphold. I will not hesitate to speak to that injustice.

So.....it's not defending the taxpayer....but it's holding city staff accountable for an injustice they carried out?

That's the same thing to me.

 

[berklon]

Good find! There's even an aspect to it I hadn't noticed before, Jobing was out performing US Airways until the NHL took over and then bookings at US Airways suddenly skyrocketed, obviously because acts that normally would gone to Jobing went to America West instead.

It's almost as if the NHL was trying to intentionally destroy the City of Glendale...

It almost seems like the NHL were trying to sabotage other events in order to make Glendale more dependant on the Coyotes 41 dates to fill the seats and generate traffic at Westgate... ie. "Jobing will be boarded up and Westgate will be overrun by rolling tumbleweed if the Coyotes left! Good thing you agreed to this subsidy!".

 

[Jeffrey93]

If Detroit had a saga that started in 2008, and had as many hilarious and ridiculous moments as Glendale, then you can compare the situations on the HF business of hockey forum.

Where is the last second deals, where is the cavalcade of potential owners, all of them terrible, where are the owners throwing a hissy fit on twitter, where are the schemes to buy parking you already own, where are the faxes, cupcakes and blackberries?

They're in glendale, not Detroit

The parking thing.....that was great.

 

[Melrose Munch]

the thing is the people in those markets who are watching would still watch. they're not tune in to NBC for Panthers games or Coyotes games. people from Miami and Phoenix watch the NHL on NBC, but they do it to see the Rangers for the Blackhawks.

The NHL never needed a national footprint so much as they needed good teams in big markets where hockey was a thing.

Then why do we have a cap to restrict the big markets from winning? Seeming the MLB is doing just fine without one - oh wait. The NHL didn't develop these markets and then get a huge TV contract like they were supposed to. The MLB doesn't need a cap because they decided being a gate league wasn't working 40 years ago.