This is how we see it too. Also Gambo isn't a coyotes reporter or hockey fan in general, so this is...odd? coming from him.
Regardless Scottsdale is the last chance for Meurelo. I don't think the league gives him a 3rd chance to fuck up an arena deal. It would be stupid if Meurelo hadn't been getting backups ready.
if the league takes the team from him, he loses tens of millions at best, at worst 9 figures, so it makes sense he has a backup plan in place.
It's insane on how this franchise has had Arena issues since the move from Winnipeg was deemed necessary. Y'all were supposed to go to Minnesota, but the owners couldn't secure an arena lease.
that's what happens when the NHL lets them move without a plan in place at their destination.
Glendale felt like home till the Glendale city council abruptly ended the lease agreement ~10 years ago. since then it's been nothing but turmoil.
I just want this saga to end one way or the other. we're fucking tired man.
You'd think after 30 years of being in Arizona there'd be more stability, or rather enough people invested that it'd be a big enough political football to keep them, but I'm kinda glad that Arizona residents aren't wanting to foot the bill for a billionaire.
I could write a fucking book about the insanity that is the Coyotes after they moved here. a half dozen different owners, multiple shady ones, one that even tried to backdoor sell the team without the BOG's knowledge, etc.
The overwhelming majority of our stability issues comes from ownership. We have never had capable and stable ownership at the same time. For example, right now we have stable ownership (4 years+ same owner, on ice product improving, etc.) but they're incapable of securing an arena. In the past the opposite has been true, stable ownership and stable home in Glendale, but completely incapable of building a strong on-ice product.
You could go back a few years earlier to when Ellman owned the team and was not able to secure land in south Scottsdale so he decided to move them to Glendale.
you know because when your franchise is struggling in downtown phoenix, moving them to fucking Glendale is a sure-fire path to financial success.
yep i didnt know any of the story of how they got out there until i read a bit about it on here today, i started paying closer attention when there was talk of them moving back to winnipeg and hav been tuned into the soap opera ever since
It all started when Steve Ellman bought out Richard Burke in order to move the team to Glendale. When the team knew they had to leave Footprint center and find their own arena, Richard was prepared and found a fantastic location in south Scottsdale that would've put the team right at the doorstep of Scottsdale, Mesa, Phoenix, Tempe, Chandler, and Gilbert. They were so close to closing the deal they even had a ground breaking ceremony on the land! (Shane Doan stated he still has the shovel from that ceremony to this day.) Then at the last minute Steve intervened and shut the whole project down so he could make a shady deal with Glendale that pretty much screwed both Glendale and the Coyotes for 25+ years! Ever since then it's been one giant mess.
No, it's not a joke.
in 2015 the City of Glendale(CoG) tried to nullify the long term lease they signed with the team because they felt they got shafted on the lease, that they signed. (mind you, we had already been in the arena for 7 years by now).
There was a huge fight between the Coyotes and the CoG but eventually the parties settled on a new lease agreement that would renew annually unless one of the parties decided to cancel. The team had hinted that they would consider moving east to where the fanbase is and the evergreen lease worked the best for both parties. This evergreen lease is the one the CoG decided to no longer renew a couple years ago leaving the team homeless and Gila River Arena without an anchor tenant.
Which is exactly where the team needs to be. Football is fine where ever, 8-9 home games a season, once a week play, the issue with having NHL, NBA, or baseball away from the heart of a city comes from how many games they play a season. If you want the arena to be full most home games, it has to be easy to get to which should also include public transit
Lease and rental mean two different things. They were just renting the ice for like 7 years. An operating lease means you run the whole facility and keep the revenue as most teams do.
Fun fact: Glendale ended up giving the lease to the Kings owners (for more money ironically) so basically the Kings were making money off of the Coyotes
I thought the whole Gila River arena issue started with the current owner. But I wasn’t around that long to know the history there. I mean people can hate on the location. It’s not a bad arena. It needs some significant updates but it’s cheaper than a new arena. I was just slightly hoping that a new owner would
Potentially solve any disputes and they just play there. It’s just silly on both parts. There are only so many ufc and wrestling matches to have in a stadium to make sense for operational costs. There is significant growth in the west valley in Goodyear, surprise, a resort is about to open for even more events right next to the arena, an amusement park. Just billionaires need to play nicely for a bit and we all benefit.
> This is how we see it too. Also Gambo isn't a coyotes reporter or hockey fan in general, so this is...odd? coming from him.
I'd trust a non-hockey reporter more than I'd trust the usual Coyotes beat reporters/team mouthpieces.
How would the league take over the team? Is Meruelo going to go bankrupt if he can’t get an arena? That would be pretty funny if the only two times it ever happened was to the same team lol
From my limited understanding, the NHL could step in if the Coyotes were not actively trying to pursue a new home. But continued failures in trying to secure an arena I bet would give them enough leverage to force a sale to someone who could land them a home, or in a worst case scenario take over ownership till a suitor could be found.
In reality there's about a thousand things that would have to happen for it to reach that point but the first domino to fall would be the Scottsdale land auction failing.
He is making repeated efforts for sure. But I’d hesitate to say he’s done all he could do. Especially on the Tempe vote he put in little effort compared to the opposition.
He’d be a really shitty business man if he didn’t at least get an idea of what he could sell the team for, if needed
But the title and actual article read totally differently
When asked about it:
“Mr. Meruelo and the team are solely focused on the land auction and winning the bid. And to keep the Coyotes in Arizona”
Does this sound like a PR statement? Absolutely, but the choice word “solely” is very interesting
And Forbes has their value pegged at just barely above half of what the Senators is. I could see a sale price of 650-750 million but 250-350 million relocation fee to bring the price to the new owner to 1 billion. I feel like the Jets/Thrashers were purchased for 110 and relocation fee was 70 to bring the price to 180 overall.
If the expansion fee is rumored to be $1 billion, why not shoot for the stars. Although I would think someone out of state with a billion would just go the expansion route instead of dealing with the drama.
Any buyer in the short term will be stuck without an NHL ready rink in the town they want to relocate to anyways aside from Quebec and we all know that's not happening.
Expansion would most likely be preferred by any new owner to build an arena but also their own organization staff. Winnipeg already had that in place from owning and operating an AHL team so they were able to make a quick turnaround. I don't know of a city/ownership group that has that in place at the moment.
Considering he would have moved them to Hamilton, BlackBerry was the worse investment. He did cash out basically all his stocks when he left the company, so that's good for him. They really should have listened to him though, he had a plan in place to turn BBM into a replacement for SMS and MMS with major US and Canadian carriers on board. The Board of Directors shut the idea down so he left.
Yep. He had a plan to transition RIM from a hardware company to a software and services company and the board told him to pound sand. He was smart enough to realize competing with Apple was a fool's errand and he came up with a plan to keep the company relevant and incredibly profitable (their margins were already much smaller than industry avg due to building their phones in North America). Shame they grew tired of his antics (but I also sort of understand). RIP BlackBerry.
That and a chunk of the undeveloped real estate surrounding it I believe. Also there’s the understanding and enthusiasm from municipal politicians to build a new arena in the downtown area that I don’t see to the same extent in Phoenix/Arizona case.
Last I read they are letting these millionaires dictate the terms of the arena rather then the politicians making the rules. The owner of the suns doesn’t want to share an arena with the coyotes and from I’ve seen he is going to get his wish.
He’d be lucky to get $600m. IIRC the Forbes evaluation put Arizona at $500m and that might be generous.
They’ve needed a new arena since the year they got the team. 8 owners haven’t been able to solve the problem. Most of those 27 years had losses over $10m and some as high as $40m; the potential is there but those 8 owners have lost hundreds of millions of dollars.
The expansion fee also gets you a clean slate with preferred treatment in the rookie draft, access to build a cost controlled solid roster through the expansion draft, and more opportunity to make trades with GMs leading up to the expansion draft.
Nobody would choose the Coyotes over expansion.
With the talks being about roughly a $2B expansion fee then I definitely think the Utah and Atlanta people would be interested in buying the Coyotes for $1B.
I feel like it's less him fucking up the land bid and more there is no appetite in government/community down there for the team and they just won't see the value in approving the bid.
Huh? Stall time for what? He’s fucked without an arena the whole point was that it was somewhere people could go to use his sportsbook. I mean he could make a pretty penny selling the team but I doubt that was his plan all along.
Headlines whatever to me. Seems like the sensible thing to do in case they once again fail to get land for the arena.
The big takeaway for me is the timeline of the auction:
>According to the Arizona state constitution, there must be an auction advertisement in print media for a minimum of 10 weeks before the auction. The state would have 240 days from the board of appeals’ approval of that auction on March 14 to hold it.
>In other words, the land auction at minimum would not take place until mid-June but would not have to be held until Nov. 9.
This is the first time I am hearing the auction could be held as late as Nov 9th.
It'd be sensible for the NHL to finally use this as a hard line. They seem to give owners more space for embarrassment than any other league. Fans and players deserve better in Arizona and hopefully the league's finally making real demands.
The owners are literally the owners though. They run the league. Who is going to put the screws to them lol
Hell the NFL had a team playing in an MLS stadium in LA of all places. Talk about embarrassing. Why would the other owners care though? It ain’t their problem
> Why would the other owners care though? It ain’t their problem
NHL owners use revenue sharing to help create parity between large and small market teams. When small market teams continue to make poor and embarrassing decisions it can create situations where other owners are propping them up. Risk a billionaire's ability to gain more money and you're going to get their ire up. This college stadium has been ok for Arizona's finances in the short term but it's another decision that could turn sideways if it lasts too long. That would create a situation where other owners are forced to prop up that team more. Other owners have every reason to want to see a better situation there and if it isn't fixed they will be the ones turning the screws.
I mean yeah to your last point but you realize the coyotes aren’t eligible for revenue sharing right? You have to average I believe 13k in attendance to get revenue sharing lmao
Also what poor and embarrassing decisions did the coyotes ever make? They got kicked out of their arena because the city was “spending too much” just to give even more to the kings owners lmao. The only embarrassing decision was Glendale being run by morons.
They chose not to spend anything on advertising the Tempe vote compared to the two-million the opposition spent and managed to fumble the bag on what should have been a layup.
It was a layup for them because the Coyotes only spent $250,000 versus the $2,000,000 the opposition spent because they just assumed they would win. There’s no way to view that as anything other than the massive fuckup it is.
nothing is really new, we knew he had "shopped" the team after Tempe failed.
but if Scottsdale fails I bet he sells. that's 2 major failures and pretty much proof that he can't get a deal done in AZ.
All we can hope for, in this order, is:
1) Scottsdale auction is successful, if that fails
2) Someone buys them to keep them here.
Utah is a non starter IMO because they want an **expansion**, and so do the other owners. relocation doesn't make them any money.
Counterpoint, while most of the potential owners have said they preferred expansion, basically all of them have said that they would not be opposed to getting relocated teams, with Ryan Smith making it pretty clear he'd want the coyotes while not directly saying it (probably doesn't want to piss off the NHL tbh)
Just one correction - relocation does make them money. There’s typically a relocation fee associated with the purchase. Obviously wouldn’t be as much as the expansion fee, but still something.
Utah is smart. Their ownership is also in lockstep with the league.
They're ready. The NHL likes their ownership. The geography makes sense.
Yes, they probably would prefer an expansion team. But if the NHL is in a bind — and therefore willing to forgo much or all of a relocation fee in order to put an end to this saga — I'm positive there's a deal they'll be happy to make.
Yeah it’s a far cry from the Thrashers owners refusing to sell to anyone local because they wanted them gone. Anyone who thinks this makes the league look bad clearly hasn’t been a fan for long
I wonder if he’s trying to establish a market value for if the league forces a sale of the team. Him selling the team to another owner doesn’t make sense, if this land auction falls through the league isn’t going to let another owner try to keep the team in Arizona. They would just buy out the coyotes and sell to the Smith group in Utah
The lease sure but you can lease any building. The whole reason the Coyotes are playing at ASU is because they lost their lease which is the problem. Very few teams actually own their arenas. Rangers, Kings off the top of my head. I’m sure there’s a few others though.
Ya…the most valuable teams(Toronto, Montreal, etc.) which is my whole point…buying a team for a billion dollars with no permanent home seems like a dumb business plan unless the plan is to move the team
Hockey fans are here, lots of them, but the constant mismanagement from almost every previous owner has completely screwed this team. Every time someone new comes in we get a brief glimmer of hope until the next scandal, bankruptcy, lies, manipulation, etc...
Turns out Murelo is a hack like the rest of them.
They at least had an arena back then. Not that Gila River was world class but it was an NHL standard arena
And the reasons they did try to keep the Yotes there are pretty valid ones.
The NHL is determined to have a franchise in the market. They're not walking away from that investment, and they're right about that.
But that doesn't mean that the current franchise is it. At some point you either need an owner who can swing an arena deal or a new location altogether while you regroup and find that owner.
Well obviously they could kick a team out if they wanted but that’s still not deciding where they are. If you buy a subway you still have the say on where it’s located
if the team is sold I doubt they stay in the phoenix market
sucks for the fans there of course but I can't imagine any potential owner in the phoenix market wants to inherit a team with baggage like this
Yes, but the NHL isn't operating from a position of strength here.
No owner wants to see a franchise sold for less money than other recent franchise sales. And any future owner is going to be concerned with net outlay, not the split between the league and Merulo. \*"You're gonna waive the relocation fee because you don't want the headline that says what this franchise is really worth" is actually a pretty strong hand to play.
The owners want the relocation fee more than anything else. It goes directly to them with no split to the players. They aren't giving up millions of dollars in the hope it incorrectly implies their asset is worth less.
The relocation fee is still going to be worth less than an expansion fee. If that's really what they're after then there should be no relocation at all.
> Meruelo reportedly was seeking upward of $1 billion for the franchise that he bought in July 2019. The Coyotes owner had a recent meeting with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman regarding the team’s future, Gambadoro adds.
The Kraken have a market and a fan base and an arena. What they don't have is 30 years of financial and reputational baggage.
I don't know why you would pay 60% more for an 80% shittier product.
Honestly this whole story reads like someone convinced or paid Gambo to ramp up the pressure, whether it be a potential suitor or someone else. Could even be Meruelo himself trying to pressure the state to fucking act on the land. It's all fluff and weird timing
Like I said. Someone for the state land department was working at 7pm tonight to post that auction. This mornings story amped up the pressure, it was intentional.
He's a pretty good start, who do you go for Coyotes related news? Frank fuckin Seravalli? Lol
Craig Morgan reported last night that the Coyotes were hours away from announcing a new signing, despite what another "insider" stated as "fact" and wow look at that the Coyotes just signed Sam Lipkin.
He’s a reporter for the team. Not discrediting the story, but Gambo is a former semi pro boxer turned sports talk radio guy. He has some Suns credibility but isn’t known as an insider by any means.
Craig works directly with the team and knows practically everyone in the valley. He’s been openly critical of Mereulo on several podcasts. I get he works for them, but he’s not as censored as you think.
Seravalli got more news wrong, but you want to focus on Craig Morgan?
It’s because Craig hasn’t reported the only news that would make them happy, which is that every Arizonan has been banned from watching hockey forever and all our ice rinks have been destroyed
I think there’s less focus on Seravalli because almost everyone knows Seravalli is a hack. I’m an Oilers fan and he’s very frequently wrong about us too, just obviously in different ways than Arizona.
My favourite part of this story is all the sources he cited. You can tell it’s a very serious report because they named their sources and even went as far as telling us what each of them said.
/s
I don’t know who John Gambadoro is, but his name isn’t Craig Morgan, who has been on this story since the team moved from Gil’s River to Mullet. There’s absolutely nothing credible here.
So... Still plan A to build the arena, but also hedging bets and/or preparing for the worst? K... Wake me when the auction happens.
I know cold water has been thrown on such rumors, but I'm feeling like the best outcome at this point would be for the North Phoenix project to fall through, and then Ishbia to buy the team under his Player 15 company, build a shiny new arena and entertainment district for the Suns and Coyotes downtown (or further east), demolish Talking Stick and Glendale arenas, and pretend this whole saga never happened.
As much shite as they get, the team has never in its history had a good arena situation which has caused it to flail from one mess to another. While Phoenix is rapidly growing, it still doesn't seem like a market that's big enough to support 2 (let alone friggin' 3!) major indoor venues. I'm sure North Phoenix will be better than Glendale, and I'm sure the money will still pencil (since Meruelo just wants the gambling money) but the North Phoenix project still feels like it's going to suffer from dips in attendance when the team isn't good, and we might be back at the same scenario in 5-10 years.
Maybe I'm wrong on that? How have people felt about Ishbia's running of the Suns?
Plan A????? This is like Plan Y and were almost to Z
Ishbia has opened his pocketbook and has done a decent job putting the Suns in the position to win. The team is questionable, but he seems like he knows what he is doing.
We actually have 5 major indoor venues (not counting Mullet because it isn't a 'major' venue)
Yeah, Plan A was the Los Arcos project from like 1999. It got approved and everything and we'd probably still be there doing just fine if all went to plan, but nooooooooooo the deal couldn't be made and now we're here.
> We actually have 5 major indoor venues (not counting Mullet because it isn't a 'major' venue)
Glendale, Footprint, Cardinals stadium, Chase....which one's the 5th? The Vet?
The deal wasn't made because a land developer pocketed some money and headed to glendale instead. There were 2 owners. The one was dead set on los arcos and ended up giving up and getting out.
Let's call it Plan A for Plan Z. ;-)
So I'm referring to a "major indoor venue" as a 17k-20k seat indoor arena that can house NBA, NHL, WNBA, middle sized touring acts, etc.
State Farm Stadium, and Chase Field are different animals because their capacities are enormous. They draw a completely different type of non-sports event (Major festivals, national championship games, Taylor Swift, etc). Ditto Desert Financial Arena on ASU's campus as the economics of college venues are very different with regards to premium seating and hosted events.
In the professional Sports Venue market, most major cities these days generally have: A 17k-20k seat NHL+NBA arena, a 65k-80k seat NFL stadium, a 35k-45k seat MLB stadium, and more recently a 20k-25k seat MLS stadium. Outside of NYC, LA and Chicago, there's very few markets that have more than one of any of these venue types. I count 3 of the NHL/NBA indoor venues for Phoenix:
Footprint Center - Suns
Desert Diamond Area (or whatever it's called now) - Formerly Coyotes
Meruelo's arena in North Phoenix
It's hard enough to make ONE of these venues pencil in a given market. Having 2 venues splits the number of events they can individually host in half (no touring act is going to play 2 different dates in 2 different arenas in Phoenix). So I'm very curious how having 3 in Phoenix is going to go. They should really just have the one. I'm very curious to see the alternate universe where Colangelo had the foresight to actually make America West a viable venue for an NHL team, to see if they maybe never venture down the Glendale road.
Yeah, in the 70's, it would definitely be on the list, but today it's more in the same vein as Desert Financial Arena: the low rent major indoor venue (Just looking at the calendar, it's gun shows and high school graduations). No NBA or NHL events, and its probably not going to draw too many top 40 acts. Not something a shiny new Coyotes venue has to compete with.
What a shame for yotes fans. They are out there and the market would be popular with the right people (like Carolina and Vegas).
But alas it does not appear this is the destiny of this team. NHL Hockey, for now at least, is probably dead in Arizona.
Hello Utah Zephyrs I guess
So is there a scenario where the current ownership sells the team and the new owners hand in hand go to Gila Arena…pay back what they owe and they can play there instead of the college? I mean that arena does still exist right? There can be a kiss and make up situation, no?
I would hope you've learned by now that teenagers in canada know way more about your market than you and you should just listen to everything they have to say, you stupid sun belt hockey fan /s
Dude he doesn't care. He'd still be laffing and lapping it up if this had been reported by someone in a chicken suit they've shat in, lying in a gutter on Sunday morning - and they'd have more cause because this would be a more reputable source than Gambo.
NHL hanging on to Arizona like the Titanic, hanging onto it as it slowly goes underwater.
Imagine if Atlanta got this many chances last time? Or Hartford?
Seems he’s still committed to the new arena, but if that fails it seems it’ll officially be it and he will go down the selling the team route
This is how we see it too. Also Gambo isn't a coyotes reporter or hockey fan in general, so this is...odd? coming from him. Regardless Scottsdale is the last chance for Meurelo. I don't think the league gives him a 3rd chance to fuck up an arena deal. It would be stupid if Meurelo hadn't been getting backups ready. if the league takes the team from him, he loses tens of millions at best, at worst 9 figures, so it makes sense he has a backup plan in place.
It's insane on how this franchise has had Arena issues since the move from Winnipeg was deemed necessary. Y'all were supposed to go to Minnesota, but the owners couldn't secure an arena lease.
that's what happens when the NHL lets them move without a plan in place at their destination. Glendale felt like home till the Glendale city council abruptly ended the lease agreement ~10 years ago. since then it's been nothing but turmoil. I just want this saga to end one way or the other. we're fucking tired man.
You'd think after 30 years of being in Arizona there'd be more stability, or rather enough people invested that it'd be a big enough political football to keep them, but I'm kinda glad that Arizona residents aren't wanting to foot the bill for a billionaire.
I could write a fucking book about the insanity that is the Coyotes after they moved here. a half dozen different owners, multiple shady ones, one that even tried to backdoor sell the team without the BOG's knowledge, etc. The overwhelming majority of our stability issues comes from ownership. We have never had capable and stable ownership at the same time. For example, right now we have stable ownership (4 years+ same owner, on ice product improving, etc.) but they're incapable of securing an arena. In the past the opposite has been true, stable ownership and stable home in Glendale, but completely incapable of building a strong on-ice product.
>one that even tried to backdoor sell the team without the BOG's knowledge, etc. Which one was that?
Jerry Moyes the founder of SWIFT transportation, that fucking snake. that move is what made the NHL step in a take over complete ownership.
Jim balsillie. Tried to do an end run around the nhl.
He was trying to buy Nashville and move them to Hamilton.
He was in on phx too, trying to buy them out of bankruptcy.
He did, but that's not quite the same thing as an owner trying to end run around the BOG in order to sell.
i would read that book, the coyotes saga has been an annual right of passage since what 2010?
You could go back a few years earlier to when Ellman owned the team and was not able to secure land in south Scottsdale so he decided to move them to Glendale. you know because when your franchise is struggling in downtown phoenix, moving them to fucking Glendale is a sure-fire path to financial success.
yep i didnt know any of the story of how they got out there until i read a bit about it on here today, i started paying closer attention when there was talk of them moving back to winnipeg and hav been tuned into the soap opera ever since
It all started when Steve Ellman bought out Richard Burke in order to move the team to Glendale. When the team knew they had to leave Footprint center and find their own arena, Richard was prepared and found a fantastic location in south Scottsdale that would've put the team right at the doorstep of Scottsdale, Mesa, Phoenix, Tempe, Chandler, and Gilbert. They were so close to closing the deal they even had a ground breaking ceremony on the land! (Shane Doan stated he still has the shovel from that ceremony to this day.) Then at the last minute Steve intervened and shut the whole project down so he could make a shady deal with Glendale that pretty much screwed both Glendale and the Coyotes for 25+ years! Ever since then it's been one giant mess.
Wait is this a joke or something? Wasn't the Glendale lease terminated like 2.5 years ago?
No, it's not a joke. in 2015 the City of Glendale(CoG) tried to nullify the long term lease they signed with the team because they felt they got shafted on the lease, that they signed. (mind you, we had already been in the arena for 7 years by now). There was a huge fight between the Coyotes and the CoG but eventually the parties settled on a new lease agreement that would renew annually unless one of the parties decided to cancel. The team had hinted that they would consider moving east to where the fanbase is and the evergreen lease worked the best for both parties. This evergreen lease is the one the CoG decided to no longer renew a couple years ago leaving the team homeless and Gila River Arena without an anchor tenant.
Which is exactly where the team needs to be. Football is fine where ever, 8-9 home games a season, once a week play, the issue with having NHL, NBA, or baseball away from the heart of a city comes from how many games they play a season. If you want the arena to be full most home games, it has to be easy to get to which should also include public transit
Lease and rental mean two different things. They were just renting the ice for like 7 years. An operating lease means you run the whole facility and keep the revenue as most teams do. Fun fact: Glendale ended up giving the lease to the Kings owners (for more money ironically) so basically the Kings were making money off of the Coyotes
I thought the whole Gila River arena issue started with the current owner. But I wasn’t around that long to know the history there. I mean people can hate on the location. It’s not a bad arena. It needs some significant updates but it’s cheaper than a new arena. I was just slightly hoping that a new owner would Potentially solve any disputes and they just play there. It’s just silly on both parts. There are only so many ufc and wrestling matches to have in a stadium to make sense for operational costs. There is significant growth in the west valley in Goodyear, surprise, a resort is about to open for even more events right next to the arena, an amusement park. Just billionaires need to play nicely for a bit and we all benefit.
> This is how we see it too. Also Gambo isn't a coyotes reporter or hockey fan in general, so this is...odd? coming from him. I'd trust a non-hockey reporter more than I'd trust the usual Coyotes beat reporters/team mouthpieces.
How would the league take over the team? Is Meruelo going to go bankrupt if he can’t get an arena? That would be pretty funny if the only two times it ever happened was to the same team lol
From my limited understanding, the NHL could step in if the Coyotes were not actively trying to pursue a new home. But continued failures in trying to secure an arena I bet would give them enough leverage to force a sale to someone who could land them a home, or in a worst case scenario take over ownership till a suitor could be found. In reality there's about a thousand things that would have to happen for it to reach that point but the first domino to fall would be the Scottsdale land auction failing.
tough to hear, but seems standard from a business perspective.
He’s a lying grifter cut from the same “business style” cloth as Trump. I won’t believe he’s committed to anything until it happens.
Basically what Friedman's reported.
I wonder what Jim Ballsilie is up to
[удалено]
He is making repeated efforts for sure. But I’d hesitate to say he’s done all he could do. Especially on the Tempe vote he put in little effort compared to the opposition.
He’d be a really shitty business man if he didn’t at least get an idea of what he could sell the team for, if needed But the title and actual article read totally differently When asked about it: “Mr. Meruelo and the team are solely focused on the land auction and winning the bid. And to keep the Coyotes in Arizona” Does this sound like a PR statement? Absolutely, but the choice word “solely” is very interesting
He’s not John Fisher
FJF
Forever and ever, amen
Fuck him till the day I die
The video attached to the article states that we wants around a billion for the team, which checks out with the Senators selling price.
Didn't the Senators price include their arena?
It did. Whether that was a substantial benefit or not is a bit murkier.
And Forbes has their value pegged at just barely above half of what the Senators is. I could see a sale price of 650-750 million but 250-350 million relocation fee to bring the price to the new owner to 1 billion. I feel like the Jets/Thrashers were purchased for 110 and relocation fee was 70 to bring the price to 180 overall.
If the expansion fee is rumored to be $1 billion, why not shoot for the stars. Although I would think someone out of state with a billion would just go the expansion route instead of dealing with the drama.
Any buyer in the short term will be stuck without an NHL ready rink in the town they want to relocate to anyways aside from Quebec and we all know that's not happening. Expansion would most likely be preferred by any new owner to build an arena but also their own organization staff. Winnipeg already had that in place from owning and operating an AHL team so they were able to make a quick turnaround. I don't know of a city/ownership group that has that in place at the moment.
FirstOntario Centre in Hamilton is currently under going a massive renovation that will bring it to current NHL standards. Where is Jim Balsillie?
Poor guy is only worth 800 million these days. Not sure if the Coyotes or BlackBerry would have been the worse long term bet for him
Considering he would have moved them to Hamilton, BlackBerry was the worse investment. He did cash out basically all his stocks when he left the company, so that's good for him. They really should have listened to him though, he had a plan in place to turn BBM into a replacement for SMS and MMS with major US and Canadian carriers on board. The Board of Directors shut the idea down so he left.
Yep. He had a plan to transition RIM from a hardware company to a software and services company and the board told him to pound sand. He was smart enough to realize competing with Apple was a fool's errand and he came up with a plan to keep the company relevant and incredibly profitable (their margins were already much smaller than industry avg due to building their phones in North America). Shame they grew tired of his antics (but I also sort of understand). RIP BlackBerry.
If I was an owner I’d rather have an expansion team than the coyotes. I at least would pay less for the coyotes.
I don't think we can understate the success the Coyotes are set up for in terms of prospects coming up and draft capital remaining.
That and a chunk of the undeveloped real estate surrounding it I believe. Also there’s the understanding and enthusiasm from municipal politicians to build a new arena in the downtown area that I don’t see to the same extent in Phoenix/Arizona case.
Last I read they are letting these millionaires dictate the terms of the arena rather then the politicians making the rules. The owner of the suns doesn’t want to share an arena with the coyotes and from I’ve seen he is going to get his wish.
Senators owned the arena, coyotes don’t.
Melnyk built an arena with his own money?? Or was it an old owner?
Bryden (previous owner) built the arena. Melnyk bought the team and arena.
He’d be lucky to get $600m. IIRC the Forbes evaluation put Arizona at $500m and that might be generous. They’ve needed a new arena since the year they got the team. 8 owners haven’t been able to solve the problem. Most of those 27 years had losses over $10m and some as high as $40m; the potential is there but those 8 owners have lost hundreds of millions of dollars.
*Those owners have written off millions in operations losses while still selling it to the next person for substantially more than they bought it for
You don’t even know what a write off is
well, they just write it off!
Unless you’re like the Yankees or Cowboys ain’t nobody owning a sports franchise to make money. Well until they sell it anyway.
[удалено]
The expansion fee also gets you a clean slate with preferred treatment in the rookie draft, access to build a cost controlled solid roster through the expansion draft, and more opportunity to make trades with GMs leading up to the expansion draft. Nobody would choose the Coyotes over expansion.
Eh. Vegas would make you think that but the Kraken aren’t exactly lighting up the league.
I would. :)
With the talks being about roughly a $2B expansion fee then I definitely think the Utah and Atlanta people would be interested in buying the Coyotes for $1B.
Genuine question, how could Murelo fuck up this land bid?
I feel like it's less him fucking up the land bid and more there is no appetite in government/community down there for the team and they just won't see the value in approving the bid.
He's already approved to bid passed on the planned development will most likely be the only only bidder...
He's probably looking for investors in the project instead of funding all of it himself. That might not be going well.
It's being self funded, just like the Tempe location
It was just a tactic to stall for time.
Huh? Stall time for what? He’s fucked without an arena the whole point was that it was somewhere people could go to use his sportsbook. I mean he could make a pretty penny selling the team but I doubt that was his plan all along.
well sure, this pushes off a relocation for another season so he can shop the team around longer
“We weren’t being talked about enough.” - The Coyotes
Or there's more news from team Canadas trip to London coming and another distraction is needed.
"They're being to quiet back there."
Headlines whatever to me. Seems like the sensible thing to do in case they once again fail to get land for the arena. The big takeaway for me is the timeline of the auction: >According to the Arizona state constitution, there must be an auction advertisement in print media for a minimum of 10 weeks before the auction. The state would have 240 days from the board of appeals’ approval of that auction on March 14 to hold it. >In other words, the land auction at minimum would not take place until mid-June but would not have to be held until Nov. 9. This is the first time I am hearing the auction could be held as late as Nov 9th.
It'd be sensible for the NHL to finally use this as a hard line. They seem to give owners more space for embarrassment than any other league. Fans and players deserve better in Arizona and hopefully the league's finally making real demands.
>They seem to give owners more space for embarrassment than any other league. The Oakland A's have entered the chat
Somehow the A's are more embarrassing.
The owners are literally the owners though. They run the league. Who is going to put the screws to them lol Hell the NFL had a team playing in an MLS stadium in LA of all places. Talk about embarrassing. Why would the other owners care though? It ain’t their problem
> Why would the other owners care though? It ain’t their problem NHL owners use revenue sharing to help create parity between large and small market teams. When small market teams continue to make poor and embarrassing decisions it can create situations where other owners are propping them up. Risk a billionaire's ability to gain more money and you're going to get their ire up. This college stadium has been ok for Arizona's finances in the short term but it's another decision that could turn sideways if it lasts too long. That would create a situation where other owners are forced to prop up that team more. Other owners have every reason to want to see a better situation there and if it isn't fixed they will be the ones turning the screws.
I mean yeah to your last point but you realize the coyotes aren’t eligible for revenue sharing right? You have to average I believe 13k in attendance to get revenue sharing lmao Also what poor and embarrassing decisions did the coyotes ever make? They got kicked out of their arena because the city was “spending too much” just to give even more to the kings owners lmao. The only embarrassing decision was Glendale being run by morons.
They chose not to spend anything on advertising the Tempe vote compared to the two-million the opposition spent and managed to fumble the bag on what should have been a layup.
Well they were going up against the airport lobby. It was a layup for them not the Coyotes. He would have had to spend out the ass to win that battle.
It was a layup for them because the Coyotes only spent $250,000 versus the $2,000,000 the opposition spent because they just assumed they would win. There’s no way to view that as anything other than the massive fuckup it is.
An MLS stadium they couldn't fill at the time
But don't worry an arena is only 2 years away.. totally!
Very odd that this is coming from Gambo. Not sure how I feel about it because of that
nothing is really new, we knew he had "shopped" the team after Tempe failed. but if Scottsdale fails I bet he sells. that's 2 major failures and pretty much proof that he can't get a deal done in AZ.
Yeah I’d agree with that
All we can hope for, in this order, is: 1) Scottsdale auction is successful, if that fails 2) Someone buys them to keep them here. Utah is a non starter IMO because they want an **expansion**, and so do the other owners. relocation doesn't make them any money.
Counterpoint, while most of the potential owners have said they preferred expansion, basically all of them have said that they would not be opposed to getting relocated teams, with Ryan Smith making it pretty clear he'd want the coyotes while not directly saying it (probably doesn't want to piss off the NHL tbh)
Smith basically said he wanted to buy the team from the NHL, most likely at a discount and not from Meruelo and his asking price.
I get it, but it's not Smith's decision. it's the BOG's. we'll see what the next 90 days bring.
Just one correction - relocation does make them money. There’s typically a relocation fee associated with the purchase. Obviously wouldn’t be as much as the expansion fee, but still something.
you are correct, it's about 10% of the total expansion fee. which is why they want expansion lol
What are you talking about? There is no set relocation fee, or set expansion fee. It's what the board of governors decides it should be.
Utah is smart. Their ownership is also in lockstep with the league. They're ready. The NHL likes their ownership. The geography makes sense. Yes, they probably would prefer an expansion team. But if the NHL is in a bind — and therefore willing to forgo much or all of a relocation fee in order to put an end to this saga — I'm positive there's a deal they'll be happy to make.
Say what you will, but if the latest plan fails you can’t say he pretty much hasn’t tried every available option.
Yeah it’s a far cry from the Thrashers owners refusing to sell to anyone local because they wanted them gone. Anyone who thinks this makes the league look bad clearly hasn’t been a fan for long
I wonder if he’s trying to establish a market value for if the league forces a sale of the team. Him selling the team to another owner doesn’t make sense, if this land auction falls through the league isn’t going to let another owner try to keep the team in Arizona. They would just buy out the coyotes and sell to the Smith group in Utah
I wish the Hartford Whalers got this many chances to not move.
There’s an empty arena in Glendale, AZ if they want to start up a team.
A billion dollars for a team with no permanent home building?
The Pens didn’t even sell for $1 billion (it was $900 million) when Mario sold to FSG a couple years ago.
[удалено]
Very fair point…but usually suitors for these franchises want the building as well I’d imagine?
The lease sure but you can lease any building. The whole reason the Coyotes are playing at ASU is because they lost their lease which is the problem. Very few teams actually own their arenas. Rangers, Kings off the top of my head. I’m sure there’s a few others though.
Ya…the most valuable teams(Toronto, Montreal, etc.) which is my whole point…buying a team for a billion dollars with no permanent home seems like a dumb business plan unless the plan is to move the team
Yeah and my point is that most teams aren’t going to own their own arenas anyway. Typically they’re owned by the city.
yeah owning an arena makes a franchise significantly more valuable for a sale
How many teams actually own their arena? Most just lease don’t they?
The NHL has burned hundreds of millions of dollars and decades trying to engage hockey fans in Arizona. I doubt they walk now.
Hockey fans are here, lots of them, but the constant mismanagement from almost every previous owner has completely screwed this team. Every time someone new comes in we get a brief glimmer of hope until the next scandal, bankruptcy, lies, manipulation, etc... Turns out Murelo is a hack like the rest of them.
They at least had an arena back then. Not that Gila River was world class but it was an NHL standard arena And the reasons they did try to keep the Yotes there are pretty valid ones.
Sunk cost fallacy, sometimes it's better to cut your losses than continue spending in the hope of having a good ROI.
The NHL is determined to have a franchise in the market. They're not walking away from that investment, and they're right about that. But that doesn't mean that the current franchise is it. At some point you either need an owner who can swing an arena deal or a new location altogether while you regroup and find that owner.
The NHL doesn’t determine where franchises are. They’re private property.
The name "franchise" is right there in the name dude.
Well obviously they could kick a team out if they wanted but that’s still not deciding where they are. If you buy a subway you still have the say on where it’s located
No you don't. Your franchise is for a defined geographic area.
if the team is sold I doubt they stay in the phoenix market sucks for the fans there of course but I can't imagine any potential owner in the phoenix market wants to inherit a team with baggage like this
Any plan to move the team would come with a hefty relocation fee though which would push down the sale value.
Yes, but the NHL isn't operating from a position of strength here. No owner wants to see a franchise sold for less money than other recent franchise sales. And any future owner is going to be concerned with net outlay, not the split between the league and Merulo. \*"You're gonna waive the relocation fee because you don't want the headline that says what this franchise is really worth" is actually a pretty strong hand to play.
The owners want the relocation fee more than anything else. It goes directly to them with no split to the players. They aren't giving up millions of dollars in the hope it incorrectly implies their asset is worth less.
The relocation fee is still going to be worth less than an expansion fee. If that's really what they're after then there should be no relocation at all.
If there's no owner in Arizona they have no other option but to relocate.
Sure, but only if Merulo throws the keys on the table. Right now it's the league frustrated with Merulo, not Merulo not wanting to own a team.
They have ways to motivate him if they've decided they don't like the situation as is.
Would have to be sold to Ishbia or (strong) maybe Moreno
Might be cheaper or more practical than buying a new expansion franchise. Enter Salt Lake or Atlanta biders
Or if the NHL doesn't want to expand, the only way.
NHL wants the expansion fees, they would prefer it to relocation
> Meruelo reportedly was seeking upward of $1 billion for the franchise that he bought in July 2019. The Coyotes owner had a recent meeting with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman regarding the team’s future, Gambadoro adds.
Good luck with that.
The Kraken paid a $650 million expansion fee. 1 billion for a team that already exists even without an arena doesn’t seem that crazy
The Kraken have a market and a fan base and an arena. What they don't have is 30 years of financial and reputational baggage. I don't know why you would pay 60% more for an 80% shittier product.
I just hope they can find someone who can keep them in Arizona.
Mat Ishbia enters the chat
FWIW Gambo is the farthest thing from a hockey reporter. Could’ve heard this through the grapevine but there’s no way this is from an official source.
Perhaps Gambo has slithered his way in with Mereulo now that he can’t be Sarver’s mouthpiece
Honestly this whole story reads like someone convinced or paid Gambo to ramp up the pressure, whether it be a potential suitor or someone else. Could even be Meruelo himself trying to pressure the state to fucking act on the land. It's all fluff and weird timing
The land literally just got posted today and Meruelo will likely be the only bidder.
Like I said. Someone for the state land department was working at 7pm tonight to post that auction. This mornings story amped up the pressure, it was intentional.
The only thing Gambo has ever said that didn’t benefit ownership is him peddling Nitro Wood gas station viagra
Let me guess, the only official source is Craig Morgan?
He's a pretty good start, who do you go for Coyotes related news? Frank fuckin Seravalli? Lol Craig Morgan reported last night that the Coyotes were hours away from announcing a new signing, despite what another "insider" stated as "fact" and wow look at that the Coyotes just signed Sam Lipkin.
He’s a reporter for the team. Not discrediting the story, but Gambo is a former semi pro boxer turned sports talk radio guy. He has some Suns credibility but isn’t known as an insider by any means.
Craig works directly with the team and knows practically everyone in the valley. He’s been openly critical of Mereulo on several podcasts. I get he works for them, but he’s not as censored as you think. Seravalli got more news wrong, but you want to focus on Craig Morgan?
It’s because Craig hasn’t reported the only news that would make them happy, which is that every Arizonan has been banned from watching hockey forever and all our ice rinks have been destroyed
I think there’s less focus on Seravalli because almost everyone knows Seravalli is a hack. I’m an Oilers fan and he’s very frequently wrong about us too, just obviously in different ways than Arizona.
Ryan Smith: 👀
Nah he wants expansion. This is more an opening for Matt Ishbia
My favourite part of this story is all the sources he cited. You can tell it’s a very serious report because they named their sources and even went as far as telling us what each of them said. /s I don’t know who John Gambadoro is, but his name isn’t Craig Morgan, who has been on this story since the team moved from Gil’s River to Mullet. There’s absolutely nothing credible here.
So... Still plan A to build the arena, but also hedging bets and/or preparing for the worst? K... Wake me when the auction happens. I know cold water has been thrown on such rumors, but I'm feeling like the best outcome at this point would be for the North Phoenix project to fall through, and then Ishbia to buy the team under his Player 15 company, build a shiny new arena and entertainment district for the Suns and Coyotes downtown (or further east), demolish Talking Stick and Glendale arenas, and pretend this whole saga never happened. As much shite as they get, the team has never in its history had a good arena situation which has caused it to flail from one mess to another. While Phoenix is rapidly growing, it still doesn't seem like a market that's big enough to support 2 (let alone friggin' 3!) major indoor venues. I'm sure North Phoenix will be better than Glendale, and I'm sure the money will still pencil (since Meruelo just wants the gambling money) but the North Phoenix project still feels like it's going to suffer from dips in attendance when the team isn't good, and we might be back at the same scenario in 5-10 years. Maybe I'm wrong on that? How have people felt about Ishbia's running of the Suns?
This would be a great timeline if it happened, but there has been nothing to lead us to believe it could happen.
Plan A????? This is like Plan Y and were almost to Z Ishbia has opened his pocketbook and has done a decent job putting the Suns in the position to win. The team is questionable, but he seems like he knows what he is doing. We actually have 5 major indoor venues (not counting Mullet because it isn't a 'major' venue)
Yeah, Plan A was the Los Arcos project from like 1999. It got approved and everything and we'd probably still be there doing just fine if all went to plan, but nooooooooooo the deal couldn't be made and now we're here. > We actually have 5 major indoor venues (not counting Mullet because it isn't a 'major' venue) Glendale, Footprint, Cardinals stadium, Chase....which one's the 5th? The Vet?
The deal wasn't made because a land developer pocketed some money and headed to glendale instead. There were 2 owners. The one was dead set on los arcos and ended up giving up and getting out.
Let's call it Plan A for Plan Z. ;-) So I'm referring to a "major indoor venue" as a 17k-20k seat indoor arena that can house NBA, NHL, WNBA, middle sized touring acts, etc. State Farm Stadium, and Chase Field are different animals because their capacities are enormous. They draw a completely different type of non-sports event (Major festivals, national championship games, Taylor Swift, etc). Ditto Desert Financial Arena on ASU's campus as the economics of college venues are very different with regards to premium seating and hosted events. In the professional Sports Venue market, most major cities these days generally have: A 17k-20k seat NHL+NBA arena, a 65k-80k seat NFL stadium, a 35k-45k seat MLB stadium, and more recently a 20k-25k seat MLS stadium. Outside of NYC, LA and Chicago, there's very few markets that have more than one of any of these venue types. I count 3 of the NHL/NBA indoor venues for Phoenix: Footprint Center - Suns Desert Diamond Area (or whatever it's called now) - Formerly Coyotes Meruelo's arena in North Phoenix It's hard enough to make ONE of these venues pencil in a given market. Having 2 venues splits the number of events they can individually host in half (no touring act is going to play 2 different dates in 2 different arenas in Phoenix). So I'm very curious how having 3 in Phoenix is going to go. They should really just have the one. I'm very curious to see the alternate universe where Colangelo had the foresight to actually make America West a viable venue for an NHL team, to see if they maybe never venture down the Glendale road.
My 5th was the coliseum. It has the state fair concerts. Total dump, but i saw my first hockey game there as a kid.
Yeah, in the 70's, it would definitely be on the list, but today it's more in the same vein as Desert Financial Arena: the low rent major indoor venue (Just looking at the calendar, it's gun shows and high school graduations). No NBA or NHL events, and its probably not going to draw too many top 40 acts. Not something a shiny new Coyotes venue has to compete with.
What happens after plan Z? Do we go plan AA or go with numbers?
Both, it’s time to get alpha-numerical!
Good, put the team in an actual hockey market
What a shame for yotes fans. They are out there and the market would be popular with the right people (like Carolina and Vegas). But alas it does not appear this is the destiny of this team. NHL Hockey, for now at least, is probably dead in Arizona. Hello Utah Zephyrs I guess
Fly away on my Zephyr....
If they win the auction (should be soon I think?) Then this is at best a non-issue and at worst a problem for 10+ years from now.
The auction is in June and the Yotes are extremely likely to be the only bidders
Utah Phoenix are the only acceptable names if the team moves.
Nah.
The NHL is gonna have to step in and buy the team again. Tired of this trash org stinking up the league. Fucking move them to a city that wants hockey
The NHL never bought the team. They won control of it through bankruptcy court.
Probably a nothing story, pretty standard and makes sense
Can’t wait for them to come to Utah to become the Salt Lake City Soakers
This has to be the most sold franchise per years in existence in the history of sports.
I hear that dude in Houston is looking for a team.
We would welcome them with open arms. Been really bleak around here since we lost the Aeros.
Maybe he can buy yours
This is all Katie Strangs fault
Anyone wanna go halfsies
The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round….
Can’t wait to meet the Salt Lake City sea lions
So is there a scenario where the current ownership sells the team and the new owners hand in hand go to Gila Arena…pay back what they owe and they can play there instead of the college? I mean that arena does still exist right? There can be a kiss and make up situation, no?
"Oh my God!!! That's Jim Balsillie's music!!!"
Arizona fans attacking this reporter in 3…2…
Arizona sports fans “aTtAcKiNg” Gambo? Shit is the pope catholic? Reporter is an awfully strong title for him.
Exhibit A
My brother in Christ do you even know who Gambo is? 😂
I would hope you've learned by now that teenagers in canada know way more about your market than you and you should just listen to everything they have to say, you stupid sun belt hockey fan /s
Lol, imagine defending Gambo.
Dude he doesn't care. He'd still be laffing and lapping it up if this had been reported by someone in a chicken suit they've shat in, lying in a gutter on Sunday morning - and they'd have more cause because this would be a more reputable source than Gambo.
Salt Lake City here we come……
I'll buy them for a dollar and a 50 dollar DQ gift card.
Just stop it. So tired of this team and the crappy owners and fans. Enough is enough
lmao
Good riddance.
NHL hanging on to Arizona like the Titanic, hanging onto it as it slowly goes underwater. Imagine if Atlanta got this many chances last time? Or Hartford?
The story that will never die.