Confirmed with Link: All-Purpose "Days of Our Meruelo" Talk

[Arizonatah Coyetis]

I cant wait until whatever happens is definite and news starts pouring out on it all. When people arent afraid to talk.

 

[Canis Latrans]

My updated speculation on all of this is now that Meruelo was serious about pursuing the auction plan and likely had rejected the initial offer from Smith (whether it was $1B at the time, not sure), as he wanted to build the entertainment district with arena and make more in due time.

I'm guessing the NHL was pushing for it as a means to get him out and lack of confidence in his ability to get it done. Meruelo has pushed back against Ishbia getting the team because it pretty much knocks him out of being able to build the district since he won't have an anchor team.

The NHL does some creative negotiating to increase the offer from Smith which monetarily pushes Meruelo into now agreeing in principle to sell as he can still pursue the arena district.

Also, yes, everything is still contingency plans as Meruelo could technically not sell, and the league likely still ideally wants a local owner (Ishbia seemingly) before moving the team. Maybe they see a quicker plan out of Mullett with Ishbia at the helm and would be ok with staying there for less long due to more confidence in him.

The silence stems from the potential sales contracts not being formally completed and it jeopardizes things, obviously.

None of this sounds good and my guess is that it was true up to a point that Meruelo didn't want to sell until the offer was upped enough which happened when the news started breaking.

 

[Llewzaher]

It’s funny all of the “media” showing Keller having an interview. The caption is “we haven’t heard much through out this”

But what they should have captioned was Keller saying “ most everything we heard has been untrue “

 

[JoeGarelli]

No Meruelo wanted it to work there , and still does . unfortunately they weren’t prepared for tempe to be political and XG got schooled.

He is doing the exact same thing in Nevada as well . He is doing a small arena ( likely to bring the roadrunners) and building an entertainment district in Reno..

Honestly what is true and is confirmed is he is looking to win the Auction in June and build the arena this was a statement 6 days ago.

Confirmed by the Coyotes , the NHL and the Arizona State.

It was also said if he doesn’t win the auction the only option is relocation.. confirmed..

All of the breaking news about the Yotes behind the scenes has not been confirmed by the NHL or the Yotes, as they declined to comment.

If this is true .. which we are thinking it is .. is it because:
A) Murello needs to find a buyer in case he loses the auction so he is prepared and the NHL is making a second schedule in case?

B) the NHL is forcing him to sell after telling them to go through the auction?

If it’s B then that is on the NHL

C) he is looking for a big pay day and is secretly trying to sell the team .. then that is on him and that is a scum bag move

The problem is no one is talking except for some media personalities who have been wrong in the past.

In any case if AM doesn’t address this with his staff he doesn’t deserve a team . He sent BA down to Edmonton to address the team but that’s not good enough.

well i just dont believe anything the murelo says, and lets be honest how much have we actually heard from him? he is a businessman, he wants to make money. he buys nhl team for 300 million roughly and now it seems like he can flip it for 1 billion.

.theres always another deadline to look forward to, always pushing the dates further and further back..i think thats how scam artists work.. just trying to buy time.. we heard the reports all year of different places in the valley that would make for good arena locations.. well they never put their money where their mouth was.. ur gonna tell me fiesta mall cost more than 68.5 million? im laughing.

we will find out april 18th if they are really going to SLC..

i have followed this somewhat closely in the passed few years, i was optimistic about murelo owning the team, he said all the right things.. i think there should be nhl hockey in the valley.. but at the end of the day i dont think his actions are meeting his words.

maybe im jumping ahead a bit, but these most recent reports, plus "coyotes ownership" silence makes it seem like the lunatics who hate the coyotes from up north are finally right.

 

[Llewzaher]

My updated speculation on all of this is now that Meruelo was serious about pursuing the auction plan and likely had rejected the initial offer from Smith (whether it was $1B at the time, not sure), as he wanted to build the entertainment district with arena and make more in due time.

I'm guessing the NHL was pushing for it as a means to get him out and lack of confidence in his ability to get it done. Meruelo has pushed back against Ishbia getting the team because it pretty much knocks him out of being able to build the district since he won't have an anchor team.

The NHL does some creative negotiating to increase the offer from Smith which monetarily pushes Meruelo into now agreeing in principle to sell as he can still pursue the arena district.

Also, yes, everything is still contingency plans as Meruelo could technically not sell, and the league likely still ideally wants a local owner (Ishbia seemingly) before moving the team. Maybe they see a quicker plan out of Mullett with Ishbia at the helm and would be ok with staying there for less long due to more confidence in him.

The silence stems from the potential sales contracts not being formally completed and it jeopardizes things, obviously.

None of this sounds good and my guess is that it was true up to a point that Meruelo didn't want to sell until the offer was upped enough which happened when the news started breaking.

I think that is a good take

 

[Canis Latrans]

I should add, the contradictory reports from local media members having definitive statements saying he won't sell may have been true, but then there's the national guys with league connections saying the league is still pursuing it which has also been true.

You have all these contingencies and one of them will come to an eventuality so that's how you can have multiple "truths" out there. It also doesn't help that the very nature of there being contingencies means the correct path hasn't been determined yet so half or more of the stories will turn out not to be "true" and some of the "lies" may have been true based on the circumstances at the time.

 

[Llewzaher]

well i just dont believe anything the murelo says, and lets be honest how much have we actually heard from him? he is a businessman, he wants to make money. he buys nhl team for 300 million roughly and now it seems like he can flip it for 1 billion.

.theres always another deadline to look forward to, always pushing the dates further and further back..i think thats how scam artists work.. just trying to buy time.. we heard the reports all year of different places in the valley that would make for good arena locations.. well they never put their money where their mouth was.. ur gonna tell me fiesta mall cost more than 68.5 million? im laughing.

we will find out april 18th if they are really going to SLC..

i have followed this somewhat closely in the passed few years, i was optimistic about murelo owning the team, he said all the right things.. i think there should be nhl hockey in the valley.. but at the end of the day i dont think his actions are meeting his words.

maybe im jumping ahead a bit, but these most recent reports, plus "coyotes ownership" silence makes it seem like the lunatics who hate the coyotes from up north are finally right.

I don’t think Muerllo has said anything that has been false before..( I could be wrong)

But his silence is deafening..

There was a guy in the other boards who is a Vegas fan and knows Muerello personally and says he is legit and has a lot of focus going on with the Reno build.. that is just immaturity as a new Sports owner .. lack of owner experience and etiquette.

Ok fine but what about his CEO ? Honestly I am more mad at him than anyone including FrankS about this .. he keeps just tweeting about Latin days or awards .. that guy is the CEO and needs to do his job.

 

[Mosby]

Ishbia definitely needs some good PR after what came out about his feud with the Cavs owner. But I bet Bettman was probably just talking expansion with him. I think Ishbia is another one of those "young gun" rich bros that the NHL covets, like Ryan Smith - especially given how strong the Suns have been. I could see a scenario where Ishbia buys the team from the league, plays in Mullett for one more year while they put ice back in Footprint, and then the team plays downtown.

I give it about a 0.000000000057417% chance of happening.

Otherwise, Keller will have to start practicing his MoTab hymns.

But what about the long term arena?

 

[Canis Latrans]

I think that is a good take

Thanks, I took inspiration from reading through everything posted thus far so probably what a lot have been alluding to in bits and pieces. Just needed to aggregate it with the most up to date information which means it'll be out of date in mere minutes.

 

[LAIslanderFan]

I'm not sure i agree, but ok if you want to believe murelo has in good faith tried to bring hockey a permanent home in az. i think the writing is on the wall.

who paid for the Tempe no campaign? their campaign was comically bad, outspent 10 to 1, by who some construction unions? i think we got scammed, and muerlo is walking away with a billion dollars.

I just want to understand your theory:
Sometime back prior to 2019 AM comes up with a money making plan to make a billion dollars
- first buy a sports team
- hold on to them and spend money and time finding a place to build an arena
- find the land, spend money hiring architects and site surveyors
- as a good will gesture spend $30 million on Mullet for upgrades
- hire a team of lawyers to make sure the City of Tempe council is agreeable to the deal
- lose the vote on purpose?
How did he know for sure after all of that planning he would lose the vote?
What if the vote past?
The Coyotes invested a a lot in winning the Tempe Town council and they must have had good lobbyist to get the AZ Republic to endorse it.
I don't know if they would teach that in business school?
If all that's true, we're underestimating him. To be able to pull that off is brilliant!

 

[rt]

Can Ishbia buy the team and the “ Miracle “ development company that did all the leg work on the Desert Ridge spot? Built a Yotes arena and move in when suns lease is over?

 

[Matias Maccete]

If Ishbia saves the day I'm buying a jersey with his name on it. I'm not real optimistic about having to place that order though.

 

[Sinurgy]

My updated speculation on all of this is now that Meruelo was serious about pursuing the auction plan and likely had rejected the initial offer from Smith (whether it was $1B at the time, not sure), as he wanted to build the entertainment district with arena and make more in due time.

I'm guessing the NHL was pushing for it as a means to get him out and lack of confidence in his ability to get it done. Meruelo has pushed back against Ishbia getting the team because it pretty much knocks him out of being able to build the district since he won't have an anchor team.

The NHL does some creative negotiating to increase the offer from Smith which monetarily pushes Meruelo into now agreeing in principle to sell as he can still pursue the arena district.

Also, yes, everything is still contingency plans as Meruelo could technically not sell, and the league likely still ideally wants a local owner (Ishbia seemingly) before moving the team. Maybe they see a quicker plan out of Mullett with Ishbia at the helm and would be ok with staying there for less long due to more confidence in him.

The silence stems from the potential sales contracts not being formally completed and it jeopardizes things, obviously.

None of this sounds good and my guess is that it was true up to a point that Meruelo didn't want to sell until the offer was upped enough which happened when the news started breaking.

Yup...basically the NHL found a way for Meruelo to kick himself out of the club so they didn't have to

 

[LAIslanderFan]

Can Ishbia buy the team and the “ Miracle “ development company that did all the leg work on the Desert Ridge spot? Built a Yotes arena and move in when suns lease is over?

I feel your pain, but the Suns just did a renovation a a few years ago. No way they build a competing arena. I don't know what it would take, but if Ishbia bought the team, I imagine Footprint would have to be reconfigured and Glendale might have to get involved while the renovation takes place for both the Yotes and the Suns.

My updated speculation on all of this is now that Meruelo was serious about pursuing the auction plan and likely had rejected the initial offer from Smith (whether it was $1B at the time, not sure), as he wanted to build the entertainment district with arena and make more in due time.

I'm guessing the NHL was pushing for it as a means to get him out and lack of confidence in his ability to get it done. Meruelo has pushed back against Ishbia getting the team because it pretty much knocks him out of being able to build the district since he won't have an anchor team.

The NHL does some creative negotiating to increase the offer from Smith which monetarily pushes Meruelo into now agreeing in principle to sell as he can still pursue the arena district.

Also, yes, everything is still contingency plans as Meruelo could technically not sell, and the league likely still ideally wants a local owner (Ishbia seemingly) before moving the team. Maybe they see a quicker plan out of Mullett with Ishbia at the helm and would be ok with staying there for less long due to more confidence in him.

The silence stems from the potential sales contracts not being formally completed and it jeopardizes things, obviously.

None of this sounds good and my guess is that it was true up to a point that Meruelo didn't want to sell until the offer was upped enough which happened when the news started breaking.

This makes the most sense to me. Levelheaded dissection of the whole situation.

 

[Sinurgy]

he keeps just tweeting about Latin days or awards .. that guy is the CEO and needs to do his job.

Yeah it's something we haven't talked about but man having the "first majority Latino owner in the NHL" implode in such spectacular fashion is a horrible look for both the league and Meruelo/XG.

 

[The Feckless Puck]

But what about the long term arena?

It's no secret that the Suns would like a new state of the art barn. If the NHL team is part of the bargain, it's a big bargaining chip. And Footprint is a much better short term solution than Mullett...

 

[Mosby]

Aren’t they locked in to Footprint for a long term? And where do you build the new arena?

 

[RABBIT]

Where TF did Ishbia come up now?

Did I miss something or are we just clamoring?

 

[Dirty Old Man]

It's like having a dying relative that's hanging on and every phone call you think is the "bad news". You want their suffering to end and you want to be able to move on, but you also hope there's a miraculous change in their condition.

Thank you! This describes it so well, but some people would be "oh, this is so trivial compared to actual human death". And, sure, it is, but still...

 

[rt]

@The Legend said something about Ishbia possibly swooping in as a long shot. I was just supposin’ stuff off of that. No real hope from me.

 

[Jagged Ice]

@The Legend said something about Ishbia possibly swooping in as a long shot. I was just supposin’ stuff off of that. No real hope from me.

I've been speed reading through the last six or more pages but didn't someone mention Ishbia had a meeting with Bettman? That's progress if true. I suppose we know of no details about that meeting.

 

[Schemp]

...so the Coyotes are moving to Reno?

 

[Jagged Ice]

Thank you! This describes it so well, but some people would be "oh, this is so trivial compared to actual human death". And, sure, it is, but still...

Depends. I'm taking the Yotes over OJ.

 

[The Feckless Puck]

Where TF did Ishbia come up now?

Did I miss something or are we just clamoring?

It's the final grabbing desperation of the drowning. Nothing is going to come of it.

 

[Dirty Old Man]

Depends. I'm taking the Yotes over OJ.

I know I'm old because sometimes when I hear "OJ" I think of running through airports.