Surely they had a contingency plan in mind if the building measure failed. Playing in Mullet arena for another year doesn't strike me as an awesome plan.
There is a very real argument that another year in Mullet and then a relocation is a better long-term financial plan than rushing a relocation now.
They will likely be able to negotiate a better relocation/sale deal if they spend months on a formal process than rushing it now and/or relying on back-door meetings where the team wasn't officially on the market. They could get a package that is worth 10s or even 100s of million dollars more long-term. That can potentially well out-earn the difference in revenue/profits this year.
And frankly, their costs will be way less in Mullet than in another building and that offsets some of the lost revenue.
If they are in Mullet, they will be right at the $61M cap floor because there is no incentive to put a quality product in front of those fans. They are going to sell out that building, even if it is full of road fans going for the novelty (I'll be one of them if they are still there next year). More importantly, they have accumulated cap hits for guys owed smaller payable salaries. Capfriendly has their estimated payroll for next year at $50M at the moment, but $12M of that is going to players that are unofficially retired and almost certainly covered almost entirely by insurance. They should be able to keep their actual payroll well below $50M once they fill out the rest of their roster with cheap filler. They could get it below $40M if a couple guys (like Keller) actually demand out and they take back a couple more bad contracts of guys who make much less real money than their inflated cap hits.
You can't do that in year 1 of a new market. Having a half-decent product in year 1 in a new city is crucial to building a fan base (and selling tickets). They would absolutely need to bring in multiple $4M+ caliber players and a handful of additional $1.5M-$3M caliber players. We're talking about a $20M+ increase to payroll just to put out a team that is remotely worth the time of a new fan, which will greatly eat into the extra revenue generated by relocating. More importantly, how does that impact the rebuild? Another year in Mullet is another year to take bad contracts, sell rentals, and try to get a top 5 pick. It is another year for existing prospects to develop (and potentially experience no-consequence rookie growing pains this year) to be best suited to contribute during their first impressions in a new city.
The plan when staying in Arizona was short term pain for long term gain. Getting their long term plan right is more important than getting out of Mullet, so I can see them taking their time and letting Bill Armstrong have 1 more season to just build a war chest with an eye toward icing the best possible product in 2024/25 for their brand new fans.
