CXLI - UPDATE 1/27 - Coyotes working on deal to play at 5,000-seat arena at ASU

[Rob]

So It looks like they will be in Arizona next season playing in a less than ideal arena.
I’m assuming the losses will be massive. Will the NHL help pay the bills or is this still all on the current ownership?

 

[Mightygoose]

A combination of Chase Field and ASU's new hockey rink could work. Start all of October on the road, play some games at ASU when Chase is unavailable for concerts and bowl games in December and January. Would require all potential playoff games played at ASU, though, if it's available. There are downsides, of course, least of which is it could cause confusion for fans of where team is playing.

Wouldn't ASU's new arena be busy enough for their own programs? My understanding that is that's what makes ASU difficult to use.

Good luck getting any form of a season ticket base if they're using 2 different venues especially if Tempe is not a sure thing.

 

[TheLegend]

Tucson?

No. Doesn't have the capacity. (~7000)

It could be fine for exhibition games.

 

[TheLegend]

Wouldn't ASU's new arena be busy enough for their own programs? My understanding that is that's what makes ASU difficult to use.

Good luck getting any form of a season ticket base if they're using 2 different venues especially if Tempe is not a sure thing.

ASU's arena due to open for next season only has a capacity of 5,000. Even though it has 22 suites, it's just not big enough.

Interesting thing though.... this article just dropped on the Arizona Republic website.

Arizona Coyotes could be featured in NHL showcase games in near future

The NHL has had conversations with the Diamondbacks and Chase Field operators about hosting at least one Arizona Coyotes regular season game at the stadium in the future, a league executive said this week.

It could come in the form of an NHL Stadium Series game, which has been held annually at baseball and football stadiums since 2014.

Steve Mayer, NHL chief content officer and senior executive vice president of Events and Entertainment, said Coyotes management has expressed major interest in bringing a special event to Arizona.
"It is on the list. I can't tell you whether the list has two cities or 30 cities, but I will say it's something that we'd explore," Mayer said. "I can't sit here and deny that, but we are not ready to make any decisions."

ASU's Sun Devil Stadium is also mentioned as an alternative but nothing between the league and ASU has taken place yet.

 

[hockeyguy0022]

I would be VERY surprised if any of the alternative venues mentioned here pan out... I just don't see it.

0 % chance AM is putting out XX millions of dollars to lose money for an entire season if Gary is already shaking him upside down...

I'm 80% "moving to houston" camp next season, (with AM not the owner)

or the NHL is paying for 100% of the losses in the interim and AM stays around. (but then why wouldn't NHL just pay to stay at gila... already)

long shot is they totally temp move to some 10K+ arena maybe in Arizona or somewhere else.

This all depends on the current corporate support/sponsorship money IMO.

Better hear something soon, clock is ticking big time, I don't think AM is the guy at all for any of this.

Like for example, if they need to order and buy a mobile ice plant setup (for the baseball field) like the winter classic/heritage classic, this costs time and money, and im 100% sure lots of those parts will be on backorder....

So like i said, I think all temp venues mentioned, are a pipe dream, they're honestly better off moving to a "ready made" temp situation that requires almost nothing. All depends on the $$$$$$$$$$$$$$

 

[TheLegend]

More tidbits.....

Finally subscribed to GoPHNX.com today so I could get access to Craig Morgan articles again. Found this from his blog from last week.

Yes, Arizona is a hockey market - PHNX

The Coyotes are also expected to deliver an economic benefit analysis to the City of Tempe by the end of the month. Armed with that information, the council will debate a number of topics including: traffic impact, airport issues, Glendale’s experience with the Coyotes, the best use of the land, sports betting, and competition with other Valley entertainment complexes. No date for a vote on the proposal has been set yet because the council simply does not have enough information to make an informed vote.

So hopefully Tempe will have an analysis from their consultant (Hunden Partners) and from the Coyotes very soon.

 

[Ernie]

It's funny that there has been zero mention by any parties involved or any of the reporting that there is some kind of a date this spring that an arena would need to be approved by.

Maybe I'm wrong but I'd expect the current council to defer the decision to the next council, at the very least, and the new members will have their own due diligence to complete. There was a lot in the RFP about the winning bidder having experience cleaning up waste sites, so there would need to be at least one partner on board before final approval.

Maybe this is moving on an expedited schedule but I just don't see it. From what I've seen we're moving on a two year timeline, about 6 months in.

So where does that leave us? The team has already cut costs to a minimum. They are doing a total teardown rebuild. It's not an ideal time to introduce the franchise when it will be bottom of the basement for several years to come.

I'm starting to warm to the idea that they'll be moving to one of the local venues with limited capacity. They can operate on shoestring operating for the next 5 years and probably salary cap minimum, or even lower by accepting LTIR'd contracts. They have just $26,082,500 committed in salary next season, and have already put Chychrun on the market. I suspect Keller and Schmaltz may not be far behind.

But still, that's a lot of money to lose. And even if we compare the Coyotes to other sunbelt teams, it's not like the Panthers are reaping in the profits.

Overall it's a weird situation and one can read into it any way they like. The team very well may wait around for a year or so for the Tempe process to complete. Or they may announce their departure the day after the regular season ends.

 

[hockeyguy0022]

It's funny that there has been zero mention by any parties involved or any of the reporting that there is some kind of a date this spring that an arena would need to be approved by.

Maybe I'm wrong but I'd expect the current council to defer the decision to the next council, at the very least, and the new members will have their own due diligence to complete. There was a lot in the RFP about the winning bidder having experience cleaning up waste sites, so there would need to be at least one partner on board before final approval.

Maybe this is moving on an expedited schedule but I just don't see it. From what I've seen we're moving on a two year timeline, about 6 months in.

So where does that leave us? The team has already cut costs to a minimum. They are doing a total teardown rebuild. It's not an ideal time to introduce the franchise when it will be bottom of the basement for several years to come.

I'm starting to warm to the idea that they'll be moving to one of the local venues with limited capacity. They can operate on shoestring operating for the next 5 years and probably salary cap minimum, or even lower by accepting LTIR'd contracts. They have just $26,082,500 committed in salary next season, and have already put Chychrun on the market. I suspect Keller and Schmaltz may not be far behind.

But still, that's a lot of money to lose. And even if we compare the Coyotes to other sunbelt teams, it's not like the Panthers are reaping in the profits.

Overall it's a weird situation and one can read into it any way they like. The team very well may wait around for a year or so for the Tempe process to complete. Or they may announce their departure the day after the regular season ends.

They must have a boatload of corporate sponsor $$ because they should temp move somewhere for 2-4 years with a 15-20K arena. Why give up gate revenue in places that WANT NHL.

That or the NHL is paying all the $$ for all those losses and a backroom deal is worked out.

 

[Radical Realignment]

From a PR perspective, a "homeless" franchise is a very bad look. Very bad. There may be creative financial ways to paper over short-term losses in temp venues. But for a franchise to play an entire season with no clear future destination? Even when franchises in the expansion era have played in temp facilities, it has been with an eye to a clearly in-progress "permanent" venue.

This leads me to believe that if the NHL announces a temp facility (or facilities) slate for the Yotes next year, there must needs be some implicit agreement that Tempe will be agreed upon and announced during the regular season (even if it cannot be officially announced until the wheels of bureaucracy finish turning).

 

[TheLegend]

For those puzzled by the lack of official information being dispersed.......

I should remind everyone of the era when Anthony LeBlanc was making regular announcements of deals being finalized in "two weeks" only to discover that they weren't even close to happening. Coming from being a marketing executive for Blackberry, it was more or less in his DNA to hype something ahead of it's time. The man literally couldn't help himself.

Meruelo isn't into that. State laws in Arizona prevent Tempe from disclosing anything until the proper time.

What you DO have are a couple of parties (Glendale and Phoenix) who do NOT want this proposal to happen and they have been more than happy to toss whatever dead fish they can find onto the heap.

And of course whatever anyone else wants to imagine.

 

[Major4Boarding]

Arizona Open Meeting Law only requires 24 hour notice.

https://www.azoca.gov/wp-content/uploads/Open-Meeting-Law-101.pdf

Correct. I was referring to Glendale’s “transparency” campaign and those efforts to be, well… transparent is what I’ve been accustomed to.

Tempe’s exercising a tighter window. As is their right. Or they simply don’t have anything completed as a full agenda to table yet.

No rush… this is gonna take awhile

 

[TheLegend]

Correct. I was referring to Glendale’s “transparency” campaign and those efforts to be, well… transparent is what I’ve been accustomed to.

Tempe’s exercising a tighter window. As is their right. Or they simply don’t have anything completed as a full agenda to table yet.

No rush… this is gonna take awhile

I'm certainly not in a hurry.

 

[Ernie]

Venturing from the purely business side of things, it's clear the Coyotes are on a tear down rebuild like no other. 3 first round picks and 5 2nd round picks in the upcoming draft. Who knows how many more they'll they end up once they sell off their remaining young players and grab extra picks for veteran players just to reach the salary floor. I could see them acquiring an additional 8-10 picks in the first two rounds!

IMO it's actually a pretty smart strategy, if the team is going to suck anyhow why not make it really suck and collect the picks?

Rinse and repeat for the 2023 draft.

Then in 3-5 years time they'll have a bumper crop of young players, just in time to move into a new arena with much fanfare. And they'll all still be very cheap! At that point they can decide to augment with some quality veterans or merely just roll with what they have.

 

[Kirk Van Houten]

Seems like they're going with the ASU as a patch

 

[wildthing202]

Seems like they're going with the ASU as a patch

Will they require all of the rent be paid upfront? Can they get a federal loan that they can't declare bankruptcy on in order to be at ASU for 4 years?

 

[zacharytsmith]

Long time local lurker who hasn't posted here in years. The flow chart here does not consist of a single go/no-go decision. The sequence begins when the consultant gives its report to Tempe Council. The Council then holds a hearing and decides whether to award a contract, thus enabling the start of negotiations over tax incentives, who pays for what, etc. The final agreement must come back to Council for a new vote--presumably but not necessarily to approve. At a minimum, the negotiating and drafting phase takes a few months (the timeline from Glendale 2001). But for Tempe's recent approval of the South Pier project, well over a year elapsed between the Council's "award" of the redevelopment proposal and its approval of a final agreement. The earliest timeline for final approval of a deal here is probably April 2022, and could be much later.

In the meantime (and here's the rub), several potential problems await. 1. The Goldwater Institute/gift clause people, familiar from the Glendale days. 2. The City of Phoenix airport and aviation community. A January 18 op-ed in the Arizona Republic (not mentioned in this thread) shows that this opposition is real. 3. General public opposition from within Tempe. This obviously influences Council votes, but can also manifest itself in a drive for a referendum vote if enough signatures are gathered. This happened in Scottsdale in 1999, when petitions forced a referendum on Ellman's proposal to redevelop Los Arcos mall. All these factors could mean lawsuits, PR campaigns, elections, and generally prolong the uncertainty.

There is no sign of a public meeting of the board that operates the old Veterans Coliseum. They are a public body that must give notice of all board meetings, and there is obvious urgency if the Coyotes are to play there next year. Especially since the Arizona State Fair occurs in October, which presents scheduling issues. But that board's public notice page shows they have not met since August 24, 2021. Arizona State Fair Statutory Notices | azstatefair.com

 

[Jagged Ice]

Will they require all of the rent be paid upfront? Can they get a federal loan that they can't declare bankruptcy on in order to be at ASU for 4 years?

Haha! A federal loan. The Coyotes have a billionaire owner. Not paying the rent at that arena in Glendale was just a big FU to them.

 

[Swervin81]

Seems like they're going with the ASU as a patch

Meruelo probably has no problem using the Coyotes as a glorified loss leader since he can make the money the Yotes bleed right back from his sportsbooks in Arizona. The team is a means to an end for him, after all.

That said, 31 other owners might have a say.

 

[Mightygoose]

Seems like they're going with the ASU as a patch

3-4 years is a very long patch

Wonder what ASU would want for rent plus they will need to prioritize their own programs too. I guess that rules out Chase Filed if this is true....only possible option is a 5K seat building, similar to the 2nd arena under the IA proposal years back lolz

 

[Ernie]

Well Craig Morgan's article seems to be getting some traction, the website has crashed.

 

[Fatass]

3-4 years is a very long patch

Wonder what ASU would want for rent plus they will need to prioritize their own programs too. I guess that rules out Chase Filed if this is true....only possible option is a 5K seat building, similar to the 2nd arena under the IA proposal years back lolz

THe rink is only 5,000 seats!

 

[TheLegend]

THe rink is only 5,000 seats!

It's a little more than that.

From one of Craig Morgan's older articles

The Big Read: A deeper look inside Arizona State's future hockey arena and multi-purpose facility

Key features of ASU’s new multi-purpose arena

• Cost: $115 million (financed through bonds over a 30-year term, using fund raising, revenue generated by the facility and athletic district revenue)
• Completion date: December 2022 (with functionality at the start of the 2022-2023 college hockey season)
• Seating capacity: 5,000 for hockey, about 5,300 for basketball
• Suites: 20 (16-person) luxury suites, two group suites, a club lounge and premium club seats
• An adjacent community rink that will likely house a local youth hockey organization, tournaments, public skates and other events
• An open-air deck that wraps around the entire interior of the arena, affording views of the playing surface while walking along the concourses
• A 200-person party desk with open views of the arena
• A steep, 942-seat student section located at the end of the ice where visiting goalies play for two of three periods
• A center-hung, high definition scoreboard
• Ribbon (video) boards on either side of the arena
• A 9,500-square-foot hockey team suite with dressing room, coaches offices, training, therapy and equipment areas
• A weight room with a mezzanine for cardio equipment
• Eight additional locker rooms, four of which have flexible walls to allow for the combination of rooms

Seating capacity is low, but it has all the amenities an NHL arena would require.

 

[Ernie]

Long time local lurker who hasn't posted here in years. The flow chart here does not consist of a single go/no-go decision. The sequence begins when the consultant gives its report to Tempe Council. The Council then holds a hearing and decides whether to award a contract, thus enabling the start of negotiations over tax incentives, who pays for what, etc. The final agreement must come back to Council for a new vote--presumably but not necessarily to approve. At a minimum, the negotiating and drafting phase takes a few months (the timeline from Glendale 2001). But for Tempe's recent approval of the South Pier project, well over a year elapsed between the Council's "award" of the redevelopment proposal and its approval of a final agreement. The earliest timeline for final approval of a deal here is probably April 2022, and could be much later.

In the meantime (and here's the rub), several potential problems await. 1. The Goldwater Institute/gift clause people, familiar from the Glendale days. 2. The City of Phoenix airport and aviation community. A January 18 op-ed in the Arizona Republic (not mentioned in this thread) shows that this opposition is real. 3. General public opposition from within Tempe. This obviously influences Council votes, but can also manifest itself in a drive for a referendum vote if enough signatures are gathered. This happened in Scottsdale in 1999, when petitions forced a referendum on Ellman's proposal to redevelop Los Arcos mall. All these factors could mean lawsuits, PR campaigns, elections, and generally prolong the uncertainty.

There is no sign of a public meeting of the board that operates the old Veterans Coliseum. They are a public body that must give notice of all board meetings, and there is obvious urgency if the Coyotes are to play there next year. Especially since the Arizona State Fair occurs in October, which presents scheduling issues. But that board's public notice page shows they have not met since August 24, 2021. Arizona State Fair Statutory Notices | azstatefair.com

Thank you for this! Much needed info on the approval process.

The AZ Republic op-ed is here:
Sky Harbor Airport must be protected from hockey arena, housing

Basically, the airport and the businesses that depend on it will oppose any residential component to this development.

 

[Ernie]

• A 9,500-square-foot hockey team suite with dressing room, coaches offices, training, therapy and equipment areas
• A weight room with a mezzanine for cardio equipment
• Eight additional locker rooms, four of which have flexible walls to allow for the combination of rooms

Seating capacity is low, but it has all the amenities an NHL arena would require.

If you read the article you'd know that the Coyotes would not have access to any of these facilities, and would have to build their own.

 

[MNNumbers]

I think determining factor here is the rink and the video capabilities. When you consider NHL standards for replays and TV, the cost to retro-fit those into any other place likely tipped the scale. The ASU situation requires nothing from the Yotes except signing a lease and working out a schedule. Much easier than all the details in the other possibilities.