CXLIX - FINAL thoughts on the Arizona Coyotes

takimaki

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Apr 14, 2010
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Hockey in AZ has been a bad business model....there is not enough hockey fans to support the team, the market didn't grow enough, and the population has not come around....after almost 30 years.....
They just voted against the development that would have kept the team there afterall....
It was a brand new hockey market when they first moved to AZ, and they (the league and the revolving door of owners) completely failed to do what any business has to do when entering a new market: create a comprehensive entry strategy that takes into account the unique challenges of the local market. They didn't even bother with that at all, they just plopped the team down in Glendale like it was a McDonalds franchise. Oh sure, they parachuted Gretzky in as coach to make a splash, and when that didn't work (surprise!), they just let the Coyotes limp along as a poorly run, extremely neglected product on life support.

Hockey in Arizona, or any new market, is only a "bad business model" if you're going to run the team like you don't care.
 

Skidooboy

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It was a brand new hockey market when they first moved to AZ, and they (the league and the revolving door of owners) completely failed to do what any business has to do when entering a new market: create a comprehensive entry strategy that takes into account the unique challenges of the local market. They didn't even bother with that at all, they just plopped the team down in Glendale like it was a McDonalds franchise. Oh sure, they parachuted Gretzky in as coach to make a splash, and when that didn't work (surprise!), they just let the Coyotes limp along as a poorly run, extremely neglected product on life support.

Hockey in Arizona, or any new market, is only a "bad business model" if you're going to run the team like you don't care.
except AZ WAS supposed to be a hockey market..Pro teams at every level for most of the last 57 years.

And The narrative of "just letting it Limp along...is BS. the 'Yotes had more support, money, and input from the league than any team in NHL history.

WHAT HAPPENED is the owners started hemorrhaging money IMMEDIATELY upon relocation.

Because there was no tv money, no Merch sales, no corporate support and Fans wouldn't pay enough for tickets and luxury boxes for the owner to make a profit.

Based on the minimum of 200 million lost between 96 and 2009 (based on the "Hundreds of Millions quote from the 09 bankruptcy) that's losses of 15+ million per year each and every year from 96 to 09.... but estimates of closer to 350 Million were floated at the time... which works out closer to to 26 million in losses per year...

the failure was of the market. not the league, the owners, managers, players, coaches... or even any of the actual AZ actual hockey fans.

It was the market that failed. a market that will always fail...because Phoenix folk don't want HOCKEY...THEY WANT GOLF COURSES.

The snowbirds never did flood the stadium...because after the trip to the outlet mall, or golf or shuffleboard or whatever it is they do in their trailer park retirement snowbird communities? they pop off to denny's for the 55+ meal and home for Jeopardy... zipping out to a hockey game? it's never been on the itinerary.

...it was the entirety of the AZ market that failed. It failed to provide enough fans to pay enough money to support the team.
 

TheLegend

"Just say it 3 times..."
Aug 30, 2009
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Haven't seen this much word salad tossing since my last visit to a Salad and Go.

Nice to see none of the usual cliches about Arizona are being left out. Playing golf in 110 degree plus weather for 2 1/2 months out of the year and another months worth at 100+ for has always been THE BIG THING to do. :biglaugh:


It was a brand new hockey market when they first moved to AZ, and they (the league and the revolving door of owners) completely failed to do what any business has to do when entering a new market: create a comprehensive entry strategy that takes into account the unique challenges of the local market. They didn't even bother with that at all, they just plopped the team down in Glendale like it was a McDonalds franchise. Oh sure, they parachuted Gretzky in as coach to make a splash, and when that didn't work (surprise!), they just let the Coyotes limp along as a poorly run, extremely neglected product on life support.

Hockey in Arizona, or any new market, is only a "bad business model" if you're going to run the team like you don't care.

Didn't quite happen like you described there. But I get the point you're trying to make.

Arizona has a 50+ year history of hockey played at various pro and college levels. Long before there was such a thing as "snowbirds", so it wasn't exactly a brand new market.... except for the NHL level. Phoenix metro in those days consisted of several loosely connected cities totaling just over a million people (compared to over 4 million today).

Phoenix had just 3 sheets of ice when the Coyotes arrived..... by 2020 the number grew to 13 thanks (in part) to the Coyotes being here and it wasn't enough to meet the demand for ice time.

Still doesn't change the point as you were trying to make that the gentlemen who bought the original Winnipeg Jets ended up coming to Arizona without much of a plan for that market. They really wanted to end up in Minnesota.
 

Boris Zubov

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May 6, 2016
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Back on the east coast

TheLegend

"Just say it 3 times..."
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The video's creator clearly had a bone to pick with Glendale. He conveniently chose to ignore the two $25M payments that the NHL extorted from the COG or the fact that the city paid for the building in the first place.

I stopped after the first four minutes of non-sequitur cut pieces,
 

Svechhammer

THIS is hockey?
Jun 8, 2017
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Hockey in Arizona, or any new market, is only a "bad business model" if you're going to run the team like you don't care.
Case in point: The Atlanta Thrashers

Except in both the case of the Thrash and the Yotes, the owners very publicly did not want the team at all and was seemingly doing everything in their power to damage fan relations to grease the wheels of a market exit.

Karmanos tried the same thing in Raleigh, and I think the only reason it didn't happen was because the league saw that the market can work in the 2002, 2006, and 2009 playoff runs and made sure anyone who bought did so with a requirement to invest in the area. In the case of Arizona and Atlanta, the owners were so bad that they never really got the chance to see that it can work, despite us knowing that it would.
 
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Fatass

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Case in point: The Atlanta Thrashers

Except in both the case of the Thrash and the Yotes, the owners very publicly did not want the team at all and was seemingly doing everything in their power to damage fan relations to grease the wheels of a market exit.

Karmanos tried the same thing in Raleigh, and I think the only reason it didn't happen was because the league saw that the market can work in the 2002, 2006, and 2009 playoff runs and made sure anyone who bought did so with a requirement to invest in the area. In the case of Arizona and Atlanta, the owners were so bad that they never really got the chance to see that it can work, despite us knowing that it would.
To be truly successful a club needs a lot of rabid fans, like us on HF, in their area. Winning early and often would certainly have helped the Coyotes. Just too much losing down there to build a fan base.
 

Svechhammer

THIS is hockey?
Jun 8, 2017
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To be truly successful a club needs a lot of rabid fans, like us on HF, in their area. Winning early and often would certainly have helped the Coyotes. Just too much losing down there to build a fan base.
It doesn't have to be winning, You don't need to win a Cup to have a rabid fanbase that sells out the arena most nights. You just need to have an ownership and management group that at the very least gives the impression that they are legitimately trying.

Speaking from first hand experience here, things in Raleigh cratered when it became obvious that Karmanos didn't care enough to try. It was bad enough that he was unwilling to spend more than the cap floor every year for a team that always finished 10-15 points outside the playoff cut line, but then he had the audacity to start blaming the fans for his unwillingness to spend money. Those last few years were seriously ugly, and I'm glad he's gone, but gave me so much sympathy for the shit that fans in Atlanta and Arizona dealt with (and hell, now for the fans of the Oakland A's as well).

And the kicker is, Tom Dundon came in and immediately proved everything Karmanos said was a load of BS. He immediately started spending to the cap, dropped ticket prices for the explicit purpose of getting people into the arena and hooked back onto the game, and allowed it to grow from there, because he knew that spending a little bit of money up front would exponentially increase his revenue down the line. And sure, the Canes are a consistently good team now, and that helps a lot, but we've now basically sold out every game since COVID and had a wait list for season tickets last year (I do believe that dropped this year because they jacked up cost across the board and a lot of people dropped).

If you do the same in Atlanta or Phoenix (or hell, Houston), by taking a loss and investing up front to build a following and making sure you spend to the cap every year, you will have a strong fanbase in those areas. Its really not that hard to accomplish, but some people just got rich by being really cheap, and they don't know any other way to act.
 

Fatass

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Apr 17, 2017
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It doesn't have to be winning, You don't need to win a Cup to have a rabid fanbase that sells out the arena most nights. You just need to have an ownership and management group that at the very least gives the impression that they are legitimately trying.

Speaking from first hand experience here, things in Raleigh cratered when it became obvious that Karmanos didn't care enough to try. It was bad enough that he was unwilling to spend more than the cap floor every year for a team that always finished 10-15 points outside the playoff cut line, but then he had the audacity to start blaming the fans for his unwillingness to spend money. Those last few years were seriously ugly, and I'm glad he's gone, but gave me so much sympathy for the shit that fans in Atlanta and Arizona dealt with (and hell, now for the fans of the Oakland A's as well).

And the kicker is, Tom Dundon came in and immediately proved everything Karmanos said was a load of BS. He immediately started spending to the cap, dropped ticket prices for the explicit purpose of getting people into the arena and hooked back onto the game, and allowed it to grow from there, because he knew that spending a little bit of money up front would exponentially increase his revenue down the line. And sure, the Canes are a consistently good team now, and that helps a lot, but we've now basically sold out every game since COVID and had a wait list for season tickets last year (I do believe that dropped this year because they jacked up cost across the board and a lot of people dropped).

If you do the same in Atlanta or Phoenix (or hell, Houston), by taking a loss and investing up front to build a following and making sure you spend to the cap every year, you will have a strong fanbase in those areas. Its really not that hard to accomplish, but some people just got rich by being really cheap, and they don't know any other way to act.
In these non traditional hockey markets winning is everything. No winning = not enough fans. Yes, a bad owner is part of the problem but winning is a lot more important. Too much losing in Arizona for enough fans to care about the club.
 
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Headshot77

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Case in point: The Atlanta Thrashers

Except in both the case of the Thrash and the Yotes, the owners very publicly did not want the team at all and was seemingly doing everything in their power to damage fan relations to grease the wheels of a market exit.

Karmanos tried the same thing in Raleigh, and I think the only reason it didn't happen was because the league saw that the market can work in the 2002, 2006, and 2009 playoff runs and made sure anyone who bought did so with a requirement to invest in the area. In the case of Arizona and Atlanta, the owners were so bad that they never really got the chance to see that it can work, despite us knowing that it would.
The NHL, after a come to Jesus moment in the 90's when nearly all of their Canadian franchises left, fights to keep any team in their home market. I really respect that. In the MLB they actively destroyed Oakland to chase gambling money in Vegas. The NFL salted the earth in St. Louis and San Diego just to give LA two franchises it didn't need.

For whatever faults you may have with Bettman, he wouldn't let Balsille relocate the Predators, Pens, or Coyotes. He fought to keep the Islanders and Hurricanes where they are. He begrudgingly allowed the Thrashers to relocate because their owners were actively hostile to the team. They only cut the cord with Arizona after a quarter century of hard evidence it wasn't working there. They know how messy relocations can be and how damaging they are for the cities they are leaving. I genuinely feel like the NHL is way more empathetic to those cities than the other leagues.
 

Shwan

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You can't sustain winning with a bad owner and even getting out of the dump is made harder.
But this serves as an important tool to highlight regarding the Coyotes. How many times were we forced to endure the rhetoric from Coyotes fans that had the team just got Matthews it would have changed everything because having a very good local player on an incredibly cheap and bad team would have magically generated gate revenue?
 

Skidooboy

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Jun 22, 2011
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Case in point: The Atlanta Thrashers

Except in both the case of the Thrash and the Yotes, the owners very publicly did not want the team at all and was seemingly doing everything in their power to damage fan relations to grease the wheels of a market exit.

Karmanos tried the same thing in Raleigh, and I think the only reason it didn't happen was because the league saw that the market can work in the 2002, 2006, and 2009 playoff runs and made sure anyone who bought did so with a requirement to invest in the area. In the case of Arizona and Atlanta, the owners were so bad that they never really got the chance to see that it can work, despite us knowing that it would.
Here’s the thing.
And none of the apologists will ever discuss this…ever. It doesn’t fit with the victim complex of the fans.

BUT.

It isn’t complicated, it’s not a conspiracy, it’s not some crazy difficult algorithm. it’s not just ego or ill will or bad decisions….

IT’S MONEY!!!!!!

The owners wanted to generate profits. If Atl or AZ had MADE MONEY they would still be in ATL and AZ. If they were profitable I promise you the owners would have held on to them. “you don’t kill a golden goose” as they say…..but you do “flush a turd.”

The teams didn’t make profits…. In fact year after year the posted losses. big big multi million dollar losses, at a time when a million was a fortune not an avg house price.
Over and over again.
No TV money, No corporate support, No merch, and NOT ENOUGH TICKET REVENUE to pay for the teams. TURDS. big smelly, expensive TURDS.

Of course the owners soured on the teams and began to look towards dumping the bad investment… ? do you really expect them to keep pumping good money after bad? for the DECADES it will take apparently to build a fan base?


with the rules, the NHL has on selling teams and relocating? esp after 2009? The only way to do it is to drive the team into the ground and kill it so the league has no choice.

Even then the league fought to keep the market. in Arizona they spent 20 years foisting con-men liars and idiots onto the public in an attempt to try and keep that team alive.

And the public? The general market? They stayed away and droves and kept their money in their pocket.
 
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DustyDangler

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Dec 20, 2023
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But this serves as an important tool to highlight regarding the Coyotes. How many times were we forced to endure the rhetoric from Coyotes fans that had the team just got Matthews it would have changed everything because having a very good local player on an incredibly cheap and bad team would have magically generated gate revenue?
It would not have magically generated gate revenue but are you suggesting Auston Matthews does not sell tickets?
 

DustyDangler

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Dec 20, 2023
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In these non traditional hockey markets winning is everything. No winning = not enough fans. Yes, a bad owner is part of the problem but winning is a lot more important. Too much losing in Arizona for enough fans to care about the club.
This is every market other than Montreal and Toronto. Teams that are under 90% capacity currently include Calgary, Ottawa, Chicago, Philadelphia, Islanders, & Buffalo. Watch for Pittsburgh to join these teams when Sid retires. These are bad teams and bad teams take attendance hits regardless of being traditional or non-traditional and yes, there was too much losing for too long in AZ and most of that time the only buzz was around relocation conversations. You have to have a competitive team to draw or at least have the hope of it. With bad NHL teams and few meaningful prospects, wasn't much for average fan to cheer for in AZ (until the end of course and then it was too late).
 
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aqib

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Feb 13, 2012
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It doesn't have to be winning, You don't need to win a Cup to have a rabid fanbase that sells out the arena most nights. You just need to have an ownership and management group that at the very least gives the impression that they are legitimately trying.

Speaking from first hand experience here, things in Raleigh cratered when it became obvious that Karmanos didn't care enough to try. It was bad enough that he was unwilling to spend more than the cap floor every year for a team that always finished 10-15 points outside the playoff cut line, but then he had the audacity to start blaming the fans for his unwillingness to spend money. Those last few years were seriously ugly, and I'm glad he's gone, but gave me so much sympathy for the shit that fans in Atlanta and Arizona dealt with (and hell, now for the fans of the Oakland A's as well).

And the kicker is, Tom Dundon came in and immediately proved everything Karmanos said was a load of BS. He immediately started spending to the cap, dropped ticket prices for the explicit purpose of getting people into the arena and hooked back onto the game, and allowed it to grow from there, because he knew that spending a little bit of money up front would exponentially increase his revenue down the line. And sure, the Canes are a consistently good team now, and that helps a lot, but we've now basically sold out every game since COVID and had a wait list for season tickets last year (I do believe that dropped this year because they jacked up cost across the board and a lot of people dropped).

If you do the same in Atlanta or Phoenix (or hell, Houston), by taking a loss and investing up front to build a following and making sure you spend to the cap every year, you will have a strong fanbase in those areas. Its really not that hard to accomplish, but some people just got rich by being really cheap, and they don't know any other way to act.
Can you clear this up? I never saw anything thY said he didn't believe in the market. All I saw was stuff like this Peter Karmanos Addresses Raleigh Media
 

Shwan

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It would not have magically generated gate revenue but are you suggesting Auston Matthews does not sell tickets?
Auston Matthews sitting on a crappy Coyotes team that wouldn't be able to afford any support pieces for him would not sell tickets. Just like the Arizona Cardinals drafting Jake Plummer and Pat Tillman did not sell tickets.

The average Arizona resident wouldn't have given a crap that Matthews grew up here, all they would have saw was a good player struggling on a bad team.
 
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Skidooboy

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This is every market other than Montreal and Toronto. Teams that are under 90% capacity currently include Calgary, Ottawa, Chicago, Philadelphia, Islanders, & Buffalo. Watch for Pittsburgh to join these teams when Sid retires. These are bad teams and bad teams take attendance hits regardless of being traditional or non-traditional and yes, there was too much losing for too long in AZ and most of that time the only buzz was around relocation conversations. You have to have a competitive team to draw or at least have the hope of it. With bad NHL teams and few meaningful prospects, wasn't much for average fan to cheer for in AZ (until the end of course and then it was too late).
under 90% capacity?that number is meaningless without knowing what the profitability is. Winnipeg Jets owners say they have never lost money, even last year. with 80% ... whereas Chicago once claimed to have lost money the year they won the cup. with the best attendance in the league that year. Albeit a shortened season but some teams played less games, certainly less playoff games, and didn't report losses like Chigao did. Then Chicago INCREASED REVENUE last year with what ? 26 wins?

this argument is BS. local economy and corporate support and ticket PRICES have more to do with attendance than winning. AZ has a growing economy, an exploding population base, and some of the richest postal codes in the USA.... but they NEVER MADE A DIME.



 
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Headshot77

We saw him heading straight for the mountains
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Clearly the title "Final Thoughts on the Arizona Coyotes" is a bait and switch thing. The autopsy is not even finished yet but the family is fighting over the estate.
I mean, yes and no. It's over, the Coyotes are finally dead after being strung around for over a decade. The franchise didn't just relocate it has been technically disbanded, and is the first franchise to go properly defunct in some 50-odd years. This saga will be talked about until the end of time because the way it unfolded was genuinely a fascinating disasterpiece of incompetence. To that end, this is a bait and switch because I don't think the conversation should end about this non-existent team, and the prospect of a new expansion franchise. On the other, Coyotes relocation talk is finally over.
 

Sgt Schultz

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Jun 30, 2019
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I mean, yes and no. It's over, the Coyotes are finally dead after being strung around for over a decade. The franchise didn't just relocate it has been technically disbanded, and is the first franchise to go properly defunct in some 50-odd years. This saga will be talked about until the end of time because the way it unfolded was genuinely a fascinating disasterpiece of incompetence. To that end, this is a bait and switch because I don't think the conversation should end about this non-existent team, and the prospect of a new expansion franchise. On the other, Coyotes relocation talk is finally over.
It is, and should be, a case study of "don't let this happen to you." Short of a plane crash on the return trip home after securing a playoff spot or winning a playoff series, I'm not sure what else could have gone or been done wrong with the Coyotes. It seems like they checked all the boxes on that list.
 

DustyDangler

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Dec 20, 2023
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Auston Matthews sitting on a crappy Coyotes team that wouldn't be able to afford any support pieces for him would not sell tickets. Just like the Arizona Cardinals drafting Jake Plummer and Pat Tillman did not sell tickets.

The average Arizona resident wouldn't have given a crap that Matthews grew up here, all they would have saw was a good player struggling on a bad team.
Matthews, McDavid, or Eichel would've put the team on the map in AZ. With ownership that couldn't afford to pay for them and support pieces, it likely would've still flailed true.

What I am confident of though and folks don't have to agree with me and I don't care but if Bill Foley (or a similar type) had owned the Coyotes, and setup an arena in Phoenix the way he (and others) did in Vegas and if he ran the team in Phoenix the way he did in Vegas. I am confident the Coyotes would've been successful. It was a good enough market that competent ownership would've had success.
 
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