CXLVIII - Coyotes owner Alex Meruelo had 'productive' meeting with Phoenix mayor

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This ain't the Atlanta of '99 or 2011.

Atlanta is now the 6th biggest metro area in the U.S. and the state has gone from 13th in GDP to 8th since the Thrashers have left. Atlanta is now the 18th largest city economy in the entire world. And Krause is putting a team/arena not the city, but where all the money is.

You're crazy if you don't think this isn't still printing money a decade from now. Cast your aspersions elsewhere but Atlanta 3.0 ain't the target. We're about to knock it out of the park and the entire league is about to reap the benefits in the way of major sponsors.
Yup. Because it was just those few spots that will make the difference. Everyone who said that Arizona would ultimately fail despite it's population, media market, corporate money, whatever, turns out we were right. We were also right about Atlanta 2.0. Guess we'll see about Atlanta 3.0, but I have confidence that we'll be right as well because it's not always the case that the third time is the charm.
 
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Well, that's about as official as official gets without being officially official.

After all the megathreads, all the resurrection, all the owners and front office groups...and it ends with a f***ing whimper at the end of the season because they're all a bunch of f***ing cowards. All of them. All of these assholes.

I don't care about any hypothetical right of first refusal agreement, there's no way Meruelo both builds a state-of-the-art arena and earns back the NHL's trust for many, many years, and on top of that he'd need to pay a huge expansion fee that will only get bigger. No way this grifting mother f***er's going to spend that much of his own money. If a NHL team comes back to Arizona it's going to be with Ishbia or someone other than Meruelo. The NHL would rather wait him out because they are focused on Atlanta and Houston for the next round of expansion.

If you have a soul don't blame anyone on the Coyotes board. They were just as big fans as any of us and they don't deserve this shit. If I were them I would have much rather been put out of my misery years ago than go through this slow, agonizing death. If they never come back to the NHL not a soul should be blaming them for it. If I were a Coyotes fan, I'd probably never watch another NHL game ever again.

Many of us thought TED was the dagger. On paper, it should have worked. But that shithead owner thought it was money in the bank and he didn't do the grunt work to earn votes because he's a total asshole that is incapable of relating (or unwilling) to the common man. After all his nasty comments to Glendale and the incompetence of the council, his mishandling of TED, the abominable way he treats his employees and customers...f*** him. And f*** the NHL too.
 
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But money is, and we have it in spades.
And as I said, you had it in spades prior to 2.0 relocating as well. So did Phoenix/Glendale, and look how well that helped them. I could also add San Jose, Dallas, Columbus, and a few others to that list as well. Market size, corporate money, media, all of that do not mean anything when dealing with what is a niche, foreign, sport that will be nowhere near even the top 5 teams in terms of importance in the city.
 
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Well, that's about as official as official gets without being officially official.

After all the megathreads, all the resurrection, all the owners and front office groups...and it ends with a f***ing whimper at the end of the season because they're all a bunch of f***ing cowards. All of them. All of these assholes.

I don't care about any hypothetical right of first refusal agreement, there's no way Meruelo both builds a state-of-the-art arena and earns back the NHL's trust for many, many years, and on top of that he'd need to pay a huge expansion fee that will only get bigger. No way this grifting mother f***er's going to spend that much of his own money. If a NHL team comes back to Arizona it's going to be with Ishbia or someone other than Meruelo. The NHL would rather wait him out because they are focused on Atlanta and Houston for the next round of expansion.

If you have a soul don't blame anyone on the Coyotes board. They were just as big fans as any of us and they don't deserve this shit. If I were them I would have much rather been put out of my misery year ago than go through this slow, agonizing death. If they never come back to the NHL not a soul should be blaming them for it. If I were a Coyotes fan, I'd probably never watch another NHL game ever again.
The mega threads ain’t going anywhere, broseph. There will be no stopping.
 
If you’re referring to the five year window he gets to revive the team…..

That is more than likely something the league had to offer to get this sale to happen.

I don’t think the league believes he’ll pull it off. We’ll know for sure come June 27th.

The market will at least need that much time to heal… maybe even a little longer.
And according to Elliotte Friedman -- i hink it was n the Jeff Marek Show -- that five year window apparently has a number of milestones along the way that Meruelo must meet.
 
Don’t cry it because it’s over, laugh because it happened.

I am generally a fan of the job Bettman’s done with the NHL. But his insistence on Arizona as a market which was clearly, obviously, blatantly, empirically not working, is a huge black mark on him.

Feel bad for the small group of dedicated Coyotes fans but this is the right decision and they know it.
 
Sad if this comes to fruition for the Arizona fans. I hope they get a team back soon, and am convinced they will be a big success, especially with ownership and a great new arena in place.
Canadian fans who take any pleasure in this should beware of Karma... Winnipeg and QC left mainly because of the Exchange Rate and we are not far off similar lows right now (with a Canadian economy far worse than the US economy).
Winnipeg did not leave mainly due US exchange rate.

Much more important factors were:
1. No salary cap
2. No revenue sharing
3. Garbage Arena situation.

Chipman and co would not have petitioned for a franchise if it was mainly due to exchange rates.
 
If you’re referring to the five year window he gets to revive the team…..

That is more than likely something the league had to offer to get this sale to happen.

I don’t think the league believes he’ll pull it off. We’ll know for sure come June 27th.

The market will at least need that much time to heal… maybe even a little longer.
He won't pull it off.

What are the chances he A) wins the auction; B) gets all this construction done AND pays the contractors that do the work like that scumbag is supposed to; C) earns the NHL's trust again, and D) is willing to pay a huge expansion fee from his own money, all within 5 years? All of those things need to happen for him to get a team back.

A team will come back to Arizona. I'm sure of it. But it won't be owned by Alex Meruelo and it damn well shouldnt be because if it is, it will fail. The guy isn't fit to own a NHL team.
 
Sad if this comes to fruition for the Arizona fans. I hope they get a team back soon, and am convinced they will be a big success, especially with ownership and a great new arena in place.

I'm convinced Utah will also be a big success, as it will grow significantly, and they are becoming a alternative destination for a lot of California tech corporations.

Canadian fans who take any pleasure in this should beware of Karma... Winnipeg and QC left mainly because of the Exchange Rate and we are not far off similar lows right now (with a Canadian economy far worse than the US economy).

With the kind of huge money being suddenly waived around I suspect someone, somewhere, someday could have their eye on Winnipeg and Ottawa. Everyone has their price. Bettman's trip to Winnipeg raises an eyebrow, as does Frietta's recent comment about "I'm working on it".

I'm also convinced Houston and Atlanta would be huge successes. Moving Winnipeg and Ottawa there is a scenario that opens the door to expansion back to Arizona and another Texas team for #33 & #34 (Texas is projected to have over 40 million people by 2035, and the Austin/San Antonio markets represent a huge opportunity for a 3rd team in the state - especially with the huge inlfux of tech and corporate HQs to the region). That would finally give the NHL a footprint that covers the markets that are huge and growing fast and have lots of money and potential for corporate support.


Be careful what you wish for when it comes to relocation.
So everybody is going to be a huge success? Gotcha.

Meruelo is a dirtbag grifter. He's never going to own an NHL team again and he sure as shit ain't building an arena. He'll be indicted on fraud charges of some kind before Phoenix sees another NHL team.
 
And as I said, you had it in spades prior to 2.0 relocating as well. So did Phoenix/Glendale, and look how well that helped them. I could also add San Jose, Dallas, Columbus, and a few others to that list as well. Market size, corporate money, media, all of that do not mean anything when dealing with what is a niche, foreign, sport that will be nowhere near even the top 5 teams in terms of importance in the city.

We didn't, and definitely not to this extent. Case and point: Atlanta United FC, who hold just about every attendance record in NA soccer. That wouldn't have happened in 1999 or 2011. The dynamic of this city, and it's economy, have shifted. But you'll see. You'll soon see.
 
Winnipeg did not leave mainly due US exchange rate.

Much more important factors were:
1. No salary cap
2. No revenue sharing
3. Garbage Arena situation.

Chipman and co would not have petitioned for a franchise if it was mainly due to exchange rates.

Jan 1995 CDN - USD was as low .70 cents US. June of 2011 it was 1.02 - yes higher than the US dollar. Today its down to .72 US. This has a huge impact.
 
The legend goes that Bettman called Chipman, complaining about the leak before anything was completely finalized, and Chipman said "you think you've got problems, listen to this:" and stuck his phone out his car window, to the 100s of people who had gathered at portage and main to celebrate that night, and he was happening to drive by.

Probably didn't happen exactly that way, but a great story nonetheless.
Yeah, the whole city was absolutely wild that night (and the weeks that followed). Really great vibes.
 
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I am generally a fan of the job Bettman’s done with the NHL. But his insistence on Arizona as a market which was clearly, obviously, blatantly, empirically not working, is a huge black mark on him.
Every time someone says something to this effect, I'm going to point out that every commissioner in every other pro sports league who was in Bettman's spot in 2009 would have done exactly the same things Bettman did, which is "protect the rights and interests of the league at all costs."

If you want to blame him for stuff after that, ... go ahead if you want, but he also wasn't about to unilaterally break commitments with cities, and he especially wasn't about to backtrack on positions he'd taken under oath simply because this is inconvenient now, I want to do something different. He had stated a process existed and was going to show that the process was followed; he wasn't about to buck that and have it held against him, the league and the other owners, to their collective detriment.
 
League has spent a year plus getting to this point. Even I can’t see this pivoting 180 degrees in less than a week.

But I also believe the league is betting Meruelo won’t go through with taking the next five years building a ED in NE Phoenix.

He’s announced a new arena and upgrade to his Reno property several months ago and that hasn’t even started yet. And the arena was set to open 2025-26 for UNR basketball.

If I were to tin foil this , Meruelo will take that billion and put it into the Reno project. He might buy and develop the NE Phoenix property but not an arena. And even if he does the expansion could be set so high he can’t meet it.

So Ishiba meeting with Bettman might be just a cursory meeting for something after five years.
Hence my earlier post TL. And that was giving him the gratuitous benefit of having the f***ing wherewithal to do it

I would add that Ishiba probably entered the chat, but in the queue.
 
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A factor yes. Not the main reason for Jets 1.0 leaving.

Issue is its a factor now. With the exchange rate if someone offers 1 or 1.5 Billion or 2 Billion US for Winnipeg that translates to 1.3, 2.6, and almost 3 Billion CDN. Everyone has a price.

For the record, I have long hoped that Arizona, Winnipeg 2.0 and Ottawa all stay where they are and the NHL moves into the big open markets through expansion.
 
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Every time someone says something to this effect, I'm going to point out that every commissioner in every other pro sports league who was in Bettman's spot in 2009 would have done exactly the same things Bettman did, which is "protect the rights and interests of the league at all costs."

If you want to blame him for stuff after that, ... go ahead if you want, but he also wasn't about to unilaterally break commitments with cities, and he especially wasn't about to backtrack on positions he'd taken under oath simply because this is inconvenient now, I want to do something different. He had stated a process existed and was going to show that the process was followed; he wasn't about to buck that and have it held against him, the league and the other owners, to their collective detriment.

Not letting the team back door into Hamilton was obviously the correct thing to do. Spending year after year attempting to keep the team in a market where nobody wanted to own them was a bit ridiculous.

At the end of the day, I think the problem was that interest had dried up in Kansas City and they were forced to play the Winnipeg card to solve Atlanta. The only other interested markets after that were ones they wanted to save for expansion. I sort of wonder if Salt Lake City had been out there 10 years ago if this wouldn’t have already happened.
 
Sorry for your loss, Coyotes fans. I was actively on these neverending threads going back more than a decade (after taking a break in recent years because it was just too much), and EVEN THOUGH I think this is the right move and have been very vocally anti-Coyotes... I know what it's like to lose a team.

If I've learned anything from this crazy saga, it's that the Coyotes have some die-hard fans. Maybe there aren't as many as in traditional hockey towns, (and maybe that was never the problem in the first place), but I'm not completely heartless.

Hopefully if another team comes your way, the circumstances will be right and there won't be any of this constant drama and questions about the team's viability.

For all my bluster about the desert being an inappropriate location for hockey, maybe it will work under the right circumstances. Other sunbelt cities have proven that. I'm still not sold on it ever working in AZ, but what do I know? Maybe it can be the next Vegas (which I also thought was a stupid idea, and look how that turned out).

I hope you don't stop watching entirely, and maybe you can eventually find a way to support your former team in SLC. I couldn't do that after '96. I didn't watch hockey at all for a number of years after the Jets left, and a lot of my vitriol toward the Coyotes is still rooted in my team getting "stolen" when I was a teenager (as an adult in my 40s, I obviously know it was much more complicated than that).

You don't need that. I'm happy things are finally coming to an end in the desert (for now?) because the entire thing was a goddamn clown show for years, with all the ownership drama, livestreaming council meetings, etc. etc., but I hope things work out for the Coyotes fans in one way or another.

Whether that's building a marquee AHL team until the NHL is ready to have you back (we did that in Winnipeg with the Moose), or whatever... sorry for your loss.
 
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Issue is its a factor now. With the exchange rate if someone offers 1 or 1.5 Billion or 2 Billion US for Winnipeg that translates to 1.3, 2.6, and almost 3 Billion CDN. Everyone has a price.

For the record, I have long hoped that Arizona, Winnipeg 2.0 and Ottawa all stay where they are and the NHL moves into the big open markets through expansion.
I agree that someone could offer big $$$ for the Jets and Chipman could sell. However your post was making the case that exchange rate was the main factor in the 1996 move. It was less of a factor than he other points I made.

Today that exchange rate would be more of a factor in an offer as you have just mentioned.
 
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I agree that someone could offer big $$$ for the Jets and Chipman could sell. However your post was making the case that exchange rate was the main factor in the 1996 move. It was less of a factor than he other points I made.

Today that exchange rate would be more of a factor in an offer as you have just mentioned.

I hear that there’s a guy in Phoenix about to make a cool billion on a transaction, maybe he should call Chipman
 
Hence my earlier post TL. And that was giving him the gratuitous benefit of having the f***ing wherewithal to do it

I would add that Ishiba probably entered the chat, but in the queue.

That’s pretty much how I looked at it.

Ishiba wasn’t going to change things at this point. League has spent months on this to get to this point.

Meruelo is going to have a five year window aka “show us” deal and have first right of refusal. AIUI….. There are specific check points he has to make to keep that window open

So Ishiba’s visit is more or less a courtesy call to drop is card off for Bettman’s Rolodex.
 
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