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

[RayMartyniukTotems]

Very long and I don’t give a shit if you all read it or not

16 1/2 years. This is how long I’ve had invested on this file. Back before I even joined up and was just a lurker

I would like to thank the League for being the ones holding the “Biggest Who’s to Blame” bag.

Ironic that I type that last part (and being the Metal Head that I am), I keep hearing the riffs and the lyrics to “Who’s to Blame” from Phoenix’s own Sacred Reich. Anyway…

I also give a huge thank you to Alex Meruelo and Xavier Gutierrez. Thank you for setting the bar to its lowest point of being the worst ownership group to ever lay their hands on this franchise. And that’s saying something considering everything else before this. If you know, you know.

Most of us know the previous ownership groups were pretenders, even outright f***ing idiots. But the second this group took over, and their track record and business practices, you just pinched your nose and hoped (I’m looking at you Yotes fans) those practices would not creep in to the day-to-day operations of this club

I get standard business speak. I’ve heard it, I’ve seen it, and even (God forbid) had to say some of the things that you’ve heard come out of AM and/or XG’s pie holes. Not living up to expectations, and openly-spouted promises, that happens in business all the time

But to ghost personnel, staff, players, and the devoted fan base that you fed heaping spoonfuls of bullshit to… to convince them to blindly and diligently believe in your grand scheme(s)… I mean for f***s sake you f***ing cowards, you sent your GM to be the Grim Reaper today

Cowards

That’s appalling, but it’s not surprising either, isn’t it?

If that doesn’t put the hook in you to realize how shitty this group is, and why everywhere else in the business world you hear nothing but cringeworthy things about them, I don’t know what else it would take.

I really feel bad for a majority of the Coyotes fans . Not all of them as, I’m not gonna lie (now that it’s over), that some of their pom-pom waving and constant bashing of this forum drove me nuts.

But the ones I have had direct contact with, either personally, responding to posts, or through messaging via this forum, l’m sorry that it’s officially over and you all deserved much more from the League than the effort level they gave you

Sure, you can come at me with everything they did to keep the team there and that this team should’ve been gone a long time ago. That’s not lost on me, but that’s also not the reason why.

I have long felt that the League went through all these lengths and efforts for optics. To impress upon other municipalities and agencies that some club(s) is tethered to for some measure of sustainability (and survivability) that they “won’t run out on you”. So when the next hotspot pops up that they can point back to this file and convince the naïve idiots that sit behind a council desk, the great efforts they put forth to keep this team here.

I want to say that CF is lurking this thread right now, possibly waiting for the right moment to chime in, but it does have an air of personal sadness that Fugu (RIP), Killian, BarneyG, OthmarAmmann and others are not here one last time to close this file

Ending it with this because I’m really tired and I need to go to bed. I have no doubt that the NHL will put another franchise back in this market and fairly quickly.

But it will not be through the means of this “get out of jail free” card five-year plan bullshit with Meruelo. I absolutely do not see him lasting through this five-year window.

This arrangement does nothing more than keep both parties out of court. The league effectively forced the sale and are doing enough to keep it from having lawyers attacking each other over it.

/rant

Meruelo might be an idiot but have you ever heard of Harold Ballard and Charlie O Finley they were the blueprint for mettle-some,idiot Owners who just couldn't leave well enough along and ruined their franchises in TO and Oakland-California but that was a "Hundred" years ago or seemingly...cheers though you make some really good points...The Arizona-Phoenix area should have been a good place and was for many years for NHL hockey to prosper and grow too bad you had to endure some real knuckhead "owners" who were only in it for themselves!Perhaps in the future the NHL comes calling again but from what I've heard that might be 10 years...well at least there is some hope

 

[wpgallday1960]

I’ve been remiss in not expressing my condolences to the die hard Coyote fans sooner. I know how hard it is to lose a team.

I have a feeling they’ll get an expansion franchise but not with Meruelo as owner. No Coyote fan should want that slime ball as an owner.

 

[LadyStanley]

Someone I know had already renewed for next year and a payment was due to come out on Monday. She’s going to put a stop request on the payment with her bank.

More than likely the team will stop payment and refund what has been paid to date.

 

[Stumbledore]

More than likely the team will stop payment and refund what has been paid to date.

If you think Meruelo will stop payment, you haven't been paying attention.

 

[MaskedSonja]

@Major4Boarding Thats part my reason for popping up, now this is (apparently) ending, wanted to see this close out. Tehose names you mentioned (RIP Fugu) I am saddened that they arent here to be a part of this. This-brings back a lot of memories and a lot of discussions, and met a lot of cool people on these boards. Thank you all for those memories

 

[GKJ]

If you think Meruelo will stop payment, you haven't been paying attention.

Nah man, he’ll collect interest. And I wonder if he has rights to hold money since he theoretically is still working on the arena, maybe he doesn’t have to refund unless he’s all the way out.

 

[Slashers98]

Well, that was a fun ride. I'm glad it's over now.

 

[dj4aces]

I've said it in other places, but I'll say it here too.

You guys deserved so much better. I don't just offer my condolences, I stand in solidarity with you. Having watched the Thrashers get unceremoniously kicked out of their building and sent off to Winnipeg was painful.

Our two situations have some parallels, but are different, so I refuse to compare the two. However, we know how you feel. Hurt, angry, the feeling that you're in a nightmare you can't wake up from... and a few might even feel teased by the idea that the league will return at some unspecified date. I still recall a few who were mad at me for saying the league would return here. Somewhere, they might still be mad at me for it.

At any rate... the league won't be the same without the Coyotes in it, but I do hope many of you guys will continue to follow the sport -- even if you cheer against the Utah team.

 

[eojsmada]

An end to a very painful series of memories. Fans deserved better, but this is what continued sub-par ownership and a continued supply of bandaids and duct tape gets you. Hopefully a better situation arises for Arizona to get another team with ownership situation that is deserving of the fans' loyalty.

 

[Voight]

I doubt this to be real.
Impossible? No.
But should we hope for it? No way.

Can believe Ishbia doing due diligence, but if he was serious, he didn’t become so in 58 hours

Pure speculation on my part, but could Ishbia be trying to buyout Meruelo's chance at an expansion franchise? Would keep him from having to worry about another arena getting built in Phoenix and could give him a pretty big chip in bargaining with the city for a new arena down the line.

My thinking is they'll gauge him on his interest in an expansion team. & if they're deadset on the market, possibly cut him a deal on the fee (which I only see happening if PHX is the very next market, can't imagine some other owner being too happy that he had to pay more just because the NHL wants a team in the Phoenix area)

 

[GKJ]

My thinking is they'll gauge him on his interest in an expansion team. & if they're deadset on the market, possibly cut him a deal on the fee (which I only see happening if PHX is the very next market, can't imagine some other owner being too happy that he had to pay more just because the NHL wants a team in the Phoenix area)

He’s only gonna get a team if he has an exit strategy on Footprint. He doesn’t have incentive to otherwise.

 

[Voight]

The only other potential NHL market in Canada IMO is QC, and this particular NHL BoG very obviously does not want to be there. There's no point in whining about "Canada not getting an NHL team" because there's really no appealing market outside of QC -

Oh, and of course a second team in the GTA - I'm actually sure the NHL would love a second GTA team, but the payout to the leafs/MLSE makes this all but impossible. The only way it's happening is if the Rogers/Bell MLSE alliance falls, and as part of that fallout there's an agreement to allow a second team in the area.

Personally, I'd love for someone to take a crack at a Maritime team, but that ain't happening - They can't even get their shit together for a CFL team, and that league would LOVE to get to 10 teams.

Victoria - no chance

Alberta - no chance of a third team there

Saskatchewan - 1 per cent chance if the relocation dominos fell PERFECTLY

Then you're into the ONT-QUE-Maritime sequence that I already commented on.

That's actually in the midst of collapsing. Once Tannebaum retires/sells off, the partnership will not last. Ed Rogers wants to be the King of Sports in Toronto and Bell (their shareholders) wouldn't mind pocketing billions of dollars.

 

[CorbeauNoir]

I will say that unlike literally every market that has joined the NHL over the past 15 years and several that haven’t, I have never seen a Utah fan posting on this board

Sounds like one of those opportunities to "grow the game" I've been hearing so much about the last several decades...

Whatever the case, Internet message boards in general are a dying medium, I wouldn't put a ton of stock in HFB chatter as some kind of litmus test for the market.

 

[Voight]

I’ve been remiss in not expressing my condolences to the die hard Coyote fans sooner. I know how hard it is to lose a team.

I have a feeling they’ll get an expansion franchise but not with Meruelo as owner. No Coyote fan should want that slime ball as an owner.

I think he has close to 0 interest in owning a hockey team. The Coyotes were just a. vehicle for him to expand his real estate holdings.

 

[Edenjung]

My thinking is they'll gauge him on his interest in an expansion team. & if they're deadset on the market, possibly cut him a deal on the fee (which I only see happening if PHX is the very next market, can't imagine some other owner being too happy that he had to pay more just because the NHL wants a team in the Phoenix area)

Now that is possible.
But only if AM fails (what is more than likely) and if Ishbia is interested in building an arena (thats possible but further down the line than 5 years). So yes Ishbia might be interested in 8 years. But till that day a lot of water flows down the rhine and things can change. So i personally would not put much hope into it.

 

[Voight]

If they can announce it on April 17 I think that would be for the best. Don't leave the fanbase twisting in the wind.

Give proper closure.

Also give people time (talking more about the 9 to 5 corporate types) to find out if they have a job offer in SLC and make arrangements if they decide to move with the team.

It’s strange that it’s here.

Also extremely shitty that it seems Bill Armstrong had to deliver the news.

Chicken shit move by Mereulo.

 

[madhi19]

I can't believe I was around 30 when this crazy soap opera started. To absent friends who did not make it to the finish line. Start the clock on the countdown for the Netflix documentary...

 

[Voight]

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.

Hubris is a helluva drug.

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.

That can go either way. David Stern had no qualms about moving the Hornets, Grizzlies and Sonics when things got dicy and it want financially viable for them to stay where they were. Two of those teams were relocated within a year of each other.

Similarly Paul Tagliabue when it came to the Browns & Oilers. Or Goodell with the Chargers & Raiders. (I would include the Rams x2, but the league letting Georgia Frontiere move them was a huge mistake and should have never happened)

 

[Kirk Van Houten]

My condolences to the Coyotes fans

 

[TheLegend]

I think he has close to 0 interest in owning a hockey team. The Coyotes were just a. vehicle for him to expand his real estate holdings.

Rumor is he’s keeping the AHL team and wants to move them up to Mullett.

None of it is confirmed yet. But I believe the lease to play in Tucson is running out and they weren’t happy with the TCC for a few reasons.

Mullett is smaller than the TCC. Even though the capacity would be up more for an AHL game (closer to 5000, Mullett’s full capacity is 5300). But it has 22 suites where the TCC has none.

That said…. I have heard there would be several big hurdles to get over.

There’s ASU. Who places optics over much everything else when it comes to entering into partnerships with outside groups. Even if Meruelo did put $30 million in upgrades into the facility.

And….. I can’t see anyone wanting to support an Alex Meruelo owned hockey team at this point.

 

[stealth1]

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.

I agree with the first part. Since then he's done a terrible job in regards to Pheonix and the Coyotes. The biggest one is pretty much taking any owner no matter their finances, take over the team to keep them there. IMO as soon as Glendale wasn't a viable option and having to resort to playing at Mullet the plug should have been pulled. What I don't understand is the league must have known for a long time Muerello never had the money to run this team.

 

[Voight]

Its the regular folks who are getting screwed the most here.

 

[madhi19]

He did it two years in a row too! That was part of our confidence, or in my circle at least. "Well surely they're not going to do it again." Lo and behold, they did, and we were gone days later.

The NHL knew the situation was hopeless, but they saw a bunch of rubes and it was too tempting to pass on. So they took them to the cleaner year after year after year... Just to kick the can down the road. I'm pretty sure the game was up the minute they got Seattle to pay up the nose for an expansion team. Or maybe it's the Senator huge sale price that was the final straw. Anyway they went from small fries buyers trying to lowball the league on an existing team. To guys offering a billion+ for a piece of paper that says they own and can operate an NHL expansion team. They get their cake, screw it, and still have their cake if the team against all odds get revived.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

IMO as soon as Glendale wasn't a viable option and having to resort to playing at Mullet the plug should have been pulled.

And it could have been pulled, but I think the idea was that a new arena would be available sooner that it clearly will be.

What I don't understand is the league must have known for a long time Muerello never had the money to run this team.

I don't think it's that Meruelo doesn't have the money to run the team. It's that he intentionally chooses not to pay bills at times. Not quite like John Paul Getty, who clearly had billions and was notoriously cheap, but that "I'm going to see how little I can spend and still make a ton of money" mentality.

 

[TheGreenTBer]

Rumor is he’s keeping the AHL team and wants to move them up to Mullett.

None of it is confirmed yet. But I believe the lease to play in Tucson is running out and they weren’t happy with the TCC for a few reasons.

Mullett is smaller than the TCC. Even though the capacity would be up more for an AHL game (closer to 5000, Mullett’s full capacity is 5300). But it has 22 suites where the TCC has none.

That said…. I have heard there would be several big hurdles to get over.

There’s ASU. Who places optics over much everything else when it comes to entering into partnerships with outside groups. Even if Meruelo did put $30 million in upgrades into the facility.

And….. I can’t see anyone wanting to support an Alex Meruelo owned hockey team at this point.

I am not in Arizona and I value your insight so I'd like to ask:

Based on your experience with others out there, what would you say the appetite is to ever support a AM-owned team?

I know this is not an unbiased time to ask that question, but I don't see how anyone could ever trust Alex Meruelo with a NHL team ever again, and my hypothesis is that the Coyotes fanbase has enough pride to tell that grifting scumbag to shove it.