Miscellaneous NHL Discussion XCVI: Third Round (Poll in OP)

[GKJ]

Yeah that's the top-line sales pitch. These are complicated deals and of course they're gonna shout a lot of rah-rah feel-good shit. But at the end of the day, billionaires are billionaires because they're good at getting other people to give them hundreds of millions of dollars every now and then.

The arena was to cost about $700 million and be privately funded in exchange for tax breaks and diversions in the $500 million range. All the hypothetical development around it--the Ferris Wheel and the Senior Center and the Bowling Alley Megachurch or whatever else they got an artist to render--was to be privately funded, were they to actually exist, and again, that's a sales tactic, not a blood oath. This guy, a good writer with a bad site, is an excellent follower of arena funding debacles and breaks it down better than I could.

It's worth noting also that the consulting firm that the Coyotes themselves recently hired to estimate the huge financial benefit this would provide to the city of Tempe actually estimated that those numbers would be, uh, negative.

Didn’t realize how much of the plan to kill this was not just the owner, but the fact the coyotes have always been terrible. It’s politics though, so, whatever it takes. Whereas in that market has generally been ambivalence at best, it seems that in Tempe they may be purely toxic.

 

[Deadpool8812]

Yes. Emrick was the only thing worse than Collinsworth.

"Waffle board"
" Driiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive"

 

[Flyerfan4life]

It sucks for their fans, but it's probably a wise decision for folks in Tempe. When you boiled it down they were basically asking for $500 million in tax breaks on a $750 million arena and asking for the right to find someone else to dump more than a billion dollars into building stuff around it.

All that mixed use residential and commercial space shit was tied to no guarantee. Teams promise all sorts of shit and put out sexy mockups along with their arena plans these days, but that stuff rarely gets built. Little Ceasar's in Detroit is surrounded by parking garages. We're still waiting on that entertainment district in the Philly sports complex that the Flyers promised in the 90s and again in the 00s.

Just put that team somewhere with an arena and a fanbase. Regional TV markets might not even matter much more anyway.

bring it to Philly and fold the Flyers..

win/win

 

[Rich Nixon]

Didn’t realize how much of the plan to kill this was not just the owner, but the fact the coyotes have always been terrible. It’s politics though, so, whatever it takes. Whereas in that market has generally been ambivalence at best, it seems that in Tempe they may be purely toxic.

Yeah I didn't follow much of the counter-messaging for whatever reason--think I just didn't see any of it or go out of my way looking for it. I read that the Coyotes and NHL outspent the "no" groups by like 20:1 in the runup, so "be nasty on Twitter" was probably the most economical approach--and why there are so many "I don't get it, I thought it was privately funded!" reactions given that the team's narrative was the only one with real push behind it.

Who knows why the public voted the way they did, but I think at least some portion of the population understands by now that sports venues are usually coated in a lot of snake oil and are almost always a money suck for municipalities. I haven't dug into the Sixers one yet but I'm sure it's got some grease in its hair too.

 

[GKJ]

Yeah I didn't follow much of the counter-messaging for whatever reason--think I just didn't see any of it or go out of my way looking for it. I read that the Coyotes and NHL outspent the "no" groups by like 20:1 in the runup, so "be nasty on Twitter" was probably the most economical approach--and why there are so many "I don't get it, I thought it was privately funded!" reactions given that the team's narrative was the only one with real push behind it.

Who knows why the public voted the way they did, but I think at least some portion of the population understands by now that sports venues are usually coated in a lot of snake oil and are almost always a money suck for municipalities. I haven't dug into the Sixers one yet but I'm sure it's got some grease in its hair too.

The spending was the other way around. Coyotes only put in $250k, but PAC’s were over $2m.

 

[Rich Nixon]

The spending was the other way around. Coyotes only put in $250k, but PAC’s were over $2m.

Where are you seeing that? No one was spending millions of dollars in this race to my knowledge, and certainly not on the "no" side. This is from two weeks ago. When they say "the Coyotes" here they're talking about the Tempe Wins PAC, whose only donor was the Coyotes.

The opposing PAC — Tempe 1st, run by Dawn Penich-Thacker, CEO of consulting firm Agave Strategy— only spent $12,309.15 during the first quarter of 2023, compared to the Coyotes’ $260,207.79. All signs point to Meruelo continuing to spend big in the weeks before election night

And this from tonight, so it grew from about 20:1 to 35:1 all said and done.

Since then, the campaign trail had been tense. On one side, opposition group Tempe 1st levied charges of corruption against Coyotes owner Alex Meruelo, arguing that the city was being ripped off. The campaign worked to see the deal defeated on a budget of just $35,000.

The Coyotes' Tempe Wins campaign, supporting the plan, raised roughly 35 times more cash than that — the vast majority of which came from Meruelo's development company. It spent more than $700,000

 

[The Rage Kage]

Where are you seeing that? No one was spending millions of dollars in this race to my knowledge, and certainly not on the "no" side. This is from two weeks ago. When they say "the Coyotes" here they're talking about the Tempe Wins PAC, whose only donor was the Coyotes.



And this from tonight, so it grew from about 20:1 to 35:1 all said and done.

I think he got that number from Seravalli who said this:

However, NHL sources indicated there has been a significant disparity in spending by Political Action Committees tied to both sides. The belief is the Coyotes side has spent less than $250,000 to activate the vote, opting for a bootstrap campaign, while the opposition has spent upwards of $2 million, backed by high-power labor unions who have not received a guarantee that they will be the ones building the project.

Tempe voters decide future of Coyotes franchise in Arizona on Tuesday

Tempe’s citizens will decide on the viability of a $2.1 billion Entertainment District. If the vote is no, relocation looms...

www.dailyfaceoff.com

 

[Rich Nixon]

Seravalli said this

Tempe voters decide future of Coyotes franchise in Arizona on Tuesday

Tempe’s citizens will decide on the viability of a $2.1 billion Entertainment District. If the vote is no, relocation looms...

www.dailyfaceoff.com

Yeah I just saw that, and I'm skeptical. PAC spending is disclosed, and every other story has what I posted prior with no mention of millions from labor unions or where it went. I trust Seravalli as a hockey reporter but I'm not certain what his "NHL sources" here are saying, and how no local reporter in Arizona would be privy to it.

Additionally, I can't imagine unions would spend millions opposing at this stage for a lack of guarantee. The only thing I could find was that they seemingly supported sending it to a ballot a year ago for that reason. But if the binary options were "big project that may or may not give some of them some work at some point" or "no project" it doesn't make a ton of sense that they'd spend extravagantly out of pure spite. I could be wrong, I just haven't seen this from anyone on the ground in Tempe.

 

[BiggE]

In off-ice news, the proposition that led to an arena being built in Tempe for the Coyotes has failed. I’m not surprised, thought we’d need more votes, but that is dead and they do not have a path to a permanent situation.

The solution would be to relocate the franchise.

 

[Hollywood Cannon]

The solution would be to relocate the franchise.

 

[Striiker]

Matthews was great against Tampa but pretty bad against Florida.

It happens. Tiny sample sizes, playing against good teams, the team as a whole playing bad has a big impact on individuals, etc etc

But that’s not enough for a worthless goon with a single digit IQ to be crying on Twitter and trying to put all the blame on them.

The solution would be to relocate the franchise.

Proposal: move the Coyotes to Philly, move the Flyers to an active volcano.

Everybody wins. They get more fans/money, we get a better org with better players, the current Flyers management gets to avoid doing their jobs and just be worthless lumps of rock in their natural habitat.

 

[Curufinwe]

Cousins like PEB was a guy I wasn't exactly pleased to see go. Seemed like he should become a decent bottom six player. Of course, if he had stayed here they would have ruined him.

If the Flyers wanted Cousins back they could have signed him in 2019 by offering more than the 1 x $1m Montreal gave him, or in 2020 by offering more than the 2 x $1.5m Nashville gave him, or in 2022 by offering more than the 2 x $1.1m Florida gave him. I don't recall anyone here suggesting they do that.

 

[ponder719]

Who knows why the public voted the way they did, but I think at least some portion of the population understands by now that sports venues are usually coated in a lot of snake oil and are almost always a money suck for municipalities. I haven't dug into the Sixers one yet but I'm sure it's got some grease in its hair too.

NIMBYs vote. People who are just casually cool with something often don't. "Give billionaires more money" is a losing tactic, unless it can be bound up in "fair tax scheme" bullcrap. It takes a lot of organization and energy to overcome those factors, and the Coyotes didn't bring either to the table.

 

[renberg]

NIMBYs vote. People who are just casually cool with something often don't. "Give billionaires more money" is a losing tactic, unless it can be bound up in "fair tax scheme" bullcrap. It takes a lot of organization and energy to overcome those factors, and the Coyotes didn't bring either to the table.

Zonies are as conservative as any place in the US. They are tight with their wallets. They see scams, be they public or private, to take their money away from them around every corner.
Bettman tried to bang a square peg into a round hole with this franchise from the beginning. He just wouldn't let go of the concept of ice hockey in the desert where people don't know or care about the sport. Just move the club to Portland if the NHL wants to keep the team in the Western area. Great rivalry with Seattle and an ice hockey base to build off of with the Winterhawks.

 

[LegionOfDoom91]

 

[deadhead]

Salt Lake City would seem to be a natural, winter sports region, no baseball or football, problem is Utah Jazz play a similar schedule so direct competition.
Houston is a big market, but I'm not sure counting on northern transplants is a good strategy for building a fan base.
Sacramento, same problem with SLC but not sure the same familiarity with ice hockey.
KC has football, baseball but no basketball, so would fill out winter schedule, but smaller market, how ice hockey friendly?

 

[Kelmitchell2]

Please don't bring them to Houston, it will fail unfortunately, just do the right thing and bring the nordiques back

 

[Beef Invictus]

If the Flyers wanted Cousins back they could have signed him in 2019 by offering more than the 1 x $1m Montreal gave him, or in 2020 by offering more than the 2 x $1.5m Nashville gave him, or in 2022 by offering more than the 2 x $1.1m Florida gave him. I don't recall anyone here suggesting they do that.

I'm also not exactly gunning to fill bottom six spots via FA. I agree with DH that we should be flooding that part of the roster with prospects in the system, I disagree with him that the team badly wants to do so (and will).

 

[Striiker]

Solution:

Remove both the Coyotes from the west and the Flyers from the east and get back to 30 teams.

 

[LegionOfDoom91]

Friedman’s been saying for a while now on his podcast that the Utah Jazz owner has been building a relationship with the league in hopes of owning an NHL team.

 

[FLYguy3911]

Please don't bring them to Houston, it will fail unfortunately, just do the right thing and bring the nordiques back

They want a team out west.

 

[Surrounded By Ahos]

"Waffle board"
" Driiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive"

"WOULD NOT GO"

 

[GKJ]

Obviously they knew to be ready.

 

[SolidSnakeUS]

Obviously they knew to be ready.

I think it might end up like the same as Arizona, but if they want a new market, there's one right there, I guess.

 

[GKJ]

I think it might end up like the same as Arizona, but if they want a new market, there's one right there, I guess.

It’s not the same at all if Ryan Smith is the guy, which if it happens, he will be. The NHL will be very happy to bring on someone who owns the building. That’s really the core as to why Arizona has been such a fiasco. The Senators are going to sell for a billion dollars because of the building.