NHL Board of Governors approves sale of Coyotes and relocation to Salt Lake City (Mod warning post #157)
- Thread starter MMC
- Start date
MikeyMike01
U.S.S. Wang
Wang had several failed schemes, including:
- building a 60 story skyscraper in the middle of the suburbs
- building an arena in Queens near the Mets stadium
- a publicly funded stadium in Nassau
- moving to Brooklyn
Rolls off the tongue nicely. Not much does with Utah though. Going with Salt Lake or Salt Lake City opens up more options. Seattle Kraken made zero sense as well but here we are.
I've always thought kids 5 and under should be free if they sit with their parents, it's easy marketing that costs the teams absolutely nothing and hooks fans in when they are young and the parents will spend money on food and merch anyway.
Vast majority of the arenas are 2 and under free, some are 3, some even go by height.
HolyCrap
Registered User
- Oct 2, 2015
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Who would be their mascot? Jack Frost or Frosty the Snowman.
That is just more evidence that the NHL and ownership is an old boys club that cares more about their club than making smart decisions to grow the sport.
This clown show in Phoenix is only going to further dissuade good businessmen from wanting to be owners in the sport. Right now all of them are flocking to the MLS and the NBA and making billions doing so.
Rob Brown
Way She Goes
- Dec 17, 2009
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JS19
Legends Never Die
Worth noting that the Jazz (despite having terrible seasons in recent years) do really well in terms of sellouts (282 games) + average attendance (18,000-ish this season) in the NBA. In their shittiest year (2023), they still averaged 18,000-ish fans in the arena. If you normalize for the fact that NHL scheduling will compete with NBA, I can't see how Salt Lake City doesn't meet the 14,000 seat threshold to start, and then increase as the Olympic hype becomes palpable + get a new NHL-ready arena.
Generally agree, but this seems different. With Wang, it always felt like he was a boom/bust kind of businessman, so he'd always think up unorthodox business ideas that would often never come to fruition (although funny enough, his lighthouse project is hilariously close to what Meruelo wanted with the real estate deal, so the similarity is definitely there too), whereas Ledecky and Malkin had more standard ideas and weren't so hellbent on Brooklyn like Wang was.
I wish I were a fly in the negotiations between various Coyotes owners and the municipalities, because from all indications on the outside looking in, it seemed like municipal governments viewed the Coyotes as toxic, with no reason to believe there ever was a stable business there. So is it really any surprise of hesitation to go to business with them?
In particular, between the publicized missed payments between municipalities and businesses (back taxes for Gila River Arena), and the municipal-specific issues (infrastructure and fan population) that go with arena deals.
All this to say, I think there is too much blind optimism around Arizona. Sure it is a large market, and hockey CAN work, but there are a lot of problems that have to be solved and too many question marks. We now know that the market is centralized primarily in the DT/Phoenix area, and there is already a massive hurdle there because of the lack of interest in having two arenas to accommodate NHL and NBA clubs.
kvladimir
Registered User
- Dec 1, 2010
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There won't be a realignment. SLC is in the Mountain time zone full time, so no 2+ time zone separation with any of the other Central teams. Unlike Phoenix, which because the state of Arizona doesn't switch to daylight savings time, was always technically in the Pacific time zone from March to October
The failure of the Coyotes can be pinned on the NHL and team management. Being in Glendale never made sense because it is a lower income area and a far and hard commute from the parts of the city where hockey is popular (Scottsdale, East Valley, etc.). AM should not have pinned everything on Tempe, should have pushed other options more quickly.
The market isn't centralized primarily on DT Phoenix, but DT is a somewhat convient location between Scottsdale and East Valley which are the most popular hockey areas. The proposed location in Scottsdale / Desert Ridge will work if they move forward with it it given the demographics and rapid growth in the area. Its also an easier commute for East Valley than Glendale was. But the NHL is going to upset a lot of people in PHX with this clown show which will not make the financing easier.
Its not really blind optimism but common sense. Phoenix is a large (10th largest) and rapidly growing metropolitan area including demographics attractive for the sport w huge inflow of people and money from the Midwest and Norcal. It has a rapidly growing youth and college hockey presence including development of bonafide NHL stars like Austin Mathews. After all the positive growth for hockey in PHX over the last 10 years, it is surprising to me how many people still think it was a "failed" experiment. The only thing needed is good management but rather than strong-arm AM into exploring a sale to a local billionaire, Bettman would rather strong-arm a sale to his buddy in Utah.
This is just standard stuff for the NHL though. Which is why hockey continues to decline in popularity vis-a-vis other major sports in the US.
chauron
Registered User
- Jan 5, 2014
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Why wouldn’t a beehive state have something related to bees such as Stingers, arena could be beehive.
Megustaelhockey
"I like hockey" in Spanish
- Apr 29, 2011
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Me: *googles the state bird of Utah to see if it could make for a cool team name.*
Also me: Oh...
Also me: Oh...
Boris Zubov
No relation to Sergei, Joe
It's true what they say....California really has invaded every state to the Mississippi.
If you google Utah stingers you get a volley team in the National Volleyball Association.
All sorts of these minor associations that have team names. Utah swarm is an Ultimate youth disc league team.
Utah Ambush.
Then you can either go with the Utah Raptor sort of theme without stepping on the NBAs toes but it also has the option of a wild west theme.
Then you can either go with the Utah Raptor sort of theme without stepping on the NBAs toes but it also has the option of a wild west theme.
saintflannel
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- Oct 6, 2011
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red devil
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Goalie_Bob
1992 Vezina (2nd)
Zirakzigil
Global Moderator
Ownership could be filing random names to throw people off and make sure something they may want doesnt get patented. Last thing theyd want is to have to go pay Kyle the troll from HFboards money for the naming rights.
