NHL Making Contingency Plans for Arena-less Coyotes? (All Relo Speculation Here)

[rojac]

You want to know something going to com down to who wants the coyotes more when they go up on the auction block Portland , Seattle , Quebec City , Las Vegas , Hamilton or Arizona highest bid wins the coyotes 2nd place the Florida Panthers 3rd place the Carolina Hurricanes 4th & 5th get Expansion teams .

My guess is more likely a quiet negotiation with a prepared landing spot than a bidding war. And until there are real indicators that Carolina or Florida are going to move, I'll leave them out of this.

Seattle - no arena but a possible new arena pending & won't be ready for a few years so Seattle is out .

Hasn't the NHL already said that Key Arena would make a suitable temporary venue until an arena is built?

Portland - Has the Arena & fan base but I doubt Paul Allen will pay a dime more than 200 million so if there is a biding war he is out

Because Portland is unlikely to pay a large expansion fee, I think they make a good site for relocation. Sell the Coyotes to Allen for $200M-$250M with about $50M-$75M being a relocation fee. In this case, you don't waste an expansion site that is willing to pay big money.

Las Vegas - Bad idea but has new arena being built & have an owner willing to flush money down the toilet but the arena won't be ready for while so they are out but most likely get an expansion team in the near future .

I disagree on the bad idea bit. The ownership is there and the ticket drive and TV ratings seem to indicate interest. Also, not sure it's ever a bad for an entertainment business to move into an entertainment-based city. There are a couple of possible temporary arenas that Vegas could use. This would be my pick if the NHL is willing to waste a potential expansion city.

Quebec City - Has everything thing in place for an NHL. team so they are ready

Perhaps Atlanta should be on this list -- they've lost two NHL teams too. As I've stated elsewhere, I really don't want any more Canadian teams.

But putting aside my personal feelings on the matter, Quebec is probably the most ready. But once again, you'd be losing a potential expansion city.

Hamilton - Same as Quebec City all ready for NHL. team but the FirstOntario Center will need to be replaced within the next 10-15 years & the matter of dealing with so called territory rights with Buffalo & Toronto which are completely bogus .

Is there a potential owner in Hamilton? I think Quebec is much more ready.

And every other team in the NHL in the past 43 years that has had another team move into its territory through relocation or expansion has been compensated for that invasion, but it's bogus for Buffalo and Toronto to receive that consideration. Yeah, right.

And while I think there are already too many Canadian teams, if I had to choose between QC and Hamilton, I would choose Quebec every time. A second team in Southern Ontario is just needless clutter.

Arizona - Dose not care about the Coyotes & will be glad to see them go .

Not sure this is true. I think the CoG move is primarily an attempt to force a renegotiation of the lease. It may be misguided and cost them the team. And when you say "Arizona", are you referring to the city of Glendale or the whole state?

 

[Ugmo]

Is he lying though? The league will not be gate run forever, and if one day the NHL gets that big TV contract, will it even matter if those teams get in trouble again? They do hurt the perception of the league amongst the audience and the players don't want to go there. Phoenix still managed to get Brett Hull for godsakes. Edmonton and Winnipeg don't have any other big 4 franchise for a reason, they're too small.

I'm just trying to figure out why anyone outside of Gary Bettman, the owners and possibly the players would care whether or not the league "gets that big TV contract." It offers no benefit whatsoever to the fans. It's not like the league will all of a sudden be able to afford better players. There are no better players. They're already playing in the NHL. Unless you have a personal financial investment in the league, why would it even matter to you how big its TV contract is (especially if chasing a big TV contract means the league puts teams in markets that are indifferent to them)?

Who cares whether Edmonton and Winnipeg are too small for another Big 4 franchise, as long as they are nuts about hockey?

 

[Melrose Munch]

And people in Toronto wonder why the rest of the country considers them elitist fools. There is no reason not to have teams in those markets. Just like in the NBA and MLB there is no reason for them not to have teams in those smaller American markets that they do. Just because everyone in Toronto wants to be American, doesn't mean the rest of the country has to sacrifice their NHL team to placate them.

I'm comparing that the to the NHL perception in the US. It was an example, but the same reasoning. Why do we have teams in places where players avoid and people generally consider minor league? It was the owner of the capitals, not the Leafs who said he didn't want to pay rs to edmonton, winnipeg, calagary, ottawa and quebec. These cities games when on in the US draw lower amounts of viewers and Minnesota and Colorado didn't want to be the only US team in a division with four Canadian teams. It's the truth and the NHL was not gate driven then it would look way different.

There's no correlation. What's hurt the perception of the NHL is the 'H'. Hockey is a foreign sport (Canadian) that, relative to the other "Big 3" sports, a large segment of the population does not play. The lack of a general interest in hockey (once again, compared to baseball, basketball, and football) is what’s hurt the NHL. You could relocate or fold all 7 Canadian teams and it wouldn’t any difference.

NHL has more interest during the the 1990's Compare it to now, post lockouts. It's made gain, but a far cry from where it was in the mid 1990's

 

[MuzikMachine]

So flip them with Pit and Cbj. Keep all the eastern teams in the time zone if you can.

Pittsburgh won't give up it's PA rivalry with Philadelphia, especially now that the playoffs are divisional.

 

[Melrose Munch]

I'm just trying to figure out why anyone outside of Gary Bettman, the owners and possibly the players would care whether or not the league "gets that big TV contract." It offers no benefit whatsoever to the fans. It's not like the league will all of a sudden be able to afford better players. There are no better players. They're already playing in the NHL. Unless you have a personal financial investment in the league, why would it even matter to you how big its TV contract is (especially if chasing a big TV contract means the league puts teams in markets that are indifferent to them)?

Who cares whether Edmonton and Winnipeg are too small for another Big 4 franchise, as long as they are nuts about hockey?

Big exposure is better because it makes the league more popular with the masses. With time, things change and grow. 30 years ago, Canadian players and the general audience had no problem with these markets. The NHL is trying to grow in the us, so things have changed.

Damn you for making me parrot league talking points.

 

[Melrose Munch]

Pittsburgh won't give up it's PA rivalry with Philadelphia, especially now that the playoffs are divisional.

They're the weakest link. Besides all those teams I mentioned are closer then Philadelphia.

 

[molsonmuscle360]

I'm comparing that the to the NHL perception in the US. It was an example, but the same reasoning. Why do we have teams in places where players avoid and people generally consider minor league? It was the owner of the capitals, not the Leafs who said he didn't want to pay rs to edmonton, winnipeg, calagary, ottawa and quebec. These cities games when on in the US draw lower amounts of viewers and Minnesota and Colorado didn't want to be the only US team in a division with four Canadian teams. It's the truth and the NHL was not gate driven then it would look way different.


NHL has more interest during the the 1990's Compare it to now, post lockouts. It's made gain, but a far cry from where it was in the mid 1990's

Yeah, well it's far more likely that Edmonton or Winnipeg end up paying Washington out in revenue sharing then the opposite. May have been true in 1995. The teams in the states love those teams when they are happily spending their owners money on their free agents.

And you can keep saying if the NHL was not gate driven, but it IS GATE DRIVEN! It always will be if they are trying to push into markets that noone cares about the sport. The TV deals in the states are not going to get any better. TV deals are going to be falling apart in the next decade, more people these days are ditching cable every single day. Hockey is also losing ground to soccer in the US right now so it's more likely NBC pushes hard at a MLS deal than a NHL deal next time around.

 

[rojac]

I'm just trying to figure out why anyone outside of Gary Bettman, the owners and possibly the players would care whether or not the league "gets that big TV contract." It offers no benefit whatsoever to the fans. It's not like the league will all of a sudden be able to afford better players. There are no better players. They're already playing in the NHL. Unless you have a personal financial investment in the league, why would it even matter to you how big its TV contract is (especially if chasing a big TV contract means the league puts teams in markets that are indifferent to them)?

Who cares whether Edmonton and Winnipeg are too small for another Big 4 franchise, as long as they are nuts about hockey?

Well, this is the Business of Hockey forum. It makes sense to primarily look at things from the business point of view here.

 

[BattleBorn]

There's no correlation. What's hurt the perception of the NHL is the 'H'. Hockey is a foreign sport (Canadian) that, relative to the other "Big 3" sports, a large segment of the population does not play. The lack of a general interest in hockey (once again, compared to baseball, basketball, and football) is what’s hurt the NHL. You could relocate or fold all 7 Canadian teams and it wouldn’t any difference.

Hockey doesn't have the emotional attachment the other sports do. Hockey is like bowling in that is requires a special place to participate. Except, to keep the comparison sound, you have to pretend there's only 20 lanes in each city and if you really want to bowl you have to buy your own ball, shoes, and schedule your participation time at 4:30 in the morning if you can get time at all.

The good news is that since kids and parents these days are weird and kids don't play outside, there's probably going to be less of a personal connection to football, baseball, and basketball in this next generation since kids don't spend every day all summer playing sports in the streets and backyards all year. I think that potentially puts hockey on a more equal footing with these other sports when it comes to emotional interest. Especially since hockey is a very exciting and fast sport.

 

[Melrose Munch]

Yeah, well it's far more likely that Edmonton or Winnipeg end up paying Washington out in revenue sharing then the opposite. May have been true in 1995. The teams in the states love those teams when they are happily spending their owners money on their free agents.

And you can keep saying if the NHL was not gate driven, but it IS GATE DRIVEN! It always will be if they are trying to push into markets that noone cares about the sport. The TV deals in the states are not going to get any better. TV deals are going to be falling apart in the next decade, more people these days are ditching cable every single day. Hockey is also losing ground to soccer in the US right now so it's more likely NBC pushes hard at a MLS deal than a NHL deal next time around.

We'll see. Myself I have been slamming the NHL recently for having the gap narrow with the MLS but the NHL can get something down if ratings keep improving. But let's get back to the main point: Winnipeg, Edmonton, Quebec do hurt league perception to some in the NHL hq obviously and the players union as well as US views, you mentioned the NBA, basketball is more popular and besides look whats happening to Milwaukee right now. They never get Free agents either.

 

[BattleBorn]

We'll see. Myself I have been slamming the NHL recently for having the gap narrow with the MLS but the NHL can get something down if ratings keep improving. But let's get back to the main point: Winnipeg, Edmonton, Quebec do hurt league perception to some in the NHL hq obviously and the players union as well as US views, you mentioned the NBA, basketball is more popular and besides look whats happening to Milwaukee right now. They never get Free agents either.

These guys aren't robots. They're young guys taking a job in a city and they're working 10 hours a day tops. There's still a lot of quality of life issues that have to be considered. I'd fully expect cities with a lot of things to do, decent real estate, and fun cities to win the battle versus cities without some of those things.

I'm sure google or Apple would have a pretty decent issue attracting the best employees if they were based in Topeka instead of the Bay Area. I can't imagine hockey players are much different.

 

[Ugmo]

Big exposure is better because it makes the league more popular with the masses. With time, things change and grow. 30 years ago, Canadian players and the general audience had no problem with these markets. The NHL is trying to grow in the us, so things have changed.

Damn you for making me parrot league talking points.

I get that. I get why the league would want to be more popular with the masses. What I don't get is why a regular hockey fan would want that.

Well, this is the Business of Hockey forum. It makes sense to primarily look at things from the business point of view here.

Well that's understandable from an analysis standpoint. Like I said, I just don't understand why regular fans would embrace the league's perspective. Do you really prefer empty arenas and indifferent atmosphere in Sunrise and Glendale to full arenas and electric atmosphere in Winnipeg?

 

[Blueblood]

Wait a moment..........didn't the NHL sign its biggest TV contract in history............and with Rogers/TVA? Quebec has already been guaranteed a team.

Winnipeg was the lowest earning Canadian team at #20. It still made a profit. The Canadian teams, all profitable, brought in a revenue of 991 Million dollars. Quebec would push that past 1 billion in revenues.

 

[Melrose Munch]

These guys aren't robots. They're young guys taking a job in a city and they're working 10 hours a day tops. There's still a lot of quality of life issues that have to be considered. I'd fully expect cities with a lot of things to do, decent real estate, and fun cities to win the battle versus cities without some of those things.

I'm sure google or Apple would have a pretty decent issue attracting the best employees if they were based in Topeka instead of the Bay Area. I can't imagine hockey players are much different.

Bingo. People in Western Canada and Quebec need to understand this. Same reason why Vegas won't struggle to attract FA's unless the management turns into Arizona or Florida, because people want to live there. Can't really say that about the other cities I mentioned.

I get that. I get why the league would want to be more popular with the masses. What I don't get is why a regular hockey fan would want that.



Well that's understandable from an analysis standpoint. Like I said, I just don't understand why regular fans would embrace the league's perspective. Do you really prefer empty arenas and indifferent atmosphere in Sunrise and Glendale to full arenas and electric atmosphere in Winnipeg?

Because you want the players to be happy. And besides, I get why Nylander or Pronger's family were not enamored with the small market Canadian cities.

 

[edog37]

They're the weakest link. Besides all those teams I mentioned are closer then Philadelphia.

In what way? Pens-Flyers is one of the nastiest rivalries in the league....

 

[aqib]

We'll see. Myself I have been slamming the NHL recently for having the gap narrow with the MLS but the NHL can get something down if ratings keep improving. But let's get back to the main point: Winnipeg, Edmonton, Quebec do hurt league perception to some in the NHL hq obviously and the players union as well as US views, you mentioned the NBA, basketball is more popular and besides look whats happening to Milwaukee right now. They never get Free agents either.

There is so much wrong with all that you say here.

1) even American hockey fans have loudly wondered why the NHL put teams in the sunbelt and took them out of Canadian markets where the sport is #1. Large swaths of emtpy seats in Arizona, Florida, etc. make their rounds on the internet on a nightly basis and result in making the NHL look bushleague.

2) Winnipeg, Edmonton, and Quebec (when it had a team) were on no trade lists because the teams suck. After the Lindros trade when they got good, it suddenly wasn't a bad place to play. Ask Ron Hextall. When Lindros played his first game in QC he said he was going to go up to him and thank him for being the reason he got traded there. You point out Spezza's no trade clause repeatedly, but you make no mention of the fact he had the Islanders on his list but not the Rangers or Devils. If it was about geography there is no reason someone would be opposed to one New York team and not the other (although Long Island traffic IS brutal). There were guys for years who had no trade clauses to the Clippers and Nets. Is it because basketball players didn't like LA or the New York area?

3) As far as the players union goes, Fehr even said in the last lockout that it wasn't fair the NHL was asking the players to bail them out because of their insistence in being in poor hockey markets. He pointed to the Coyotes as an example. He said the same thing about Montreal when he was head of the baseball players union. Fehr cares about one thing: more revenue coming in that can be spent on player salaries. He knows more revenues would come from teams in better hockey markets.

4) Ray Allen reupped with Milwaukee when his contract was up same with Michael Redd. Both of them would have been the top free agents in their classes.

So let me pose this question. Given that even before the Thrashers move, the NHL US TV contract was small. What makes you think that keeping money losing teams in the south longer will result in a bigger deal down the line. Will hockey suddenly cease being the sport which loses the most from live to TV and thereby stop being a gate driven league? Sure one could argue that part of the problem is that most of these sunbelt teams have had crappy ownership, but do you really think thats a coincidence? There are 9 billionaires in Arizona. Why didn't anyone of them step up to buy the team? Yes Reinsdorf was interested but even he was requesting 8 figure subsidies from Glendale. Carolina is sitting on the market and no one has stepped up to buy out Karmanos. If there was a legitimate business case for these teams why isn't ANYONE stepping up?

 

[aqib]

These guys aren't robots. They're young guys taking a job in a city and they're working 10 hours a day tops. There's still a lot of quality of life issues that have to be considered. I'd fully expect cities with a lot of things to do, decent real estate, and fun cities to win the battle versus cities without some of those things.

I'm sure google or Apple would have a pretty decent issue attracting the best employees if they were based in Topeka instead of the Bay Area. I can't imagine hockey players are much different.

The difference is that if you work for Apple and Google you are actually living in those cities all year. Whereas if you are an NHL player you are only there for half of seven months. I don't want to slam Vegas but if your line of reasoning played in practice you would have some Fortune 500 headquarters outside of gaming, but you don't have any. As far as "decent real estate" goes you were one of the worst hit during the recession.

 

[BattleBorn]

The difference is that if you work for Apple and Google you are actually living in those cities all year. Whereas if you are an NHL player you are only there for half of seven months. I don't want to slam Vegas but if your line of reasoning played in practice you would have some Fortune 500 headquarters outside of gaming, but you don't have any. As far as "decent real estate" goes you were one of the worst hit during the recession.

Well aqib, thanks for your opinion. I wasn't really commenting on Vegas specifically, but if you'd like to get into it there are plenty of reasons we don't have many headquarters outside of gaming. Namely because we're hard to get to logistically and the more obvious locations are 300 miles west in a place with a much more agreeable climate.

Add that to the fact that we only eclipsed 1 million people twenty years ago and the time it takes for a company to grow into a Fortune 500 company and it starts making even more sense. Walmart isn't in Arkansas because it's the best place to be, they're there because it's where they were and they've grown. Same thing with Kroger in Cincinnati, Target in Minneapolis, Caterpillar in Peoria, Nike in Beaverton, etc, etc, etc. Vegas hasn't had that long.

Vegas has been a "real city" for less than three decades. We had 770,000 people here in 1990, when compared to cities like LA, SF, and even Phoenix within our region it makes a lot of sense that companies wouldn't locate here. However, as time goes on and the city matures and diversifies, we'll get more and more.

Fidelity moving here helps and adds a non-gaming Fortune 500 company, Zappos being here for ten or so years now helps although they're now a part of Amazon.

That being said, the population is moving south and west and cities like Vegas will continue to grow, diversify and move forward as that continues.

Also, our real estate market was more on the bubble as people cashed out of their tiny $600,000 houses in California and moved here where the house that was twice as large/nice as their California house cost half as much, so who cares if it was overpriced in relation to value? Their idea of value was different. All my friends that were buying houses back then were offering up to $40,000 over list price and losing the houses to out of towners moving in. It was unsustainable.

The mindset was; Knowing the city was growing (fastest growing in the US for like 20 years straight,) why would you pick up one house when you could pick up two and make some income on the second one renting it out to the 7,000 people a month moving to town? Then the market collapsed and took all that theoretical money out of the market and boom. Add in what was happening throughout the country and people stopping their discretionary spending and taking less vacations and we were under the gun. It's a symptom of having so much of the local economy dependent upon on one industry, and a luxury/discretionary industry at that.

After all that, there's still a lot to do here in Vegas, there's still reasonable real estate, and it's a fun place to live, but that wasn't why I brought those points up originally.

 

[Brodie]

Glendale can have Vegas' AHL team.

 

[Melrose Munch]

In what way? Pens-Flyers is one of the nastiest rivalries in the league....

Pittsburgh is closer to Toronto and Buffalo and even Detroit then Philly. Why are the Florida teams playing with great lake franchises when Pittsburgh is closer. Move Pit and Cbj back, cut down on travel. You're not going out west. No reason why Tampa is playing Montreal that many times when Washington and Raleigh are closer.

There is so much wrong with all that you say here.

1) even American hockey fans have loudly wondered why the NHL put teams in the sunbelt and took them out of Canadian markets where the sport is #1. Large swaths of emtpy seats in Arizona, Florida, etc. make their rounds on the internet on a nightly basis and result in making the NHL look bushleague.

2) Winnipeg, Edmonton, and Quebec (when it had a team) were on no trade lists because the teams suck. After the Lindros trade when they got good, it suddenly wasn't a bad place to play. Ask Ron Hextall. When Lindros played his first game in QC he said he was going to go up to him and thank him for being the reason he got traded there. You point out Spezza's no trade clause repeatedly, but you make no mention of the fact he had the Islanders on his list but not the Rangers or Devils. If it was about geography there is no reason someone would be opposed to one New York team and not the other (although Long Island traffic IS brutal). There were guys for years who had no trade clauses to the Clippers and Nets. Is it because basketball players didn't like LA or the New York area?

3) As far as the players union goes, Fehr even said in the last lockout that it wasn't fair the NHL was asking the players to bail them out because of their insistence in being in poor hockey markets. He pointed to the Coyotes as an example. He said the same thing about Montreal when he was head of the baseball players union. Fehr cares about one thing: more revenue coming in that can be spent on player salaries. He knows more revenues would come from teams in better hockey markets.

4) Ray Allen reupped with Milwaukee when his contract was up same with Michael Redd. Both of them would have been the top free agents in their classes.

So let me pose this question. Given that even before the Thrashers move, the NHL US TV contract was small. What makes you think that keeping money losing teams in the south longer will result in a bigger deal down the line. Will hockey suddenly cease being the sport which loses the most from live to TV and thereby stop being a gate driven league? Sure one could argue that part of the problem is that most of these sunbelt teams have had crappy ownership, but do you really think thats a coincidence? There are 9 billionaires in Arizona. Why didn't anyone of them step up to buy the team? Yes Reinsdorf was interested but even he was requesting 8 figure subsidies from Glendale. Carolina is sitting on the market and no one has stepped up to buy out Karmanos. If there was a legitimate business case for these teams why isn't ANYONE stepping up?

Why are you saying this like I personally support this? I'm just parroting the league thought, and even then I disagree with almost everything you say here. And frankly so does much of the league brass and PA otherwise they would not fought as hard for Arizona.


1) Every american fan is not you aqib. Most people in the us don't care about Edmonton or Winnipeg. Toronto got a game on NBC and well again next season, yet their Canadian. So don't tell me it's about Canada when clearly NBC has no problem with put the Habs and Leafs on. It's about small markets in western canada.

2) Ok, I just mentioned Pronger, Nylander, etc. The majority of players on those survey didn't have their names shown what else do you want from me? You don't think that it's odd that players say Winnipeg and Quebec and Toronto deserve teams, but I don't wanna play there? Nothing off about that to you? Ok! And then only time those US teams end up on those things is bad management. Florida had bad managment = NTC. Islanders had bad management = NTC. Was Buffalo bad in 2006? No. Was Edmonton? No, they went to the cup final. Yet Pronger's wife wanted out. How many guys you know had the Clippers on an NTC? Be honest. The Nets played in the swamp like the Devils. And who had the Nets on their NTC. If you asked the most popular destinations for free agency of the NHLPA membership it would be the east cost teams followed by LA and then Chicago, which admittedly was a bad organization so they were not an FA draw. Edmonton, and now Winnipeg were down on these list for years, it ridiculous to say oh, the teams bad when they can get anyone to stay when the teams good.

3) Fehr cares about money, great. That only proves that the players don't want to pay for expansion mistakes, which is fine. It doesn't say they won't sign there, at. Mike Gartner went to Phoenix when he was old, they also got Sean Burke. Phoenix wasn't even that good. You Oilers fans continue to blame the dollar for not signing FAs during that period, when the league was already shifting.

4) Ray and Mike were drafted by the Bucks. Bad call.

Instead of saying I'm wrong, you need to be calling out the NHLPA and NHL for their players running away from Canada and keeping Canadian teams in perpetual rebuild. And you need to call out guys like Ted Leonsis for not caring whether Canada has 3 teams or 8. This keeps coming up as an issue because people keep blaming bettman when in reality its the BOG's chase of the American viewer causing these issues.

The difference is that if you work for Apple and Google you are actually living in those cities all year. Whereas if you are an NHL player you are only there for half of seven months. I don't want to slam Vegas but if your line of reasoning played in practice you would have some Fortune 500 headquarters outside of gaming, but you don't have any. As far as "decent real estate" goes you were one of the worst hit during the recession.

You're nuts if you don't think Vegas will be a top FA destination. It will and that's the one surefire thing I can say about that market.

 

[Melrose Munch]

Well aqub, thanks for your opinion. I wasn't really commenting on Vegas specifically, but if you'd like to get into it there are plenty of reasons we don't have many headquarters outside of gaming. Namely because we're hard to get to logistically and the more obvious locations are 300 miles west in a place with a much more agreeable climate.

Add that to the fact that we only eclipsed 1 million people twenty years ago and the time it takes for a company to grow into a Fortune 500 company and it starts making even more sense. Walmart isn't in Arkansas because it's the best place to be, they're there because it's where they were and they've grown. Same thing with Kroger in Cincinnati, Target in Minneapolis, Caterpillar in Peoria, Nike in Beaverton, etc, etc, etc. Vegas hasn't had that long.

Vegas has been a "real city" for less than three decades. We had 770,000 people here in 1990, when compared to cities like LA, SF, and even Phoenix within our region it makes a lot of sense that companies wouldn't locate here. However, as time goes on and the city matures and diversifies, we'll get more and more.

Fidelity moving here helps and adds a non-gaming Fortune 500 company, Zappos being here for ten or so years now helps although they're now a part of Amazon.

That being said, the population is moving south and west and cities like Vegas will continue to grow, diversify and move forward as that continues.

Also, our real estate market was more on the bubble as people cashed out of their tiny $600,000 houses in California and moved here where the house that was twice as large/nice as their California house cost half as much, so who cares if it was overpriced in relation to value? Their idea of value was different. All my friends that were buying houses back then were offering up to $40,000 over list price and losing the houses to out of towners moving in. It was unsustainable.

The mindset was; Knowing the city was growing (fastest growing in the US for like 20 years straight,) why would you pick up one house when you could pick up two and make some income on the second one renting it out to the 7,000 people a month moving to town? Then the market collapsed and took all that theoretical money out of the market and boom. Add in what was happening throughout the country and people stopping their discretionary spending and taking less vacations and we were under the gun. It's a symptom of having so much of the local economy dependent upon on one industry, and a luxury/discretionary industry at that.

After all that, there's still a lot to do here in Vegas, there's still reasonable real estate, and it's a fun place to live, but that wasn't why I brought those points up originally.

Exactly. Vegas and Phoenix to be honest, just popped up out of no where. Compare that to Edmonton which was the largest city on the prairies until 1996. No reason between the last cup and 10 years ago why players are not coming there anymore.

 

[BattleBorn]

Glendale can have Vegas' AHL team.

If there's a western AHL team for Las Vegas' team, and the Phoenix area doesn't have a team I still wouldn't expect our team to be in Arizona. Las Vegas is not nearly as connected to Phoenix as many people would think, we don't even have an interstate connection (yet.) I'd really expect the Vegas team to be in California (again, if they're on the west coast at all) or Salt Lake City.

 

[aqib]

Well aqub, thanks for your opinion. I wasn't really commenting on Vegas specifically, but if you'd like to get into it there are plenty of reasons we don't have many headquarters outside of gaming. Namely because we're hard to get to logistically and the more obvious locations are 300 miles west in a place with a much more agreeable climate.

Add that to the fact that we only eclipsed 1 million people twenty years ago and the time it takes for a company to grow into a Fortune 500 company and it starts making even more sense. Walmart isn't in Arkansas because it's the best place to be, they're there because it's where they were and they've grown. Same thing with Kroger in Cincinnati, Target in Minneapolis, Caterpillar in Peoria, Nike in Beaverton, etc, etc, etc. Vegas hasn't had that long.

Vegas has been a "real city" for less than three decades. We had 770,000 people here in 1990, when compared to cities like LA, SF, and even Phoenix within our region it makes a lot of sense that companies wouldn't locate here. However, as time goes on and the city matures and diversifies, we'll get more and more.

Fidelity moving here helps and adds a non-gaming Fortune 500 company, Zappos being here for ten or so years now helps although they're now a part of Amazon.

That being said, the population is moving south and west and cities like Vegas will continue to grow, diversify and move forward as that continues.

Also, our real estate market was more on the bubble as people cashed out of their tiny $600,000 houses in California and moved here where the house that was twice as large/nice as their California house cost half as much, so who cares if it was overpriced in relation to value? Their idea of value was different. All my friends that were buying houses back then were offering up to $40,000 over list price and losing the houses to out of towners moving in. It was unsustainable.

The mindset was; Knowing the city was growing (fastest growing in the US for like 20 years straight,) why would you pick up one house when you could pick up two and make some income on the second one renting it out to the 7,000 people a month moving to town? Then the market collapsed and took all that theoretical money out of the market and boom. Add in what was happening throughout the country and people stopping their discretionary spending and taking less vacations and we were under the gun. It's a symptom of having so much of the local economy dependent upon on one industry, and a luxury/discretionary industry at that.

After all that, there's still a lot to do here in Vegas, there's still reasonable real estate, and it's a fun place to live, but that wasn't why I brought those points up originally.

I am not trying to slam Vegas. I've never been there. I am sure there is plenty to do outside the touristy stuff on the strip. However thats true over any mid-to-large city anywhere. I am just tired of the oft-repeated stance that people from warm weather cities have on this board that there is so much to do in their cities and the reason attendence is so much higher in cold weather cities is those poor saps have nothing else to do with their time and money other than go to sporting events.

 

[Ugmo]

Because you want the players to be happy. And besides, I get why Nylander or Pronger's family were not enamored with the small market Canadian cities.

Seriously? It's more important for the players to be happy than for the league to be in markets that care about hockey? I can't say I have a whole lot of sympathy for anyone who earns a million bucks and still finds a way to be miserable because he's playing in Edmonton rather than Florida. It's Edmonton, not Aleppo. The players and their families will be fine.

 

[zetajerk]

Seriously? It's more important for the players to be happy than for the league to be in markets that care about hockey? I can't say I have a whole lot of sympathy for anyone who earns a million bucks and still finds a way to be miserable because he's playing in Edmonton rather than Florida. It's Edmonton, not Aleppo. The players and their families will be fine.

If someone is good enough to play in the NHL and make that kind of money, they should be able to have a say in where they want to play and live. Unless they're really young, then they have to tolerate Edmonton for several years before they bolt.

Your entertainment and experience is far more important than the players and their family's lives and happiness.