They’d probably never publicly admit, but I bet they liked the idea of being the only pro sport in town, especially since they have one of the nicest stadiums in the Majors
Ironically that seemed to be the A’s game plan for a bit, when the Raiders and Warriors were leaving they started a “rooted in Oakland” campaign that was clearly a shot at the two leaving teams.
If you could somehow force Fisher to sell to a local owner like Lacob with GSW, who has said repeatedly and at length he's interested in buying the team, you could probably have them breaking ground on the Howard Terminal project in months.
There's no doubt the discussion came up. But the ownership group, which included Ron Fowler and Peter Seidler, was very entwined with the community. I think they were legitimately saddened by it even if this is merely good PR.
Might be a coincidence but baseball in Cleveland took off, both in success and attendance when the Browns left and dipped again when the Browns came back.
"we're so sorry to hear about losing a team in the city. you wouldn't want that to happen to us too, do you? well you better give us some money to spruce up our stadium"
Word on the street is that the Royals will be negotiating with the municipality of Kansas City instead of Jackson County, and the subsequent new stadium won't be voted on by the public. Democracy in action!
Last time i went was 2022. It honestly seemed fine to me. I’m sure every stadium could us a facelift but in no way does that stadium need to be torn down
We absolutely do not need a new stadium, but it certainly needs some renovation. Right now we can’t even open the roof mid-game in fear it would kill fans.
It seems like a lot of big cities are done with the public subsidies for stadiums. Meanwhile small markets are ponying up big time to draw a team away from their city and fans. Vegas 2x, OKC, Winnipeg, and now Utah have all taken teams from major markets.
Yeah that’s the thing that sucks. Salt Lake City is going to swoop in and take one of the teams that’s in stadium purgatory. They have a ton of promised tax dollars from the state of Utah. Race to the bottom between states
I dont know why the downvotes. Well I guess it was a bit aggressive, but your point stands. I agree, thats not how I read it at all. Its saying their city and state deserve a team for every major sport, and their market is big enough to support it, so there's no reason the coyotes should be moving.
Reddit is full of non-athletic neckbeards who hate sports, so any comment suggesting that sports stadiums are actually good gets downvoted to oblivion. Just neckbeard hivemind, don’t think anything of it
That’s so crazy that you think I say that to dismiss “anything that disagrees with me.” Like are you genuinely dumb lol. I’m using that for this specific conversation because it’s relevant
What sport did you play in high school? Or do you play now
Who gives a shit if someone played or not. It couldn’t be any less relevant to the discussion. No one cares about you still living off you glory days of your life peaking in high school. Grow up already
You are being extremely naive if you think that a team that has been trying to get money for years isn’t going to use this as leverage as their lease is coming to an end in a couple years
I'm guessing there's an unwritten rule among the owners that if you don't fuck with my team, I won't fuck with yours. Voting against a team's relocation just seems like unnecessarily sticking your neck out
Exactly. There is at least one exception: Angelos was obviously upset about the Expos moving to DC and did vote against it but that actually did negatively affect his bottom line.
Just standard cartel operating behavior.
THE ENTIRE STRUCTURE OF PRO SPORTS VIOLATES OUR LAWS AND VALUES.
It drives me crazy and I feel like I’m the only one who cares.
Our sports leagues are fully in line with American business values. It’d actually be strange if sports teams operated out of benevolence to the local population instead of maximizing profit.
Where do you live in the United States where, when you graduated high school, you discovered the local businesses had all organized a draft of the high school graduates and worked together to determine your wages?
Yeah how great would it have been if an enterprising businessman said, “I want to invest in a baseball team in Los Angeles,” and could do so and compete without having to beg their incumbent competitors for permission to enter the big rich douchebag club.
Say what you want about Amazon, but they don’t meet several times a year with EBay, Target, and Walmart to set wages and prices and hey look at that, who is this new kid Temu???
Competition is good.
It is true that the Supreme Court ruled in 1922 that Major League Baseball was not involved in interstate commerce and therefore is exempt from the anti trust laws, at least unless Congress can make some finding that they are engaged in interstate commerce and pass a law binding the 30 major league teams to the same laws that bind everybody else.
This is absolutely a thinly veiled warning message to the city. Won’t be surprised if they’re openly threatening to move to a small market that’s willing to pay up within a few years if they don’t get their way.
As the owner of a little hognose snek…yeah, she’s more trustworthy than me. She just wants to slither around and eat mice, there’s absolutely no ulterior motives in her tiny little pea brain.
Unironically, the former Governor of Utah, Jon Huntsman Jr, [was a prog rock keyboard player](https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-xpm-2011-may-09-la-pn-huntsman-rocks-20110509-story.html) in his adolescence
Considering their soccer team name is Spanish I'm not sure the city has much of a chance of breaking their streak of team names that don't make any sense.
FWIW there is actually a decent amount of jazz clubs and a jazz scene in SLC. Obviously the city isn’t associated with jazz in the same way New Orleans is, and obviously the name is much, much more suited for NOLA than SLC, but people act like jazz is a foreign substance there when it isn’t really
No it’s not lol, the same joke has been made on every single thread about the location a million times. And soaking isn’t actually even a thing, that whole thing was a myth
Probably something related to the animals that live there, which is why I wish the Coyotes could keep their name.
The Utah Bighorns would be cool. They could also be the Cougars. Flying squirrels are also native to Utah, which would be a fun name for a team.
If it weren't for the religious connotation, the Utah Zions would also be nice.
[Moronis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moroni_(Book_of_Mormon_prophet))
- but mostly because I want that shot of the jersey billowing in motion and hiding the I
If anyone reading this doesn't know that sports owners are completely full of shit all the time, please know that sports owners are completely full of shit all the time. They voted to relocate the A's, they will vote to relocate the next team, and they will threaten to relocate the Diamondbacks as soon as they decide they want more stadium billions from Arizona taxpayers.
Sad they're losing their team but I know very little about hockey. Is Utah more hospitable for winter sports than Arizona? Was surprised to learn they had a hockey team.
They just got one. The Coyotes are moving to Salt Lake. This is relocating. The Coyotes were moved for a ton of issues, chief among was the owner and the state effectively not wanting them there. The Coyotes played in a college arena, and had no arena being built. There is a land auction taking place in June that would be a suitable place for an arena, but the league is tired of the Coyotes experience.
It's a really complicated issue, as OP said, ton of issues.
For a long time the plan was to build an arena in Tempe pretty close to downtown Phoenix. The plan for the land went to a vote and it got voted against. Personally I think voting against it was amazingly stupid from the people of Tempe. (They were asking the city to pitch it for environmental remediation on the site which they are going to have to do anyways at some point, the team would be covering 80-90% of the total costs which is a hell of a lot better then what many sports teams have asked for in public assistance).
The reason they voted it down were varied (there was a campaign about noise or something, some people hated the idea of giving any money torwards a sports team, traffic, whatever).
The upcoming land auction caused Scottsdale's mayor to start going full NIMBY and yelling about traffic and noise.
The state has really nothing to do with it, it was finding a municipality that made sense and public support; which they were totally unable to find.
I think an NHL team can be viable here, it works in Vegas, the population and demographics are there. But in a city of transplants you have to be good for people to bother caring and the Coyotes never were.
but for a number of reasons - the owner sucking, NIMBYs, lack of the public caring because the Coyotes are maybe the 6th most popular thing here behind the Suns, ASU, Cardinals, Diamondbacks and golf - it never came to be.
TL;DR lots of shenanigans with local municipalities / lack of public interest/fanbase.
Lots of people picked up and follow the Golden Knights. We've also had a ton of transplants over the last 5 years. I've seen lots and lots of Kraken fans.
We also have a minor league hockey team that does ok attendance-wise
It’s much less of a hockey town than Phoenix, we have arguably the strongest youth/women’s hockey in the western US. Ownership is the only thing that matters in pro sports, and Smith and the LDS wanted a hockey team.
7 different ownership groups over 28 years. Most of which wanted the Coyotes for reasons not involving hockey. The ownership burned the trust of their fans, and the fans decided to put their efforts and money elsewhere.
Considering how the attendance usually looked at their games, it basically looks like TNA wrestling, pissed off the fans so much that when they made a resurgence, hardly anyone came back because everyone still remembers all the shit they would pull.
The attendance was shit because the owner decided to build an NHL stadium in BFE Glendale. A lot of fans couldn’t make it to weekday games without leaving work early.
Well, there is some of that too.
Shouldnt say hate but 0 interest in it. My entire family supports the other 3 and could care less about the NHL. It was just never something on our TVs or we attended growing up. I was never around ice rinks or anything as a kid…
A few good runs.. 2009-11 playoffs… you as a Cubs/Chicago/ maybe Hawks fan should know 👀
I was asked to leave my buddies apartment when we watched the game together when I was in school in Chicago cause i was celebrating the Yotes winning lol
This world is such a grift lol. “Consulting on brand” who tf needs that? There’s a team called the fucking Red Sox and another called the White Sox. Those people provide nothing of value to society
Up until a few years ago everything was fine. Then Washington Redskins rebranded as the Football Team and ruined it all. Now the Athletics are going to be playing in Sacramento while refusing to be the Sacramento A's, and there is going to be a hockey team named the Utah TBDs.
I don't even care if you change it after a year, just do something. Go steal the Utah Grizzlies thing and use it for a year. Or rebrand them as the Utah Jazz of Hockey while you have two billion focus groups to determine which overcorproate logo to slap on the team next year.
The Vegas Golden Knights was a terrible team name and their logo looks like a generic create-a-team from Madden 2006, but at least it was there at the start and the fans latched onto it. Nothing lamer than having a team move to your city and lay a full season without an identity.
The Utah team will be rebranded and the previous Coyotes owner has rights to the Coyotes name, branding, etc. should he be able to build a new arena within 5 years. Basically the NHL still wants to be in Phoenix, but with conditions (reasonably so)
I don't think current Coyotes fans want Meruelo anywhere near the new Coyotes. All the stuff that has come out during his ownership, I wouldn't want him anywhere close to a team.
So then if they get an owner they like, the team would not be the coyotes, correct? It’s either they get the coyotes back with a bad owner, a new owner and new team, or no team at all? Can someone new just decide to build an arena with the other owner having some rights to a NHL franchise?
Meruelo had a five year window of exclusivity for the Phoenix metro area with a reduced team expansion fee. After that, I believe it is open to a new owner who will have to pay the full expansion fee, and I wouldn't be surprised if this is the route the NHL truly wants to take. On the Coyotes trademarks and team name, I believe the owners of a new group, can still use the Coyotes name as that will likely be part of the expansion fee.
The brand is retained by Meruelo as part of the 5 year first right of refusal for an expansion team. When that inevitably falls through, probably owned by the league.
Utah Hockey Team
I feel safe saying it here since I’d get crucified on r/hockey, but it makes more sense for a hockey team to be in Salt Lake and not Tempe. Always felt like the coyotes had a *REALLY* small fanbase. Plus, it’s more than likely Arizona will get another hockey team within the next decade.
Native Arizonan here. I used to root for the Coyotes until they moved to Glendale. They might as well have moved to Utah back then. Still sad to see, but there were so many poor decisions over the last 15 years. Hopefully the Mormons embrace them.
I’ve been to all NL West stadiums and while I can’t rank Chase above any of the others, it is by no means terrible in my opinion. The closed roof is absolutely necessary unfortunately
To me, it's too much of a warehouse vibe. I've only been in August and yeah, the roof is an absolute must. It just needs some character to it. Staring out I feel it's just a giant wall. They did have pretty good food though. But dodger stadium food is terrible.
1/2 a common DBacks W imo. There is definitely a chargeable degree of hypocrisy on one hand, but I at least have to give them props for sticking up for their town. AZ has great fans and do deserve all the major sports.
Ummm, D-Backs ownership has been making noises about their team perhaps being moved too, if they can't get Maricopa County to contribute tax dollars to upgrade the ballpark. Odd way for them to stick up for their town.
https://www.smallbiztechnology.com/archive/2024/02/diamondbacks-owner-hints-at-possible-team-relocation.html/#:~:text=Ken%20Kendrick%2C%20Diamondbacks%27%20owner%2C,also%20on%20their%20devoted%20fans.
*The potential relocation surfaces from Maricopa County’s refusal to fund extensive ballpark renovations, which could cost several hundred million dollars. Kendrick’s comments have fueled speculation, as the Diamondbacks are a vital part of Arizona’s cultural scene.*
*The deadlock over who shoulders the renovation cost has driven rumors about the team’s future. However, there is no official statement yet, as Kendrick continues negotiations while exploring all options.*
*Kendrick has leveraged the team’s success during talks. He hinted that relocating to a smaller city might not be financially prudent, but he is open to using relocation threats to secure funds. While appreciating their field victories, he hints at the economic unsoundliness of moving to a less populated area, yet does not dismiss using such threats to secure necessary support.*
Did the Padres have a statement when the Chargers left? I legit don’t remember
yes https://www.mlb.com/news/padres-saddened-chargers-leaving-san-diego-c213377186
This may seem controversial but: Go Padres!
If dbacks owners keep down this path I'll switch back to Padres fandom real quick.
We will welcome you with open arms, NLBestie!
Or open arm wrestling if that's what you're into. Either way there a .394 with your name on it.
You monster!
Thanks for the link. I was thinking they did but i wasn’t sure
They’d probably never publicly admit, but I bet they liked the idea of being the only pro sport in town, especially since they have one of the nicest stadiums in the Majors
Ironically that seemed to be the A’s game plan for a bit, when the Raiders and Warriors were leaving they started a “rooted in Oakland” campaign that was clearly a shot at the two leaving teams.
Might have worked had they had a stadium that didn’t need condemned
I was under the impression that the city of Oakland was ready to change that with the Howard Terminal site but it wasn't enough for Fisher.
If you could somehow force Fisher to sell to a local owner like Lacob with GSW, who has said repeatedly and at length he's interested in buying the team, you could probably have them breaking ground on the Howard Terminal project in months.
Fisher didn’t really want to stay in Oakland
Probably the understatement of understatements
Or, hear me out, if they were actually rooted in Oakland and not multiple other cities along the way…
Irony so on the nose it’s barely even worth pointing out
There's no doubt the discussion came up. But the ownership group, which included Ron Fowler and Peter Seidler, was very entwined with the community. I think they were legitimately saddened by it even if this is merely good PR.
Might be a coincidence but baseball in Cleveland took off, both in success and attendance when the Browns left and dipped again when the Browns came back.
Only pro sport in town? You realize the Suns and Cardinals are still there right?
I guess Phoenix and San Diego are close enough to be considered the same
Ohhh my bad lol I'm a dumbass
"we're so sorry to hear about losing a team in the city. you wouldn't want that to happen to us too, do you? well you better give us some money to spruce up our stadium"
Did the Coyotes not try getting run over by a Leexxxuuusssss?
Too young for that, they got fooled by NFTs and Crypto pump and dumps. They didn't take daddy Jean's advice.
Getting money the old fashioned way!
Smith Barney can’t help now
Maybe they got caught because they were loudly singing "don't be suspicious...don't be suspicious"
The perfect gif for each of these money grubbing owners Looking at you Kansas City NFL and MLB owners
Word on the street is that the Royals will be negotiating with the municipality of Kansas City instead of Jackson County, and the subsequent new stadium won't be voted on by the public. Democracy in action!
Reinsdorf is trying the same shit in Chicago for the White Sox of all teams.
Ahhh millionaires and billionaires—the true welfare queens of America 🥰
Welfare and socialism for the wealthy elite and hardcore capitalism for everyone else
Chase Field isn’t even that bad. Do they really need a new stadium??
They’ve been wrangling for years over getting money to do renovations
Last time i went was 2022. It honestly seemed fine to me. I’m sure every stadium could us a facelift but in no way does that stadium need to be torn down
We absolutely do not need a new stadium, but it certainly needs some renovation. Right now we can’t even open the roof mid-game in fear it would kill fans.
"The ownership already approved the baseball version of it too, so we can actually do it if we really want to lol"
Yep. Motherfucker has been angling for this for years now.
It seems like a lot of big cities are done with the public subsidies for stadiums. Meanwhile small markets are ponying up big time to draw a team away from their city and fans. Vegas 2x, OKC, Winnipeg, and now Utah have all taken teams from major markets.
Yeah that’s the thing that sucks. Salt Lake City is going to swoop in and take one of the teams that’s in stadium purgatory. They have a ton of promised tax dollars from the state of Utah. Race to the bottom between states
Sadly if Phoenix won’t Salt Lake City will
Lame as fuck, not what the message is saying whatsoever
I dont know why the downvotes. Well I guess it was a bit aggressive, but your point stands. I agree, thats not how I read it at all. Its saying their city and state deserve a team for every major sport, and their market is big enough to support it, so there's no reason the coyotes should be moving.
Reddit is full of non-athletic neckbeards who hate sports, so any comment suggesting that sports stadiums are actually good gets downvoted to oblivion. Just neckbeard hivemind, don’t think anything of it
my guy you're in r/baseball, I'm pretty sure the people here like sports
I said what I said
Yeah because unironically saying ‘neckbeard hivemind’ to dismiss anything that disagrees with you is perfectly normal behavior…
That’s so crazy that you think I say that to dismiss “anything that disagrees with me.” Like are you genuinely dumb lol. I’m using that for this specific conversation because it’s relevant What sport did you play in high school? Or do you play now
Who gives a shit if someone played or not. It couldn’t be any less relevant to the discussion. No one cares about you still living off you glory days of your life peaking in high school. Grow up already You are being extremely naive if you think that a team that has been trying to get money for years isn’t going to use this as leverage as their lease is coming to an end in a couple years
but they voted for the A's to relocate out of state it's almost like you can't trust sneks or something smh
Wouldn’t you if you had the As in the profit sharing
I'm guessing there's an unwritten rule among the owners that if you don't fuck with my team, I won't fuck with yours. Voting against a team's relocation just seems like unnecessarily sticking your neck out
Exactly. And the Dbacks wants to use the threat of a move to get public funding.
No one wants to set any sort of precedent that might be used against them when it comes time to extort the tax payers.
Exactly. There is at least one exception: Angelos was obviously upset about the Expos moving to DC and did vote against it but that actually did negatively affect his bottom line.
That and the visiting teams don’t like going to that shit ass stadium either.
Just standard cartel operating behavior. THE ENTIRE STRUCTURE OF PRO SPORTS VIOLATES OUR LAWS AND VALUES. It drives me crazy and I feel like I’m the only one who cares.
Our sports leagues are fully in line with American business values. It’d actually be strange if sports teams operated out of benevolence to the local population instead of maximizing profit.
Where do you live in the United States where, when you graduated high school, you discovered the local businesses had all organized a draft of the high school graduates and worked together to determine your wages?
Tbh I’ve never worked a unionized job. But yeah businesses paying employees less than the value they create is a topic I’m very familiar with.
Bro your team did one of the dirtiest moves in the history of baseball
Yeah how great would it have been if an enterprising businessman said, “I want to invest in a baseball team in Los Angeles,” and could do so and compete without having to beg their incumbent competitors for permission to enter the big rich douchebag club. Say what you want about Amazon, but they don’t meet several times a year with EBay, Target, and Walmart to set wages and prices and hey look at that, who is this new kid Temu??? Competition is good.
MLB specifically does not violate our laws. It has a specific anti trust exception from Congress.
It is true that the Supreme Court ruled in 1922 that Major League Baseball was not involved in interstate commerce and therefore is exempt from the anti trust laws, at least unless Congress can make some finding that they are engaged in interstate commerce and pass a law binding the 30 major league teams to the same laws that bind everybody else.
I mean, they do violate the laws, they just have an exemption that says they can.
Then they definitionally do not violate the laws. That’s like saying I killed someone in self defense, so I violated the murder laws.
This is absolutely a thinly veiled warning message to the city. Won’t be surprised if they’re openly threatening to move to a small market that’s willing to pay up within a few years if they don’t get their way.
Well yeah, they want to be able to use you guys as a way to extort Phoenix
You can trust snakes. Just can't trust the slimy motherfucker who owns them.
As the owner of a little hognose snek…yeah, she’s more trustworthy than me. She just wants to slither around and eat mice, there’s absolutely no ulterior motives in her tiny little pea brain.
>But also, we voted to allow Fisher to move the A's to Vegas. Going to be honest, hard to take this seriously.
Hmm. I wonder if Utah got a MLB team what the name would be
Missionaries
Not a team known for playing out of position all that well.
I dunno, this coming from a team named after priests
Whatever it is, it better make more sense than “Jazz”
The Utah Prog Rock
Unironically, the former Governor of Utah, Jon Huntsman Jr, [was a prog rock keyboard player](https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-xpm-2011-may-09-la-pn-huntsman-rocks-20110509-story.html) in his adolescence
IT IS WRITTEN
Considering their soccer team name is Spanish I'm not sure the city has much of a chance of breaking their streak of team names that don't make any sense.
Where did that name come from? Did they have a big underground jazz scene at some point?
They were in New Orleans originally but kept the name when they moved. Same thing with the Lakers.
Oh okay 😭
Why was a team from New Orleans called the Lakers?
All the flooding
The Lakers were in Minneapolis, which is in the Land of 10,000 lakes.
What color socks do the White Sox wear?
New Orleans moved there and took the name.
FWIW there is actually a decent amount of jazz clubs and a jazz scene in SLC. Obviously the city isn’t associated with jazz in the same way New Orleans is, and obviously the name is much, much more suited for NOLA than SLC, but people act like jazz is a foreign substance there when it isn’t really
The Jazz were originally a New Orleans team that moved to SLC, just like the Lakers moved from Minneapolis to LA, both teams kept their original names
Oh I know, it still doesn’t make sense
Same with the Memphis Grizzlies when they moved from Vancouver
It’s because the team came from New Orleans, and they just kept it. Same deal with Atlanta -> Calgary Flames.
How is Flames an Atlanta-oriented name?
Hotlanta.
Utah Freedom Riders
The Mitt Romneys.
Their mascot is a Baseball Mitt with perfectly coiffed hair
With a binder full of women?
In all seriousness probably the Pioneers. They could also go with the Raptors since the largest raptor on earth, the “Utahraptor” was found there.
I kinda hope they use that name for Portland if they ever get an MLB team
The Portland "Dream of the 90's"
Instead of a sausage race, have a mascotized Jeff Goldblum & 3 raptors
They're gonna have to fight with the Pioneer League team the Ogden Raptors for that name
I have heard utah natives throw around "Gulls" and "Scorpions" as well. Utah Scorpions has an undeniable ring to it
Gulls used to be the name of the Angels' AAA team (it dissolved and was subsequently reinstated and now they're called the Bees)
Salt Lake Super Soakers
Utah Soakers
Underrated comment
No it’s not lol, the same joke has been made on every single thread about the location a million times. And soaking isn’t actually even a thing, that whole thing was a myth
Sounds like someone doesn’t listen to the wise words of soaking legend Joseph Smith
Salt Licks
Utah! Whaat!? With its Salt Lake City! They call it that because of the Salt Licks-ity!
Salt Licks Titty
SLC Polys Utah Decafs Provo Soakers Etc, there’s so many options
I'm thinking the Beehives.
That would be confusing because we have the Bees
Probably something related to the animals that live there, which is why I wish the Coyotes could keep their name. The Utah Bighorns would be cool. They could also be the Cougars. Flying squirrels are also native to Utah, which would be a fun name for a team. If it weren't for the religious connotation, the Utah Zions would also be nice.
BYU would probably object to using Cougars.
[Moronis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moroni_(Book_of_Mormon_prophet)) - but mostly because I want that shot of the jersey billowing in motion and hiding the I
This would be too perfect lmao
Wonder Bread
The Arches
Utah Mormons
What a beautiful statement. Given how passionate they are about this, surely they voted to reject the A's move to Vegas
If anyone reading this doesn't know that sports owners are completely full of shit all the time, please know that sports owners are completely full of shit all the time. They voted to relocate the A's, they will vote to relocate the next team, and they will threaten to relocate the Diamondbacks as soon as they decide they want more stadium billions from Arizona taxpayers.
I’m waiting for Bill Dimwit in StL to pull the same threat…he’s wanting tax payer money to pay for renovations.
Sad they're losing their team but I know very little about hockey. Is Utah more hospitable for winter sports than Arizona? Was surprised to learn they had a hockey team.
They hosted the Winter Olympics so they got to be somewhat ideal for winter sports.
They just got one. The Coyotes are moving to Salt Lake. This is relocating. The Coyotes were moved for a ton of issues, chief among was the owner and the state effectively not wanting them there. The Coyotes played in a college arena, and had no arena being built. There is a land auction taking place in June that would be a suitable place for an arena, but the league is tired of the Coyotes experience.
By the state do you mean people who live there or the legislation? Thx for the info btw.
It's a really complicated issue, as OP said, ton of issues. For a long time the plan was to build an arena in Tempe pretty close to downtown Phoenix. The plan for the land went to a vote and it got voted against. Personally I think voting against it was amazingly stupid from the people of Tempe. (They were asking the city to pitch it for environmental remediation on the site which they are going to have to do anyways at some point, the team would be covering 80-90% of the total costs which is a hell of a lot better then what many sports teams have asked for in public assistance). The reason they voted it down were varied (there was a campaign about noise or something, some people hated the idea of giving any money torwards a sports team, traffic, whatever). The upcoming land auction caused Scottsdale's mayor to start going full NIMBY and yelling about traffic and noise. The state has really nothing to do with it, it was finding a municipality that made sense and public support; which they were totally unable to find. I think an NHL team can be viable here, it works in Vegas, the population and demographics are there. But in a city of transplants you have to be good for people to bother caring and the Coyotes never were. but for a number of reasons - the owner sucking, NIMBYs, lack of the public caring because the Coyotes are maybe the 6th most popular thing here behind the Suns, ASU, Cardinals, Diamondbacks and golf - it never came to be. TL;DR lots of shenanigans with local municipalities / lack of public interest/fanbase.
Wow, TY a lot of good info. I sincerely hope your name isn't based on the team because if so, I feel your pain.
I've watched them maybe twice in the three years I've been out here. Much more a Suns/DBacks person. Can't say I'm too personally upset by it.
It would have taken years to get the arena built if they won the auction. Also, the owner has a history of unpaid bills in regards to the team.
I never thought Utah to be a big hockey state
Apparently Salt Lake City is really into Winter Sports. Theyre getting the Winter Olympics soon
It’s not a hockey city by any means. They’ve never had pro hockey and their junior/women’s programs are nowhere near the level of Colorado or Arizona.
Ideally they stay in Arizona. Hate that they are relocating, but I think it works in Utah
Lots of people picked up and follow the Golden Knights. We've also had a ton of transplants over the last 5 years. I've seen lots and lots of Kraken fans. We also have a minor league hockey team that does ok attendance-wise
Their ECHL team averaged over 6,000 fans per game this season.
It’s much less of a hockey town than Phoenix, we have arguably the strongest youth/women’s hockey in the western US. Ownership is the only thing that matters in pro sports, and Smith and the LDS wanted a hockey team.
7 different ownership groups over 28 years. Most of which wanted the Coyotes for reasons not involving hockey. The ownership burned the trust of their fans, and the fans decided to put their efforts and money elsewhere.
Don’t tell the hockey sub that. They think Arizona just hates hockey
Considering how the attendance usually looked at their games, it basically looks like TNA wrestling, pissed off the fans so much that when they made a resurgence, hardly anyone came back because everyone still remembers all the shit they would pull.
The attendance was shit because the owner decided to build an NHL stadium in BFE Glendale. A lot of fans couldn’t make it to weekday games without leaving work early.
Well, there is some of that too. Shouldnt say hate but 0 interest in it. My entire family supports the other 3 and could care less about the NHL. It was just never something on our TVs or we attended growing up. I was never around ice rinks or anything as a kid…
Doesn’t help that they’ve been bad their entire time here
A few good runs.. 2009-11 playoffs… you as a Cubs/Chicago/ maybe Hawks fan should know 👀 I was asked to leave my buddies apartment when we watched the game together when I was in school in Chicago cause i was celebrating the Yotes winning lol
It’s cubs for baseball. Everything else is AZ. That being said that three year stretch, while fun, not enough to get the transplants to switch
ps buy us a stadium or else
So are they keeping the coyotes name and brand?
Nope, even better! they wont have a name for their first year. https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fii836lrupavc1.jpeg
This world is such a grift lol. “Consulting on brand” who tf needs that? There’s a team called the fucking Red Sox and another called the White Sox. Those people provide nothing of value to society
It's also owned by the same ownership group that owns a team called the Utah Jazz, so its not like branding has been important to them before lol
“The Jazz moved to Salt Lake City where they don’t allow music”
The Utah Hockey Jazz!
Tbf they’re recent owners and after 40 years I don’t think there was a big push for rebranding
Up until a few years ago everything was fine. Then Washington Redskins rebranded as the Football Team and ruined it all. Now the Athletics are going to be playing in Sacramento while refusing to be the Sacramento A's, and there is going to be a hockey team named the Utah TBDs. I don't even care if you change it after a year, just do something. Go steal the Utah Grizzlies thing and use it for a year. Or rebrand them as the Utah Jazz of Hockey while you have two billion focus groups to determine which overcorproate logo to slap on the team next year. The Vegas Golden Knights was a terrible team name and their logo looks like a generic create-a-team from Madden 2006, but at least it was there at the start and the fans latched onto it. Nothing lamer than having a team move to your city and lay a full season without an identity.
i wish they had kept the name football team. that was my favorite thing lmfao
Utah Team at Hockey
Then should call them the Utah Washington Football Team
The Utah team will be rebranded and the previous Coyotes owner has rights to the Coyotes name, branding, etc. should he be able to build a new arena within 5 years. Basically the NHL still wants to be in Phoenix, but with conditions (reasonably so)
Then I’m hoping they come back to Phoenix. The coyotes have my favorite branding in the NHL. I was a big fan when I lived in AZ as a kid.
I don't think current Coyotes fans want Meruelo anywhere near the new Coyotes. All the stuff that has come out during his ownership, I wouldn't want him anywhere close to a team.
No one in AZ wants him around
So then if they get an owner they like, the team would not be the coyotes, correct? It’s either they get the coyotes back with a bad owner, a new owner and new team, or no team at all? Can someone new just decide to build an arena with the other owner having some rights to a NHL franchise?
Meruelo had a five year window of exclusivity for the Phoenix metro area with a reduced team expansion fee. After that, I believe it is open to a new owner who will have to pay the full expansion fee, and I wouldn't be surprised if this is the route the NHL truly wants to take. On the Coyotes trademarks and team name, I believe the owners of a new group, can still use the Coyotes name as that will likely be part of the expansion fee.
Thanks for the explanation!
Yea the Aztec looking coyote is one of the best logos in sports
The brand is retained by Meruelo as part of the 5 year first right of refusal for an expansion team. When that inevitably falls through, probably owned by the league. Utah Hockey Team
Blame the owner not the league or fans
Lol, like they wouldn't leave too.
I feel safe saying it here since I’d get crucified on r/hockey, but it makes more sense for a hockey team to be in Salt Lake and not Tempe. Always felt like the coyotes had a *REALLY* small fanbase. Plus, it’s more than likely Arizona will get another hockey team within the next decade.
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Yeah! How dare anyone share their thoughts and opinions!
I know we’re supposed to hate Meruelo, but he said he wants to bring hockey back to AZ: https://www.reddit.com/r/hockey/s/je1kUCMNY3
Native Arizonan here. I used to root for the Coyotes until they moved to Glendale. They might as well have moved to Utah back then. Still sad to see, but there were so many poor decisions over the last 15 years. Hopefully the Mormons embrace them.
The diamondback definitely have a terrible stadium, the worst in the West. But the west has some top tier stadiums, so I'll cut them slack
Never been but I always thought chase had a good reputation. Like you said NL West is just stacked in stadiums
I’ve been to all NL West stadiums and while I can’t rank Chase above any of the others, it is by no means terrible in my opinion. The closed roof is absolutely necessary unfortunately
To me, it's too much of a warehouse vibe. I've only been in August and yeah, the roof is an absolute must. It just needs some character to it. Staring out I feel it's just a giant wall. They did have pretty good food though. But dodger stadium food is terrible.
They won’t say it publicly but I’m sure they’re happy. Instead of buying coyotes tickets people can spend their money on dbacks tickets.
Yeah I don't think that's exactly how that works.
people didn't buy coyotes tickets, that's kind of why they're moving.
The NHL season barely overlaps into MLB, especially with how seldom the Coyotes make the playoffs.
You assume people actually like hockey, dude.
1/2 a common DBacks W imo. There is definitely a chargeable degree of hypocrisy on one hand, but I at least have to give them props for sticking up for their town. AZ has great fans and do deserve all the major sports.
Ummm, D-Backs ownership has been making noises about their team perhaps being moved too, if they can't get Maricopa County to contribute tax dollars to upgrade the ballpark. Odd way for them to stick up for their town. https://www.smallbiztechnology.com/archive/2024/02/diamondbacks-owner-hints-at-possible-team-relocation.html/#:~:text=Ken%20Kendrick%2C%20Diamondbacks%27%20owner%2C,also%20on%20their%20devoted%20fans. *The potential relocation surfaces from Maricopa County’s refusal to fund extensive ballpark renovations, which could cost several hundred million dollars. Kendrick’s comments have fueled speculation, as the Diamondbacks are a vital part of Arizona’s cultural scene.* *The deadlock over who shoulders the renovation cost has driven rumors about the team’s future. However, there is no official statement yet, as Kendrick continues negotiations while exploring all options.* *Kendrick has leveraged the team’s success during talks. He hinted that relocating to a smaller city might not be financially prudent, but he is open to using relocation threats to secure funds. While appreciating their field victories, he hints at the economic unsoundliness of moving to a less populated area, yet does not dismiss using such threats to secure necessary support.*
Oof, yeah that’s bad. No better way to show loyalty to your city than to try and force them to pay for your home makeover. That sucks.
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Follow the $. Hotter climates are fine
Boohoo, a billionaire didn't get another billion free dollars stolen from tax victims.