I heard they're looking into corporate sponsorships ala the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim. Mattel is said to be in the mix with putting their Super Soaker name on the team. Good family friendly, lake side kind of vibes that fit the Utah brand.
The bigger story here is that the going rate for team 33 and 34 is now at least $1.2B, almost double what Seattle paid.
The players are getting fleeced. Fehr was a fraud.
I think it would be much longer than that. Even if the nhl waits more than 5 years. As long as he builds an arena, it would be the only one in town the nhl could use, and he could just refuse to allow a team there unless he owns it.
its called being rich and not throwing your money away on dumb shit.
Remember when Musk spent 44B on Twitter? All he needed to do was buy one team from each big league and he would have raked in the cash on the eventual sale.
instead he wanted to be King Twit.
I wonder what kind of rebrand Musk would do to the teams he would buy if he did buy teams. Would the Colorado Avalanche go full circle and become the Rocky Mountain Extremes?
People keep talking about the sports book but his sports book (Sahara Bets) made less than $5M in **revenue** last year. I can't see him spending $1B just to keep that revenue. Sports betting has not been all that lucrative for him.
Tell me about it, but I think that's the leagues end game 36 team league
Guessing Arizona 2.0, Atlanta 3,0, Houston then one more Eastern Team or a west team with division realignment to accommodate a team in the west moving east
Yeah they're not leaving that potential money on the table having 20 teams miss the playoffs. I think we're gonna be seeing the introduction of a 3-5 game play-in series for 7th through 10th conference seeds or 4th and 5th divisional seeds.
It made a bit more sense when some people brought up that the MLB/NFL have 30ish teams in the USA. The NHL only has 25 with the seven Canadian teams. There's room to add them, but the quality level is a question for sure.
Hockey has a pretty large talent pool if you think about it. Outside of soccer, it has the largest talent pool in Europe out of the sports played in North America.
MLB has 29 teams in the US, however, there are many cities that have two teams. NY, Chicago, LA, SF/Oakland, and you might even argue DC/Baltimore. that brings it down to 24-25 unique areas in the US with a team. if that counts then the Rangers/Islanders/Devils are really the only comparable overlap in the NHL. so it’s either 25 vs 25 or maybe 24 vs 23.
I would think it's also the last time the league would expand. If you go to 36 by adding Phoenix 2.0, Atlanta 3.0, Houston, and Quebec City, what major market is left? Kansas City? Baltimore? San Diego? I don't think any of them would pay 3B or more for an NHL team.
The poor team in Europe having to travel to the US and Canada every other game would probably last one, maybe two seasons before they use a city in the US or Canada as their second home city for a short while until they just end up permanently moving there
For an NFL team, absolutely, Mexico City is probably the biggest untapped market in the whole world; maybe NBA.
But not NHL. There’s just no market for it.
At that point, just make 1 big expansion to 40 teams right away, and make the NHL into two 20-teams divisons. Still a "closed" league, but teams who suck gets relegated from the main division.
Some Premier-league type of deal to break-off the top performing clubs.
40 should 100% be the cap, whenever it does happen
But that type of relegation will just bring the number of teams back down to like 28 at some point, the same bottom feeders are going to get swallowed up by debt and cease
4 10-team divisions, maybe 5 of 8 and completely redo the playoff structure, or just go to 1-8 for each conference
That's the complete opposite of what I hear from anyone who's playing, played or worked in the league. That in the past there was a few standout goalies in the league and a massive gap between starter and backup. While now the gap is almost non-existent, that former goalies complain that today's goaltending is boring because everyone looks the same.
And that in the past depth players could barely skate. Teams could fit a handful of enforcers and big mean defenders that just stood and kept the crease clear. Whereas now they all have to be able to play, because otherwise the opponent's 4th liners will skate circles around them.
I haven't heard a single person in the league say it's getting slower and easier. It's always the opposite. Faster and more skilled.
Well maybe not.
This is the ‘buy it now’ price on ebay. Or the “I’m gonna give you $100 to fuck off” price for Meruelo.
I also think this might be more than what an expansion team would cost. As Meruelo probably knew the NHL was desperate to get the team off him, and he was able to leverage that into this deal, which is probably enough to buy an expansion team and build the rink on the auction land, if he wins it.
The piece the players get is 23 new jobs a team + minor league guys who come up, and the corresponding increase to HRR.
There isn't a pro sports league CBA going that has ever sliced the players in on a direct payment of expansion fees.
It isn't. I was referring to the increase in HRR by adding two new teams that will immediately sell a ton of merch and tickets if for no other reason than the fact that they'll be new.
>Fehr was a fraud.
The vast difference in efficacy of MLBPA Fehr vs. NHLPA Fehr will always be interesting to me. Fehr got and did everything the MLBPA asked of him, including seeing them through the '94 MLB strike. Yet he basically a wet noodle for NHLPA. The player's share of revenue got smaller, the salary cap got implemented, every player took a forced 25% pay cut, and the Kyle Beach assault all happened under his watch.
Fehr's bargaining position is just weaker. The NHL is not as strong a league as baseball was in during Fehr's tenure.
Also, the NHL without a salary cap was dead.
I guess that somewhat depends, we know $200 million is being stated as a 'relocation fee' so that wouldn't apply to a new team, and I guess there is a premium to pay for having already done the hiring process for all the front office staff, having an AHL affiliate and prospect pipeline etc
Once you remove the relocation fee it's about the same price that Andlauer paid for the Sens, $1B seems to be about the going rate for NHL teams.
I wish just to see the Grizzlies name go to the IHL, AHL, ECHL, and finally to the NHL but I feel like the Bruins would pitch a fit.
My local ECHL team beat them tonight, that may have been the last time we play Utah. Don't know how sustainable it is to keep them there.
I feel like the words are sufficiently different even if the underlying subject is effectively the same. It’s not like the “Grizzlys” would have a giant B on their shirts either
NHL Arizona Coyotes -> NHL Utah Grizzlies
AHL Tuscon Roadrunners -> AHL Arizona Coyotes
ECHL Utah Grizzlies -> ECHL Tuscon Roadrunners
(The grizzlies are currently the affiliate of the Avalanche but I don't think that's an issue)
Coyotes owner couldn't even pay for hotel bills at the start of the year and now the guy gets 1 billion for the team. Then they get to "resurrect" them within 5 years. The league really has a love fest with Phoenix. Every other city that lost their team got royally screwed.
The conditions for Merulo to keep the rights to a new Arizona franchise are absolutely chosen to be unlikely to ever occur given his track record. He has 5 years to win a land bid and build an NHL-ready arena, something a good and motivated owner (especially one that has a team already) could feasibly make happen given everything goes right, but Merulo has no track record of that sort of thing.
The NHL is banking on him failing to meet the contract terms in 5 years so they can sell a full-price expansion to someone else.
It’s a big market, they just put the arena in the worst possible place to start. Glendale was a horrible choice
If, they are able to actually get the arena in a location easily accessible by the Phoenix metro area it will succeed fine
Yes, both.
Glendale may work for football because all you’re asking for fans is to make a trek to there 8-9 times a year on every other weekend. If that wasn’t so easy to pull off, there wouldn’t be teams in Orchard Park, Foxboro, or even Green Bay. But 41 games a year in Glendale never made sense.
Then when you add in all the bad ownership groups that have come and gone for the Coyotes… no wonder no one in the Phoenix metro area wants anything to do with the franchise. It’s tainted.
It's not close to downtown. You can justify driving out there Sunday for a Cardinals game, but getting home, changing, feeding the kids, and then hopping in the car for a 45 minute drive to see the Coyotes play an eastern conference team on a Tuesday night just isn't desirable.
Kinda sorta pretty much.
Add in the fact that the team was uncompetitive for much of its stay there (only 3 playoff appearances--4 if you count Covid where we were going to miss if not for the bubble--in 17+ seasons in Glendale). Who was gonna drive all the way out there to watch a mediocre Coyotes team?
> Every other city that lost their team got royally screwed
Yes. This keeps getting glossed over but 100% yes. The amount of effort GB put into a terrible product should be a slap in the face to those who lost.
I wish the league put 1/1000th of the effort that they put towards keeping the team in AZ towards keeping the Thrashers in Atlanta.
Atlanta Spirit Group: We never wanted a hockey team. It just came with the Hawks.
NHL: Cool story bros! Send them to Manitoba!
Atlanta Spirit Group: lolz!
NHL: lolz!
NHL fans: Atlanta fans suck!
Sigh.
> Then they get to "resurrect" them within 5 years.
Won't happen; those are just pretty words. And I say that as a Coyotes fan.
I mean, it's not like the league will be itching to let someone back in their owner club who can't pay his bills, either.
He *can* pay, he just chooses not to, because he thinks it’s some sort of shrewd negotiation tactic. You’d think he would have learned his lesson after getting kicked out of Gila River Arena and having the Arizona Department of Revenue send notice that they were going to impose a tax lien on him. The negative PR and reputation hit is way more than any savings he gets from playing hardball on paying his bills.
> The negative PR and reputation hit is way more than any savings he gets from playing hardball on paying his bills.
Exactly. Not something the NHL wants their name associated with, in all probability.
Or maybe follow up on the theme of the Jazz and Real Salt Lake by choosing names that have nothing to do with the city.
Utah Nordiques
Salt Lake Whalers
I would much rather have the Coyotes roster & prospects than whatever table scraps I'd get in an expansion draft. You would never get anybody anywhere near as good as Dylan Guenther, Logan Cooley, or Clayton Keller from one, even if a guy like Keller ends up getting flipped for picks & prospects himself
What's so great about the expansion draft? Utah gets a very promising young team that already has chemistry, and they've been beating playoff teams lately.
I'd take the Coyotes over an expansion draft every day of the week. [This kind of draft capital](https://i.imgur.com/w14Hrbw.png), a good prospect pool, a few star players, a ton of good depth players, no bad contracts, and of course an already setup hockey organization, not having to build something like [this](https://i.imgur.com/vAm8fHU.png) from scratch must be an incredible perk.
Have you not seen how desperate NHL owners are for money? There's only a few teams that would turn down that $6M knowing it's a bad idea, the rest will happily look the other way.
To avoid a legal battle stemming from forcing Mereulo to sell and gives him an agreement directly with the league about the expansion club rules for the buy back. The league is also buying the team back for way over what it should fetch in a sale and by doing so they get the price up to 1b basically which basically sets the floor for any future team sales when they can say even their shittiest one was a 1, or 1.3, billion dollar purchase.
>NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and his deputy Bill Daly reportedly met with the Coyotes' ownership group about a month ago and told it that it could "pursue the new arena for Coyotes 2.0, but (the league's) in a position here where we can't allow this particular iteration of the team to continue any longer," according to Friedman.
I have a feeling the PA is playing a large role in this move. I don't think it's a coincidence that months after the PA made public statements about Mullett and the Coyotes that the NHL said they can no longer allow the team to operate like this. Playing out of Mullett is probably breaking some league by-laws or CBA outline for what is considered an NHL standard arena and the PA isnt going to let it slide any longer.
There are multiple Rangers, Jets, Kings, and Panthers franchises across the Big 4 leagues and it's not a big deal. Plus the Utahraptor is a real dinosaur species so it's cool.
Alternate the mascot on the home and away jerseys. One with the dinosaur, the other with your bird of prey of choice.
Fans now feel more obligated to buy two jerseys.
Profit?
This is why I keep thinking that the Blues are worth at least $1B. I forgot where, but a couple places estimated their value was around $600M. Others did have them just shy of $1B to be fair.
Between a good to great attendance market and a truly great tv market, I knew it had to be around 1B.
Tom Stillman has been an awesome owner. Even As one of the “poorer” owners, he’s always been committed to the team and city.
If you can deal with the fact it's Alan Walsh, check out Alan Walsh's latest podcast episode. He has some very interesting behind-the-scenes info (Sean Durzi is a client of his.)
Alan said there's a chance the sale is actually all of the assets, not the team itself. i.e., Smith Group buys all the player contracts, admin contracts, equipment, medical equipment, etc. but not the logos and name of the Coyotes. This way SLC becomes a new team, and the Coyotes are not dissolved, but instead "suspended operations" and if Murelo gets an arena and calls in the expansion clause, it will be the same team.
LMAO, the NHL essentially laundering the Coyotes franchise tells us that they don't care about the golden knights circumnavigating cap space using LTIR
I mean I feel like they've made that more than evident since they've done it 3 years in a row lol
Gary wants Vegas to be his show pony. How owners feel about it? Unsure since it's really only Vegas who keeps doing it. It's not against the rules but the rules haven't been changed. Owners don't want to incase it actually does happen to them and screws them over I guess.
The entire history of the Coyotes' ownership has suggested that there isn't anyone like that, and there certainly wouldn't be at this toxic stage of the team
Time to dust off the Rocky Mountain Xtreme
Rubber Puckies (SJ Sharks) was another classic possibility
Storming Mormons.
Howler is getting a new home most likely.
I definitely feel like it could be the Utah Yeti
The Utah Jazz 2
Utah Ska
What an awful name that is.
I don’t expect the name to be good, that’s for sure.
Keep the name as coyotes, they already have the jazz that didn't change names
I wonder if they'll rebrand for next season or play a year as the Utah Coyotes before effectuating the rebrand for 25-26.
They'll rebrand before next season. I feel like it would be harder to gain traction in a new market if you change your name after 1 year
Big brain not to rebrand the "Jazz". Hell even New Orleans, the city they were bought from, rebranded to the Peleicans
If Arizona gets a team again I’d rather Coyotes live here, but who knows if that’ll happen. I’d be fine with Coyotes in Utah.
Salt Lake City Huskies
I heard they're looking into corporate sponsorships ala the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim. Mattel is said to be in the mix with putting their Super Soaker name on the team. Good family friendly, lake side kind of vibes that fit the Utah brand.
The bigger story here is that the going rate for team 33 and 34 is now at least $1.2B, almost double what Seattle paid. The players are getting fleeced. Fehr was a fraud.
How much did the latest Coyotes owner profit on the deal, without doing basically anything useful?
He paid $300 million in 2019 for them and sold for $1B 5 years later. Even at a $20M loss a year, he’s $600m ahead.
Making $600 M and actually failing at one’s business is mind numbing.
What's worse is he has first shot at a new team in 5 years
I think it would be much longer than that. Even if the nhl waits more than 5 years. As long as he builds an arena, it would be the only one in town the nhl could use, and he could just refuse to allow a team there unless he owns it.
There’s a secret party and none of us are invited
Welcome to the billionaire's club. No matter how bad you are you have so much capital that it's almost impossible to lose money.
That's the billionaire way. No one is better at failing upward than those who are already rich.
its called being rich and not throwing your money away on dumb shit. Remember when Musk spent 44B on Twitter? All he needed to do was buy one team from each big league and he would have raked in the cash on the eventual sale. instead he wanted to be King Twit.
I wonder what kind of rebrand Musk would do to the teams he would buy if he did buy teams. Would the Colorado Avalanche go full circle and become the Rocky Mountain Extremes?
And he’d try everything in his power to get Xhekaj on his team.
Colorado X
Naw, Rocky Mountain Boobies. He has the mind of a 13 year old.
SpaceX, Tesla Model X, ~~Twitter~~ X, naming his son X Æ A XII and his daughter Exa, dude has an unhealthy obsession with the letter X
Tesla Model X is just part of a bigger 'joke', as it goes in with Model S, Model E and Model Y.
Fair, fair, fair. I’ll compromise with you, Xtremes.
And he'll give up that profit if he gets an expansion franchise. So in other words, there will never be another team in Phoenix.
Welcome to the NHL. What is worse is that the former owner will use the money he made running thr team into the ground, to get an expansion team.
He was basically being paid $600M to fuck off and never come back.
Except the league already has intentions of allowing him to come back with an expansion team
Provided he can figure out a place for them to play, for one. I'm not sure he can pull that off in a five year timeframe.
According to CJ, there was a lot of debt he took on as well, so not as much as 600M, but he is still making out like a bandit.
It's worth noting that he claims to intend on using the 1B to pay the expansion fees in 5 years so it won't be a realized profit for long.
I'd be willing to bet we never hear his name again in this league
Doesn't he need a professional sports team to be allowed to run his sports gambling company?
People keep talking about the sports book but his sports book (Sahara Bets) made less than $5M in **revenue** last year. I can't see him spending $1B just to keep that revenue. Sports betting has not been all that lucrative for him.
???? How does this guy fuck up running a sports betting company?
The sports book Market is diluted, lack of advertising, can’t retain users, shitty app, etc….
33 and 34 will be 1.5-2B then 35 and 36 could push 3B
A 36 team league sounds absolutely wild to me Like that's a lot of fucking teams, man
A lot of bad hockey teams playing bad hockey too
There’s so much parity in the league right now would 2-3 throw the balance off that much?
There’s parity until it comes to goaltending. It’s a stretch saying there’s 32 starters in the league right now let alone another 32 backups.
I dunno man. We have 2 starters.
There's quite a few teams that have 2 legit starters. Vegas, Winnipeg, Arizona, Florida, Carolina, and NYI spring to mind immediately
Tell me about it, but I think that's the leagues end game 36 team league Guessing Arizona 2.0, Atlanta 3,0, Houston then one more Eastern Team or a west team with division realignment to accommodate a team in the west moving east
Fuck a 36 team league there is already too much parity
Is parity a bad thing?
Oh, don’t worry. To get over that hurdle they’ll simply expand the playoffs.
Maybe the Sabres will finally have a chance at playoffs then!
Yeah they're not leaving that potential money on the table having 20 teams miss the playoffs. I think we're gonna be seeing the introduction of a 3-5 game play-in series for 7th through 10th conference seeds or 4th and 5th divisional seeds.
It made a bit more sense when some people brought up that the MLB/NFL have 30ish teams in the USA. The NHL only has 25 with the seven Canadian teams. There's room to add them, but the quality level is a question for sure.
Hockey has a pretty large talent pool if you think about it. Outside of soccer, it has the largest talent pool in Europe out of the sports played in North America.
MLB has 29 teams in the US, however, there are many cities that have two teams. NY, Chicago, LA, SF/Oakland, and you might even argue DC/Baltimore. that brings it down to 24-25 unique areas in the US with a team. if that counts then the Rangers/Islanders/Devils are really the only comparable overlap in the NHL. so it’s either 25 vs 25 or maybe 24 vs 23.
I would think it's also the last time the league would expand. If you go to 36 by adding Phoenix 2.0, Atlanta 3.0, Houston, and Quebec City, what major market is left? Kansas City? Baltimore? San Diego? I don't think any of them would pay 3B or more for an NHL team.
Mexico City, Toronto 2, Hamilton, and there’s also Europe
The poor team in Europe having to travel to the US and Canada every other game would probably last one, maybe two seasons before they use a city in the US or Canada as their second home city for a short while until they just end up permanently moving there
For an NFL team, absolutely, Mexico City is probably the biggest untapped market in the whole world; maybe NBA. But not NHL. There’s just no market for it.
32 is plenty honestly. baseball and basketball both still only have 30.
For sure. The league is already so watered down. They need to pump the brakes on expansion.
At that point, just make 1 big expansion to 40 teams right away, and make the NHL into two 20-teams divisons. Still a "closed" league, but teams who suck gets relegated from the main division. Some Premier-league type of deal to break-off the top performing clubs.
40 should 100% be the cap, whenever it does happen But that type of relegation will just bring the number of teams back down to like 28 at some point, the same bottom feeders are going to get swallowed up by debt and cease 4 10-team divisions, maybe 5 of 8 and completely redo the playoff structure, or just go to 1-8 for each conference
This leagues cooked if we expand past 32. It's too much. The talent on bottom 6 and goalies is already way weaker
That's the complete opposite of what I hear from anyone who's playing, played or worked in the league. That in the past there was a few standout goalies in the league and a massive gap between starter and backup. While now the gap is almost non-existent, that former goalies complain that today's goaltending is boring because everyone looks the same. And that in the past depth players could barely skate. Teams could fit a handful of enforcers and big mean defenders that just stood and kept the crease clear. Whereas now they all have to be able to play, because otherwise the opponent's 4th liners will skate circles around them. I haven't heard a single person in the league say it's getting slower and easier. It's always the opposite. Faster and more skilled.
Very likely.
Well maybe not. This is the ‘buy it now’ price on ebay. Or the “I’m gonna give you $100 to fuck off” price for Meruelo. I also think this might be more than what an expansion team would cost. As Meruelo probably knew the NHL was desperate to get the team off him, and he was able to leverage that into this deal, which is probably enough to buy an expansion team and build the rink on the auction land, if he wins it.
The piece the players get is 23 new jobs a team + minor league guys who come up, and the corresponding increase to HRR. There isn't a pro sports league CBA going that has ever sliced the players in on a direct payment of expansion fees.
This adds 180 million in salary to the pool immediately and will raise HRR generally. Players are still getting a piece.
I don’t think this is HRR.
No but playing in an arena that holds more than 5k fans should boost HRR.
It isn't. I was referring to the increase in HRR by adding two new teams that will immediately sell a ton of merch and tickets if for no other reason than the fact that they'll be new.
>Fehr was a fraud. The vast difference in efficacy of MLBPA Fehr vs. NHLPA Fehr will always be interesting to me. Fehr got and did everything the MLBPA asked of him, including seeing them through the '94 MLB strike. Yet he basically a wet noodle for NHLPA. The player's share of revenue got smaller, the salary cap got implemented, every player took a forced 25% pay cut, and the Kyle Beach assault all happened under his watch.
Fehr's bargaining position is just weaker. The NHL is not as strong a league as baseball was in during Fehr's tenure. Also, the NHL without a salary cap was dead.
> the salary cap got implemented, every player took a forced 25% pay cut That happened under Goodenow’s tenure.
I guess that somewhat depends, we know $200 million is being stated as a 'relocation fee' so that wouldn't apply to a new team, and I guess there is a premium to pay for having already done the hiring process for all the front office staff, having an AHL affiliate and prospect pipeline etc Once you remove the relocation fee it's about the same price that Andlauer paid for the Sens, $1B seems to be about the going rate for NHL teams.
Always was, he caused the 2013 lockout pretending to be tough and did jack all to help players.
There won't be a 33 and 34 unless there is also a 35 and 36. 32 is pretty much the practical limit.
Utah Grizzlies making the jump from ECHL to the NHL?
I wish just to see the Grizzlies name go to the IHL, AHL, ECHL, and finally to the NHL but I feel like the Bruins would pitch a fit. My local ECHL team beat them tonight, that may have been the last time we play Utah. Don't know how sustainable it is to keep them there.
The Memphis Grizzlies would probably have an issue with it too. Because it would dilute their brand or something like that.
The New York Rangers and the Texas Rangers and the LA Kings and the Sacramento Kings seem to be fine
And the NY Jets + Winnipeg Jets, Florida Panthers and Carolina Panthers
Outside of hockey SF Giants and NY Giants, St. Louis Cardinals and Arizona Cardinals
I’m sure the Bruins would have a hissy fit about that. I personally don’t care if they use the Grizzlies.
I feel like the words are sufficiently different even if the underlying subject is effectively the same. It’s not like the “Grizzlys” would have a giant B on their shirts either
🅱️rizzlies
NHL Arizona Coyotes -> NHL Utah Grizzlies AHL Tuscon Roadrunners -> AHL Arizona Coyotes ECHL Utah Grizzlies -> ECHL Tuscon Roadrunners (The grizzlies are currently the affiliate of the Avalanche but I don't think that's an issue)
Coyotes owner couldn't even pay for hotel bills at the start of the year and now the guy gets 1 billion for the team. Then they get to "resurrect" them within 5 years. The league really has a love fest with Phoenix. Every other city that lost their team got royally screwed.
The conditions for Merulo to keep the rights to a new Arizona franchise are absolutely chosen to be unlikely to ever occur given his track record. He has 5 years to win a land bid and build an NHL-ready arena, something a good and motivated owner (especially one that has a team already) could feasibly make happen given everything goes right, but Merulo has no track record of that sort of thing. The NHL is banking on him failing to meet the contract terms in 5 years so they can sell a full-price expansion to someone else.
It’s a big market, they just put the arena in the worst possible place to start. Glendale was a horrible choice If, they are able to actually get the arena in a location easily accessible by the Phoenix metro area it will succeed fine
They also need an owner who can spend money and put out a team that competes.
Hope the best for the fans out there but I'll believe it when I see it.
And competent ownership. Need that too
Yes, both. Glendale may work for football because all you’re asking for fans is to make a trek to there 8-9 times a year on every other weekend. If that wasn’t so easy to pull off, there wouldn’t be teams in Orchard Park, Foxboro, or even Green Bay. But 41 games a year in Glendale never made sense. Then when you add in all the bad ownership groups that have come and gone for the Coyotes… no wonder no one in the Phoenix metro area wants anything to do with the franchise. It’s tainted.
What was so wrong with Glendale? I’m not familiar with the phoenix metro at all
It's not close to downtown. You can justify driving out there Sunday for a Cardinals game, but getting home, changing, feeding the kids, and then hopping in the car for a 45 minute drive to see the Coyotes play an eastern conference team on a Tuesday night just isn't desirable.
So it was the same situation as Ottawa's arena basically?
Kinda sorta pretty much. Add in the fact that the team was uncompetitive for much of its stay there (only 3 playoff appearances--4 if you count Covid where we were going to miss if not for the bubble--in 17+ seasons in Glendale). Who was gonna drive all the way out there to watch a mediocre Coyotes team?
> Every other city that lost their team got royally screwed Yes. This keeps getting glossed over but 100% yes. The amount of effort GB put into a terrible product should be a slap in the face to those who lost.
I wish the league put 1/1000th of the effort that they put towards keeping the team in AZ towards keeping the Thrashers in Atlanta. Atlanta Spirit Group: We never wanted a hockey team. It just came with the Hawks. NHL: Cool story bros! Send them to Manitoba! Atlanta Spirit Group: lolz! NHL: lolz! NHL fans: Atlanta fans suck! Sigh.
> Then they get to "resurrect" them within 5 years. Won't happen; those are just pretty words. And I say that as a Coyotes fan. I mean, it's not like the league will be itching to let someone back in their owner club who can't pay his bills, either.
He *can* pay, he just chooses not to, because he thinks it’s some sort of shrewd negotiation tactic. You’d think he would have learned his lesson after getting kicked out of Gila River Arena and having the Arizona Department of Revenue send notice that they were going to impose a tax lien on him. The negative PR and reputation hit is way more than any savings he gets from playing hardball on paying his bills.
> The negative PR and reputation hit is way more than any savings he gets from playing hardball on paying his bills. Exactly. Not something the NHL wants their name associated with, in all probability.
Let’s all be real here…Alex Meruelo isn’t going to meet the milestones to get the team again.
> The league really has a love fest with Phoenix They have a love fest with any large, mostly untapped market. Same with Atlanta.
Salt Lake Lakers
Salt Lake Shakers That would be the worst logo ever
That's trademarked gotta add to it like Vegas did with "Golden". The Salt Lake Salt Lakers
Or maybe follow up on the theme of the Jazz and Real Salt Lake by choosing names that have nothing to do with the city. Utah Nordiques Salt Lake Whalers
Well the Utah Jazz got that name via a relocation…Real Salt Lake has no excuse haha
All hail the whale
Salt City Bitch Pigeons
Or after our state bird. The Utah California Gulls.
Start a theme with the basketball team, go with Utah Ska.
SLC Punks
Utah Blues
Utah Depressive Suicidal Black Metal
Utah Pornogrind
Hockey defines who I am as a person and I will never turn my back on hockey! Hup!
This is actually awful. Paying over double the Kraken and not getting the benefit of the expansion draft
Now that we’ve secured 32nd place I fully expect them to announce they’re treating it as an expansion and awarding 1OA to Utah.
Macklin Celebrini, YOU are a Salt Lake City Sockeye Salmon
If they go with the Salt Lake Soakers I’d be cool with them stealing the pick. Worth it for the jersey.
Now I'm imagining the logo.
I would much rather have the Coyotes roster & prospects than whatever table scraps I'd get in an expansion draft. You would never get anybody anywhere near as good as Dylan Guenther, Logan Cooley, or Clayton Keller from one, even if a guy like Keller ends up getting flipped for picks & prospects himself
Not just the roster, but top tier management and scouts, as well.
What's so great about the expansion draft? Utah gets a very promising young team that already has chemistry, and they've been beating playoff teams lately.
I'd take the Coyotes over an expansion draft every day of the week. [This kind of draft capital](https://i.imgur.com/w14Hrbw.png), a good prospect pool, a few star players, a ton of good depth players, no bad contracts, and of course an already setup hockey organization, not having to build something like [this](https://i.imgur.com/vAm8fHU.png) from scratch must be an incredible perk.
They get a great young team ready to explode under the right guidance.
Why does the nhl have to buy it first?
They're buying for 1b, selling for 1.2b and then the owners get to split the 200m It's a payoff to the other owners to let it happen
$6M per is chump change for these people.
It makes their number go up. They'll pick up a nickel on the street if it makes the number go up.
The NHL is a chump change league 🤷
Have you not seen how desperate NHL owners are for money? There's only a few teams that would turn down that $6M knowing it's a bad idea, the rest will happily look the other way.
To avoid a legal battle stemming from forcing Mereulo to sell and gives him an agreement directly with the league about the expansion club rules for the buy back. The league is also buying the team back for way over what it should fetch in a sale and by doing so they get the price up to 1b basically which basically sets the floor for any future team sales when they can say even their shittiest one was a 1, or 1.3, billion dollar purchase.
I bet the NHL loaned some capital to Meruelo to cover some losses.
Utah Missionaries and their Zamboni could look like a sprinter van with at least 12 seats
>NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and his deputy Bill Daly reportedly met with the Coyotes' ownership group about a month ago and told it that it could "pursue the new arena for Coyotes 2.0, but (the league's) in a position here where we can't allow this particular iteration of the team to continue any longer," according to Friedman. I have a feeling the PA is playing a large role in this move. I don't think it's a coincidence that months after the PA made public statements about Mullett and the Coyotes that the NHL said they can no longer allow the team to operate like this. Playing out of Mullett is probably breaking some league by-laws or CBA outline for what is considered an NHL standard arena and the PA isnt going to let it slide any longer.
A lot of word is out that if Walsh hadn't spoke out, Coyotes would have had another year to get things in order.
Do you mean would have?
My brain did a dumb.
Utah Raptors or I riot. Dinosaur stans unite!
My wife suggested the Salt Lake City Bones. The players could get paid in bones.
The bones are their money
So are the worms
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Wheeere da bones
Maybe they’ll actually get paid on-time.
we only need one Raptors team in North American sports ok. Find a different name.
Utah Maple Leafs
Perfect.
There are multiple Rangers, Jets, Kings, and Panthers franchises across the Big 4 leagues and it's not a big deal. Plus the Utahraptor is a real dinosaur species so it's cool.
I prefer SLC Puck
> Dinosaur stans unite Could be birds of prey too
Alternate the mascot on the home and away jerseys. One with the dinosaur, the other with your bird of prey of choice. Fans now feel more obligated to buy two jerseys. Profit?
Salt Lake Stingers 🐝
I’m no business guy, but the owners sure screwed themselves in the last round of expansion. How are these franchises worth double now?
Money go brrrr
Soak City Bitch Pigeons
Hey Provo is Soak City, not Salt Lake!
Utah Priests about to get the most minors in the league
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That team and the Knights will play each game to O-O
GIVE THE WINNIPEG JETS BACK THEIR OLD UNIFORMS & RECORDS
Haven't they already been using the logo for throwbacks?
Ya but if I recall the league owns that logo still
The Utah Traphouse are going to light it up next year
[Time to look at Utah animals to come up with a name.](https://i.imgur.com/LXm9TqW.png) I particularly like the Utah Muskrats. Edit: LOL Allosaurus?!
Salt Lake City Mormons here we come
Stormin’ Mormons or we riot
Teetotaling their way to a championship. drinking that warm milk from the best trophy in the world.
Be nice, we like to indulge in some hard drinks from time to time. It'll be Diet Coke from the Cup.
This is why I keep thinking that the Blues are worth at least $1B. I forgot where, but a couple places estimated their value was around $600M. Others did have them just shy of $1B to be fair. Between a good to great attendance market and a truly great tv market, I knew it had to be around 1B. Tom Stillman has been an awesome owner. Even As one of the “poorer” owners, he’s always been committed to the team and city.
Salt Lake Cityslickers
Utah Wildcats.
Who are we? The wildcats! Who did we beat? The wildcats!
I look forward to watching the Utah Nashville-Sound.
The Score is the internet Explorer of sports media.
If you can deal with the fact it's Alan Walsh, check out Alan Walsh's latest podcast episode. He has some very interesting behind-the-scenes info (Sean Durzi is a client of his.) Alan said there's a chance the sale is actually all of the assets, not the team itself. i.e., Smith Group buys all the player contracts, admin contracts, equipment, medical equipment, etc. but not the logos and name of the Coyotes. This way SLC becomes a new team, and the Coyotes are not dissolved, but instead "suspended operations" and if Murelo gets an arena and calls in the expansion clause, it will be the same team.
Its funny, even when the coyotes get relocated, they don't get relocated
LMAO, the NHL essentially laundering the Coyotes franchise tells us that they don't care about the golden knights circumnavigating cap space using LTIR
I mean I feel like they've made that more than evident since they've done it 3 years in a row lol Gary wants Vegas to be his show pony. How owners feel about it? Unsure since it's really only Vegas who keeps doing it. It's not against the rules but the rules haven't been changed. Owners don't want to incase it actually does happen to them and screws them over I guess.
UTAH UNDEAD
What if they called em something horrible like the Salt Lake Downwinders
Will the franchise keep the Whiteout after another relocation?
Whiteout kinda makes sense in Utah, salt, snow and the people.
Couldn't they have bought the Coyotes and sold them to someone in Arizona who weren't garbage?
The entire history of the Coyotes' ownership has suggested that there isn't anyone like that, and there certainly wouldn't be at this toxic stage of the team
Dumb question: Why don't the Coyotes sell directly to the UT ownership?
They can't possibly be worth that much.
WHOAH!!!! The NHL is going to UTAH!!!!!
Salt Lake Soakers