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Post by wagner3 on Dec 25, 2008 17:29:33 GMT -5
I just checked the Arizona Republic's website to find what was written about the recent news in the past few days of the Coyotes cash flow/payroll troubles...the NHL advancing money, etc. results: zero stories on the subject as of Xmas day... www.azcentral.com/sports/coyotes/I expect them to write a story in the next few days, but it just goes to show you how (un)important the Yotes are to the community at large in Arizon by the way this story is (not) being reported in a timely fashion... |
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Post by jhendrix70 on Dec 25, 2008 18:21:02 GMT -5
Famous Phoenix Arizona Phrase: "Coyotes...hockey....who and what is that?"
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Post by wagner3 on Jan 1, 2009 1:29:32 GMT -5
Coyotes CEO sets record straight Some media types in Canada - many who would probably like to see Original Six stay put and every other franchise move north of the border - have been working themselves into a frenzy about the Coyotes. They seem convinced that the Coyotes are about to pull up stakes any day now. Speculation the past few weeks has been unending, from reporters, columnists, talk-show hosts and recently departed NHL general managers. The franchise does have serious problems to address: finding ways to ride out the blow of losing tens of millions of dollars in recent years; figuring out how it can engage in the fight every so often for superstar free agents; and, most of all, learning how to become a perennial playoff contender. All that revolves around luring fans. Chairman and CEO Jeff Shumway wants to accomplish that in Arizona: "Hockey will be a great sport in Phoenix and Glendale, probably way beyond my years."The latest rumors: The NHL is helping the Coyotes meet their payroll, and the team is suffocating under the weight of a long-term lease at Jobing.com Arena that has more than two decades to run with no way out. Not true, Shumway says. "A lot of this is coming from out of state, and out of the country," he said. "Rumors are rumors. People have their own agendas. We clearly have admitted that this franchise has substantial losses, and that needs to be fixed." The team has asked for the NHL's help in the timing of certain payments (revenue sharing) that are owed to the team. Also, the NHL is helping the team look for investors, but this is not groundbreaking. The league did the same thing in recent years in Pittsburgh, Ottawa and Nashville. The lease angle is one that bemuses Shumway. "There's been a lot written in the press about the lease," he said. "None of this has come from me. But we have a pretty good relationship with the city of Glendale, and the lease was done many years ago before we (current ownership) got involved with the team. "I think everybody is coming to the realization that there's going to have to be more of a partnership in the operation of the building, and we've had discussions along those lines, and hopefully we'll be able to reach a resolution that works for both the city of Glendale and the team." Shumway said fans do not need to be overly concerned about the situation, but changes are needed. "It's a difficult economic market right now," he said. "Obviously, we don't have any control over that, but all of us need the economy to turn around. We've tried to address some fundamental issues with how we do business." So although off-ice issues continue to cast a shadow over the franchise, the on-ice product shows signs of improving. No longer is there talk about rebuilding; now it's the belief that the playoffs are well within reach for the first time since 2002. No one ever will confuse Phoenix for a hockey town such as Detroit, but Shumway is optimistic. Consistency goes a long way toward creating a buzz, and fans will have to grasp the concept that the Coyotes can be winners. It's not something that will happen overnight. "I would ask them to be patient with us, and we did that a couple years ago when we took over," he said. "The first thing we tried to do was establish credibility, and to say, 'Look, be a little patient with us, give us the opportunity to show you that we really do mean it.' "I think we earned that credibility on the hockey side. We've done what we said we were going to do." www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/sports/articles/2008/12/30/20081230coyotesshumway1231.html |
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Post by jhendrix70 on Jan 1, 2009 6:03:06 GMT -5
Revenue Sharing "OWED" to them! Really.......Coyotes are a Joke! 2 More years MAX!
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Post by joelzillmanwpg on Jan 2, 2009 15:56:50 GMT -5
The Coyotes will return to Winnipeg by no later than 2015. You heard it here.
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Post by wagner3 on Jan 4, 2009 8:54:06 GMT -5
from larry brooks: "Coyotes, in severe financial distress and receiving funds from the NHL, cannot make a player move without approval from the league office, Slap Shots has learned.
"The Club has agreed to consult with us in connection with all significant financial transactions, including those relating to players," deputy commissioner Bill Daly wrote in an e-mail correspondence, confirming reports from several management sources."www.nypost.com/seven/01042009/sports/rangers/find_a_job_for_messier_147139.htm?page=2 |
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Post by dbp1990 on Jan 4, 2009 13:49:34 GMT -5
from larry brooks: "Coyotes, in severe financial distress and receiving funds from the NHL, cannot make a player move without approval from the league office, Slap Shots has learned.
"The Club has agreed to consult with us in connection with all significant financial transactions, including those relating to players," deputy commissioner Bill Daly wrote in an e-mail correspondence, confirming reports from several management sources."www.nypost.com/seven/01042009/sports/rangers/find_a_job_for_messier_147139.htm?page=2It's NOW just a matter of who blinks first, The Team or the League! |
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Post by wagner3 on Jan 5, 2009 17:03:40 GMT -5
from the WSJ: "Consider the National Hockey League's Phoenix Coyotes. Owner Jerry Moyes controls trucking company Swift Transportation Co. and is coping with a severe downturn in the U.S. shipping industry a year after taking on $2.5 billion in debt to take the company he founded private.
The Coyotes are expected to incur a loss of as much as $25 million this season, despite modest growth in attendance, say people familiar with the matter.
Bill Daly, deputy commissioner of the NHL, says the league is monitoring the situation with Swift. "If it is a sale that has to happen, we'll work with him on that," Mr. Daly says.
Few financial details about Swift are available, and Mr. Moyes declined to comment, but Swift debt in December traded between 38 and 57 cents on the dollar, an indication the company is distressed, according to Scott Anderson, analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co."online.wsj.com/article/SB123085527250047661.html?mod=googlenews_wsj |
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jets07
Veteran Member
Posts: 144
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Post by jets07 on Jan 7, 2009 17:51:33 GMT -5
Coyotes cut staff by about 10 percent
8 commentsby Craig Harris - Jan. 6, 2009 05:44 PM
The Arizona Republic
The Phoenix Coyotes, despite an increase in ticket sales and a competitive team, have laid off 18 employees or about 10 percent of its staff during this economic slowdown.
"As everyone is doing at this time you take a look at everything you do and evaluate it," Coyotes President Doug Moss said Tuesday. "We hate to do it, but we are running more efficiently."
The team made the layoffs Monday, about two months after the Arizona Diamondbacks released 31 employees or roughly 9 percent of its staff.
The NFL, NBA, NASCAR and the company that runs baseball's Internet division have all made job cuts in the last few months because of the recession.
The Coyotes, which had about 150 front office workers prior to the layoff, made cuts in ticket sales, game operations, administration, public relations and community relations, Moss said.
The reductions come as the team has brushed aside reports of major financial problems that could cause the sale of the team. However, Moss said the Coyotes continue to negotiate with Glendale about obtaining more revenue from Jobing.com Arena, where the team plays.
Moss said the team would rely more on technology to make ticket sales, which he said are up by nearly 90,000 compared to a year ago. He also said the amount of free tickets the team gives away is down nearly 75 percent. The team, meanwhile, would make the playoffs if the season ended today, something that hasn't occurred since 2002.
"Things are moving in a good direction, but we still lose a considerable amount of money," Moss said.
Moss declined to say how much money the team is projected to lose this year, but the franchise has lost tens of millions of dollars since 2001, when current majority owner Jerry Moyes joined the ownership group.
The Coyotes, according to Forbes magazine, are the least valuable team in the National Hockey League. The financial magazine estimates the club is worth 142 million, about 18 percent more than the 2001 purchase price of $120 million.
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Post by vivianmb on Jan 8, 2009 15:02:43 GMT -5
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Post by TheDeuce on Jan 8, 2009 18:50:56 GMT -5
Coyotes cut staff by about 10 percent 8 commentsby Craig Harris - Jan. 6, 2009 05:44 PM The Arizona Republic {snip} The Coyotes, which had about 150 front office workers prior to the layoff, made cuts in ticket sales, game operations, administration, public relations and community relations, Moss said. {snip} The Coyotes cut ticket sales? I didn't think sales could be cut down any lower than they are in the desert there... m. |
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Post by wagner3 on Jan 8, 2009 21:22:03 GMT -5
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Post by jhendrix70 on Jan 8, 2009 21:28:11 GMT -5
Just makes me angry more than anything to see that........ |
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Post by Hobble on Jan 9, 2009 18:52:48 GMT -5
HEY, SOMETHING BIG MIGHT BE HAPPENING TOMORROW!!!!
Apparently Bob McCowen at the end of Prime Time Sports mentioned something about the Coyotes being 'finished'. Apparently he even spelt out the word O-V-E-R...
A story is supposed to be out tomorrow!!!
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Post by wagner3 on Jan 9, 2009 19:59:56 GMT -5
There are no obvious solutions to a big problem. The Coyotes are just the first domino STEPHEN BRUNT sbrunt@globeandmail.com E-mail Stephen Brunt | Read Bio | Latest Columns January 9, 2009 Maybe he didn't really intend to mislead us. Maybe, one month ago, when NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said this of the Phoenix Coyotes - "They're going to get through the season just fine" - he was merely waiting for someone to ask the right question. "So, Mr. Commissioner, by 'fine' do you mean that the hedge-fund lender that is the Coyotes' only lifeline, and that holds as collateral everything to do with the franchise but the kitchen sink and Wayne Gretzky's contract, is going to keep them alive until season's end, because to do otherwise would be to throw the team immediately into bankruptcy?" "Yes, that's exactly what I mean." So it's a Clintonian "fine". The generous folks at SOF Investments (SOL might have been the more appropriate acronym in this case) won't be calling their loan, which totals about $80-million (all currency U.S.) and counting, and the league will make sure the franchise doesn't miss a payroll. But at the same time, there's no way the Coyotes' ownership will ever get out from under that debt, given the meagre cash flow they enjoyed even in better times. They had been losing in excess of $30-million annually on an operating basis before the economic collapse, and now nearly every dollar that comes in goes directly to servicing their mounting obligations. You can argue, as NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly does, that the situation isn't yet critical because the value of the franchise exceeds the value of the loan. True enough, on paper, if you believe that every NHL club is worth at least $200-million. But those two numbers are creeping ever closer, and in any case aren't the Coyotes today worth precisely what they'd fetch on the open market? Because of a lease that makes it virtually impossible to move the team out of its publicly financed digs in Glendale, without entering Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, and because the team seems doomed to lose huge amounts of money there in perpetuity, it is hard to imagine anyone buying the Coyotes while the team is tied to its current home. That means the league doesn't have to worry about Jim Balsillie riding to the rescue and making things complicated, but it does have to wonder whether there's anyone out there who is rich enough and irrational enough to buy the franchise and keep it in Arizona in the teeth of a deepening recession. So there are no obvious Band-Aid solutions here. And the other NHL club owners, who are all dealing with their own challenges, can't be thrilled at the prospect of throwing good money after bad (the Coyotes, or at least their lender, cashed a $15-million revenue-sharing cheque last year) to keep the team going beyond this season in what seems by definition a hopeless situation. Historically, the Coyotes are a symptom, not the disease. They exist in their current straits because of the NHL's rose-coloured aspirations to conquer America, aspirations that had been kicked around for decades but really took flight after Gretzky was sold to the Los Angeles Kings in 1988 and set off hockey mania in Southern California. The Phoenix franchise shifted from Winnipeg because the league had in theory outgrown that city and the market. The question of solid, grassroots hockey interest was beside the point; the sport packaged properly, the conceit was that the league could sell it to anyone. There were mistakes and hiccups along the way, labour wars and bad television deals, none of which helped. But given where today's NHL's weaklings are located, the bottom line right now doesn't seem to be much different from the bottom line 40 years ago: It's tough to thrive in the long run in the big-league hockey business in places where the game doesn't run deep. The Coyotes are merely the first domino, which is why some governors were quietly advocating for contraction even before the markets tanked. Pool the revenue-sharing money, use it to finance the purchase of four (or six) basket-case teams, put those franchise rights into suspended animation until a happier day dawns, or until a European opportunity beckons, and stop the hemorrhaging. Apparently, Bettman gets hives when he hears the "c" word. It goes against everything that he has stood for as commissioner. But as he obviously understands, words can mean different things at different times in different situations, depending on the context. What was unimaginable yesterday may be the only course tomorrow. And you can always blame the economy. Everyone else has. www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20090109.BRUNT09/TPStory/Sports |
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Post by wagner3 on Jan 9, 2009 20:02:18 GMT -5
Shoalts: Coyotes' parking woes David Shoalts, today at 2:49 PM EST Post the first comment Back to the blog There is a bit of information being put out by those connected to the Phoenix Coyotes that does not pass even a cursory test with a calculator, yet that has not stopped it being spread around as a sign the NHL team can actually make money. This bit of nonsense concerns parking around Jobing.com Arena in Glendale, Ariz. Their lease with the city, the Coyotes whine, says they have to pay $2.70 (all currency U.S.) from every ticket sold to the city as a parking levy. They claim this costs them $2.5-million per year and that many NHL teams actually earn between $9-million and $11-million a year from parking. The implication, of course, is that the poor old Coyotes could be making $10-million or so a year from parking instead of paying out $2.5-million. Conveniently not mentioned is that the Coyotes, as part of their deal with the city, take in almost all of the revenue from Jobing.com Arena, such as it is. That includes concerts and other events aside from Coyote games where people actually buy tickets and fill the place. It is also not made clear if this $2.70 levy includes the $1.50 per ticket the city gets because it ponied up $180-million of the $220-million cost of the arena. I suspect it does. The Coyotes do not have paid parking around their arena because it was built in as part of a large real-estate project and is surrounded by a large mall and other entertainment venues that come with acres of parking lots. But this does not make them unique in the NHL. The richest team in the league, the Toronto Maple Leafs, make hardly any money from parking. They do not own any of the parking lots around the Air Canada Centre, which charge anywhere from $15 to $30 (Cdn.). Well, they did own one parking lot but the Leafs built a condo and hotel project on it that's bringing in millions. The New York Rangers don't get much from parking around Madison Square Garden, either. And the implication the Coyotes could make, say $10-million per year from parking if they charged for it is nonsense based on their current attendance. Pulling out the calculator shows that to make that much over 41 home games in one season, the Coyotes would have to pull in $243,902.43 per game. If they charged $10 per car, which would be on the low end of the scale but, hey, no one is causing any traffic jams even for free parking, the Coyotes would need 24,390 cars per game for every game. Right now, their announced average attendance is 14,789 per game. Yes, the arena is in the middle of nowhere with no appreciable public transportation but that attendance number will never translate into 24,390 cars. The Arizona Cardinals of the NFL, who reside on the other side of the mall from the Coyotes, say a sellout crowd of 65,000 for one of their games means about 26,000 cars. The Coyotes are trying to renegotiate their lease with Glendale, which is why the stuff about the parking assessment is being sprinkled on the media. But all the city gets is that $2.70 a ticket for its $180-million, I suspect, plus some money from sales tax on business done at the real-estate complex, which is not exactly booming these days. There are lots of empty condo buildings around the arena with signs that say “Close-out prices.” I cannot imagine this comes close to meeting the city's debt obligations on its $180-million investment. Yet the Coyotes, with the support of the NHL, want the city to cough up more money, just like the taxpayers in Nashville. If the taxpayers are paying attention, this could get interesting. www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090109.WBhockeyblog20090109144925/WBStory/WBhockeyblog/ |
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Post by pokeybandit on Jan 10, 2009 0:16:36 GMT -5
HEY, SOMETHING BIG MIGHT BE HAPPENING TOMORROW!!!! Apparently Bob McCowen at the end of Prime Time Sports mentioned something about the Coyotes being 'finished'. Apparently he even spelt out the word O-V-E-R... A story is supposed to be out tomorrow!!! here's the link to the show qml.quiettouch.com/files/audio/podcasts/fan590/pts/pts_2009-01-09.mp3A really interesting 20 minute bit. Go to about 2/3 through the show to catch it. (I don't know the exact minute of the show at which it starts) Some key points that Bob McCown states are: - He believes that the coyotes will file for chapter 7 or 11 bankruptcy at the end of this season. He also states that many owners are calling on bettman to pull the plug on this disaster of a franchise now, because they are being asked to fund the team. - There are 3 or 4 other teams that are in a similar situation (although not as bad) as the Coyotes. However, he states that Atlanta is pretty much in the exact same situation as the Yotes. - He also states how pretty much all the owners are really pissed at Bettman for painting a "rosey" picture of the NHL for the past couple of years. His lies and manipulation of the real situation has caught up to him. - McCown also states that Bettman is "hiding the fact that the Predators will be leaving Nashville at the end of next season"-Although they never allude to Winnipeg getting a team, they definately ruled out Vegas (cause of the effect the economy is having on the City and the fact that Bruckheimer wants nothing to do with the NHL) and Kansas (because of the fact that DelBaggio is a crook) - That leaves only Winnipeg, Hamilton and Houston as real considerations for relocation. - Didn't hear anything about a story being out tomorrow I think: 2009 - real possibility 2010 - We will definately have our team back!!! |
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Post by wagner3 on Jan 10, 2009 0:34:18 GMT -5
^ starts at the 37 minute mark...
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Post by roosta604 on Jan 10, 2009 5:29:48 GMT -5
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Post by misterman on Jan 10, 2009 8:09:29 GMT -5
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