Post by Jari on Jan 10, 2009 14:29:29 GMT -5
Will Coyotes Stay in Phoenix?
January 9, 2009 by Richard Nickerson
For months now the Phoenix Coyotes organization has been the object of obsession by writers in Canada. First they hoped the cash-strapped team would pull-up stakes and head back to the Great White North. Now they seem content with the idea of the team simply folding. So what started this ruckus and how much fire surrounds all this Canuck smoke? Well lets start at the beginning.
The widely hated (in Canada anyway) NHL commissioner, Gary Bettman, has had a long-standing wish to transform the league from a boutique northern sport in to a viable US sport on par with the NBA. Now there are several inherent roadblocks to making that happen. Basketball has been played by virtually every youth in America at some point. It is a cheap sport to play (get a ball, go to park, play) compared to hockey which requires more effort and money to play the further south you go. In Phoenix, pre-Coyotes, we had two ice mediocre ice rinks and a handful of youth and adult rec teams. Which meant if a kid wanted to play hockey they had to talk their parents into driving them to one of the two rinks, buying $300 in equipment and then finding 14 other kids who could also talk their parents into this rediculous concept. Meanwhile there was already football, baseball and basketball leagues in place and ready to go competing for the youth sports market. Meanwhile in Canada, where free ice aplenty invites hockey playing every winter, children are brought up with the sport and put in skates at three-years-old. Hockey is to Canada what the NFL is to America. The only problem is that Canada has roughly the population of California making the potential for NHL growth limited to say the least. What has made the NFL, NBA and MLB sports power-houses is the incredible television revenues they receive. So Bettman & Company had to find a way to lure networks into giving them the big bucks as well. But with NHL franchises limited to Canada and the northern US no national network would pay them what they hoped they were worth. So began the campaign to conquer the south.
The first salvo in the southern expansion were two franchises in Florida. Tampa Bay and Miami were awarded NHL franchises and began play in 1992. A year later The Mighty Ducks of Anaheim gave the LA market their second franchise. In 1994 the relocation of franchises began when the Minnesota North Stars were inexplicably allowed to leave the Twin Cities for Dallas. That set the stage for Canada to lose their first franchises when the Quebec Nordiques bolted for Colorado to become the Avalanche in 1995. Two years later the Hartford Whalers moved to Carolina and a year later the Winnipeg Jets became the Phoenix Coyotes. The next round of expansion awarded new franchises to Nashville, Atlanta, Columbus and in an act of contrition, Minnesota. That brought the league up to 30 teams, on par with the other three major US sports with every region of North America fairly well represented. So bring on the TV ratings and the big, big money!
No big money? What happened? Well we have to go back to that original concept of hockey not being a “grass-roots” sport in these markets. Like any new business you start at the bottom and work your way up. In Phoenix the Coyotes experienced some early success with superstar Jeremy Roenick joining Keith Tkachuk and Rick Tocchet to give the team some offensive punch to go with up-and-coming goalie Nikolai Khabibulin. The Coyotes finished with .500 or better seasons their first six years and made the playoffs in every year but one. They were popular but played in a facility that was not hockey friendly so the team began to campaign for improvements to the horrible sight-lines at America West. When that proved impossible they began looking for a new home and after attempts at publicly financed arenas in Scottsdale and Mesa failed the team moved to Glendale, a suburb located 20 minutes west of downtown Phoenix. That means for fans living in the east valley it can take up to 2 hours to reach a weekday game in rush hour traffic. During this tumultuous time the Coyotes fortunes on the ice plummeted with the 2006-07 team earning the fewest points since coming to Phoenix. This convergence of a non-centrally located arena and a horrible team has sent the fans scattering and the club is reportedly losing $30 million plus a season. I have confirmed that figure with a source who says the club is currently losing $3 million per month and is actively seeking new ownership.
So is the problem that the team can not be supported in Phoenix or is the problem that a crappy team can not be supported in Phoenix? As the fifth largest market in the US Phoenix certainly has the population. With a large portion of that population having immigrated from northern markets there are also plenty of hockey-savvy people already here as well. The problem is that if the Coyotes stink fans can go watch the Suns or Arizona State. They could also spend less money on gas and ticket prices and go see the minor league Phoenix Roadrunners. Or they may simply decide to go hiking or golfing. The bottom line is that unlike Winnipeg Phoenix residents have a multitude of options for their entertainment dollar that does not include TV or ice fishing. What we have not seen is a good team playing in a good arena in Phoenix. That would be a winning combination which would result in sell-outs the following seasons. You have to understand that the average Phoenix sports-fan has a lot of Missouri in them. They don’t want to hear about a team with potential, they say “show me”. The Arizona Cardinals enjoy a high level of success next door to the Coyotes in Glendale but they had trouble selling-out their first home playoff game in 67 years because no one was convinced they could win. But in the end they did sell-out, did win and the team will reap the benefits next season. If they can get off to a hot start the fine people of Phoenix will finally jump on board the wagon and any playoff home dates they are fortunate enough to gain next year will be quick sell-outs. But Phoenix fans are fickle and if the team starts to lose they will abandon them. That is the nature of sports in the south. Call us bad fans, call us band-wagoners if you must. But we simply feel like we have options and if one team is not going to make us feel good about ourselves another one (or activity) will. Win consistently and you will get season-long sell-outs — just ask the Suns. But they showed a chink in the armor last year and it is a lot easier to get Suns tickets this season. They are not struggling by any stretch but a few seasons of declines and they will be playing to half-empty house too.
Coyotes owner Jerry Moyes is definitely losing a lot of money right now. But this is not a game for the meek or poor. Major sports ownership is a billionaire’s playground and you have to show a commitment and be in for the long haul if you want to win. If Moyes bails now he, like the blackjack player who leaves when he is down, will miss the up-swing. The team has to accept blame for locating themselves out in Glendale. Had the Coyotes contributed to the financing of an arena in Scottsdale they would probably be drawing 20% more fans simply from the ‘convenience’ factor of not having to brave rush-hour traffic and the newly installed speed cameras on Valley freeways. But the potential rewards are still there for hockey in Phoenix. The greater Phoenix area has grown from two sheets of ice for youth and adult rec hockey to 10 (plus two half sheets at Ozzie Ice). There are AA youth hockey teams playing out of Phoenix that travel to northern cities in the US and in Canada and holding their own in tournaments. My son plays travel squirt hockey and that division (9 - 10 year olds) alone has five A teams and three B teams in Phoenix.
An article in today’s Toronto Globe & Mail makes a case for contraction in the NHL with the Coyotes being the leading candidate. Stephen Brunt argues that the league should contract and wait for a better economic environment to possibly resurrect the franchises. In Phoenix that would be incredible stupid since we have spent the last ten years building the sport up and that effort would be wasted. The 10 sheets of ice in Phoenix would not disappear overnight but many would eventually. Fans would find other ways to occupy their time and they could take up with other NHL teams via the Center Ice package on satelite or cable TV. But the sports credibility would be wrecked here for generations. The league needs to continue on this course for at least five more years. It would represent a potential “investment” of $15 million should the team continue to lose money but I do not believe it will. With a young core of very good players the Coyotes are probably one-year behind the Chicago Blackhawks in terms of development and to snuff that out when they are so close would be criminal. Let the team blossom, let the fans discover them and watch the support build. Even Chicago, one of the original six NHL teams, struggled to sell tickets just a couple years ago. Now they lead the league in attendance. The same will be true for Phoenix if they have the foresight to continue. The haters in Canada want the Coyotes to fail. They want the southern expansion of the NHL to fail. They want this because hockey is “their” sport. It is their identity and it differentiates them from the United States. With a chip the size of a hockey puck on their shoulder, many Canadians (certainly not all) want Gary Bettman to fail since he (in their misguided eyes) helped move teams from Quebec and Winnipeg to larger and potentially more lucrative markets. But if you are going to come to the big city you better learn how to play like the big boys do and that is to play to win. The southern expansion was not about just filling arenas with fans, it was about transforming a sport from a boutique industry to a power-house. If you quit now, you insure failure. Let the Coyotes have their chance to show Phoenix fans good hockey and watch what happens to this franchise in the 2010-11 season. That will be the season that Phoenix Coyotes hockey turns a corner from being a curiosity to being a threat to the Suns in terms of attracting fan loyalty. End it this season and like the investor who liquidates after the crash, you lose everything.
Moving forward the Coyotes have already corrected the first major obstacle: success on the ice. The team is on pace for their first playoff berth in six seasons. Westgate, an entertainment complex adjacent to Jobing.com Arena, has completed their first phase with several shops, some excellent dining options and an AMC theater. This gives people more bang for their gas-dollar as they justify a trip to the west valley. Stephen Brunt claims that the Coyotes will be the first domino to fall and he is right. But the dominos here in Phoenix include everyone from owners and inventors in Westgate to the city of Glendale who will own a concert arena without a major tenant. The NHL needs to stick by their guns and give the Coyotes a few more seasons to prove their worth.
January 9, 2009 by Richard Nickerson
For months now the Phoenix Coyotes organization has been the object of obsession by writers in Canada. First they hoped the cash-strapped team would pull-up stakes and head back to the Great White North. Now they seem content with the idea of the team simply folding. So what started this ruckus and how much fire surrounds all this Canuck smoke? Well lets start at the beginning.
The widely hated (in Canada anyway) NHL commissioner, Gary Bettman, has had a long-standing wish to transform the league from a boutique northern sport in to a viable US sport on par with the NBA. Now there are several inherent roadblocks to making that happen. Basketball has been played by virtually every youth in America at some point. It is a cheap sport to play (get a ball, go to park, play) compared to hockey which requires more effort and money to play the further south you go. In Phoenix, pre-Coyotes, we had two ice mediocre ice rinks and a handful of youth and adult rec teams. Which meant if a kid wanted to play hockey they had to talk their parents into driving them to one of the two rinks, buying $300 in equipment and then finding 14 other kids who could also talk their parents into this rediculous concept. Meanwhile there was already football, baseball and basketball leagues in place and ready to go competing for the youth sports market. Meanwhile in Canada, where free ice aplenty invites hockey playing every winter, children are brought up with the sport and put in skates at three-years-old. Hockey is to Canada what the NFL is to America. The only problem is that Canada has roughly the population of California making the potential for NHL growth limited to say the least. What has made the NFL, NBA and MLB sports power-houses is the incredible television revenues they receive. So Bettman & Company had to find a way to lure networks into giving them the big bucks as well. But with NHL franchises limited to Canada and the northern US no national network would pay them what they hoped they were worth. So began the campaign to conquer the south.
The first salvo in the southern expansion were two franchises in Florida. Tampa Bay and Miami were awarded NHL franchises and began play in 1992. A year later The Mighty Ducks of Anaheim gave the LA market their second franchise. In 1994 the relocation of franchises began when the Minnesota North Stars were inexplicably allowed to leave the Twin Cities for Dallas. That set the stage for Canada to lose their first franchises when the Quebec Nordiques bolted for Colorado to become the Avalanche in 1995. Two years later the Hartford Whalers moved to Carolina and a year later the Winnipeg Jets became the Phoenix Coyotes. The next round of expansion awarded new franchises to Nashville, Atlanta, Columbus and in an act of contrition, Minnesota. That brought the league up to 30 teams, on par with the other three major US sports with every region of North America fairly well represented. So bring on the TV ratings and the big, big money!
No big money? What happened? Well we have to go back to that original concept of hockey not being a “grass-roots” sport in these markets. Like any new business you start at the bottom and work your way up. In Phoenix the Coyotes experienced some early success with superstar Jeremy Roenick joining Keith Tkachuk and Rick Tocchet to give the team some offensive punch to go with up-and-coming goalie Nikolai Khabibulin. The Coyotes finished with .500 or better seasons their first six years and made the playoffs in every year but one. They were popular but played in a facility that was not hockey friendly so the team began to campaign for improvements to the horrible sight-lines at America West. When that proved impossible they began looking for a new home and after attempts at publicly financed arenas in Scottsdale and Mesa failed the team moved to Glendale, a suburb located 20 minutes west of downtown Phoenix. That means for fans living in the east valley it can take up to 2 hours to reach a weekday game in rush hour traffic. During this tumultuous time the Coyotes fortunes on the ice plummeted with the 2006-07 team earning the fewest points since coming to Phoenix. This convergence of a non-centrally located arena and a horrible team has sent the fans scattering and the club is reportedly losing $30 million plus a season. I have confirmed that figure with a source who says the club is currently losing $3 million per month and is actively seeking new ownership.
So is the problem that the team can not be supported in Phoenix or is the problem that a crappy team can not be supported in Phoenix? As the fifth largest market in the US Phoenix certainly has the population. With a large portion of that population having immigrated from northern markets there are also plenty of hockey-savvy people already here as well. The problem is that if the Coyotes stink fans can go watch the Suns or Arizona State. They could also spend less money on gas and ticket prices and go see the minor league Phoenix Roadrunners. Or they may simply decide to go hiking or golfing. The bottom line is that unlike Winnipeg Phoenix residents have a multitude of options for their entertainment dollar that does not include TV or ice fishing. What we have not seen is a good team playing in a good arena in Phoenix. That would be a winning combination which would result in sell-outs the following seasons. You have to understand that the average Phoenix sports-fan has a lot of Missouri in them. They don’t want to hear about a team with potential, they say “show me”. The Arizona Cardinals enjoy a high level of success next door to the Coyotes in Glendale but they had trouble selling-out their first home playoff game in 67 years because no one was convinced they could win. But in the end they did sell-out, did win and the team will reap the benefits next season. If they can get off to a hot start the fine people of Phoenix will finally jump on board the wagon and any playoff home dates they are fortunate enough to gain next year will be quick sell-outs. But Phoenix fans are fickle and if the team starts to lose they will abandon them. That is the nature of sports in the south. Call us bad fans, call us band-wagoners if you must. But we simply feel like we have options and if one team is not going to make us feel good about ourselves another one (or activity) will. Win consistently and you will get season-long sell-outs — just ask the Suns. But they showed a chink in the armor last year and it is a lot easier to get Suns tickets this season. They are not struggling by any stretch but a few seasons of declines and they will be playing to half-empty house too.
Coyotes owner Jerry Moyes is definitely losing a lot of money right now. But this is not a game for the meek or poor. Major sports ownership is a billionaire’s playground and you have to show a commitment and be in for the long haul if you want to win. If Moyes bails now he, like the blackjack player who leaves when he is down, will miss the up-swing. The team has to accept blame for locating themselves out in Glendale. Had the Coyotes contributed to the financing of an arena in Scottsdale they would probably be drawing 20% more fans simply from the ‘convenience’ factor of not having to brave rush-hour traffic and the newly installed speed cameras on Valley freeways. But the potential rewards are still there for hockey in Phoenix. The greater Phoenix area has grown from two sheets of ice for youth and adult rec hockey to 10 (plus two half sheets at Ozzie Ice). There are AA youth hockey teams playing out of Phoenix that travel to northern cities in the US and in Canada and holding their own in tournaments. My son plays travel squirt hockey and that division (9 - 10 year olds) alone has five A teams and three B teams in Phoenix.
An article in today’s Toronto Globe & Mail makes a case for contraction in the NHL with the Coyotes being the leading candidate. Stephen Brunt argues that the league should contract and wait for a better economic environment to possibly resurrect the franchises. In Phoenix that would be incredible stupid since we have spent the last ten years building the sport up and that effort would be wasted. The 10 sheets of ice in Phoenix would not disappear overnight but many would eventually. Fans would find other ways to occupy their time and they could take up with other NHL teams via the Center Ice package on satelite or cable TV. But the sports credibility would be wrecked here for generations. The league needs to continue on this course for at least five more years. It would represent a potential “investment” of $15 million should the team continue to lose money but I do not believe it will. With a young core of very good players the Coyotes are probably one-year behind the Chicago Blackhawks in terms of development and to snuff that out when they are so close would be criminal. Let the team blossom, let the fans discover them and watch the support build. Even Chicago, one of the original six NHL teams, struggled to sell tickets just a couple years ago. Now they lead the league in attendance. The same will be true for Phoenix if they have the foresight to continue. The haters in Canada want the Coyotes to fail. They want the southern expansion of the NHL to fail. They want this because hockey is “their” sport. It is their identity and it differentiates them from the United States. With a chip the size of a hockey puck on their shoulder, many Canadians (certainly not all) want Gary Bettman to fail since he (in their misguided eyes) helped move teams from Quebec and Winnipeg to larger and potentially more lucrative markets. But if you are going to come to the big city you better learn how to play like the big boys do and that is to play to win. The southern expansion was not about just filling arenas with fans, it was about transforming a sport from a boutique industry to a power-house. If you quit now, you insure failure. Let the Coyotes have their chance to show Phoenix fans good hockey and watch what happens to this franchise in the 2010-11 season. That will be the season that Phoenix Coyotes hockey turns a corner from being a curiosity to being a threat to the Suns in terms of attracting fan loyalty. End it this season and like the investor who liquidates after the crash, you lose everything.
Moving forward the Coyotes have already corrected the first major obstacle: success on the ice. The team is on pace for their first playoff berth in six seasons. Westgate, an entertainment complex adjacent to Jobing.com Arena, has completed their first phase with several shops, some excellent dining options and an AMC theater. This gives people more bang for their gas-dollar as they justify a trip to the west valley. Stephen Brunt claims that the Coyotes will be the first domino to fall and he is right. But the dominos here in Phoenix include everyone from owners and inventors in Westgate to the city of Glendale who will own a concert arena without a major tenant. The NHL needs to stick by their guns and give the Coyotes a few more seasons to prove their worth.