No Owner, No Problem? Coyotes Players and Staff Feel Confident Team Will Return

As a matter of context, back in 95 the Canadian economy was in a recession, the Canadian federal government was broke and slashing spending to avoid economic ruin. The Canadian dollar was worth between 65 and 68 cents against the dollar, and unemployment was 12%. Contrast that with today where its the American economy taking a beating, unemployment coming out of the latest economic recession is only about 7% and the Canadian dollar is worth about a dollar and five cents US. At the time NHL payrolls were drastically increasing from their relatively modest levels in the 80s towards the tens of millions that the salary cap mandates.

At the time the Jets left Canada the provincial government was unwilling to pony up for an arena, one was subsequently built as part of a downtown revitalization scheme and it could be upgraded. They also lacked an available owner with deep pockets to run the franchise and be able afford the NHL payroll that needed to be made. Now the company running the AHL team in Winnipeg which has expressed interested in upgrading to an NHL team is backed by a billionaire who makes Forbes list as one of the richest people in the world.

Times have changed and its unsurprising that Winnipegers who swing by here want to repatriate what lineally is their team. Its not really the doing of coyotes fans, but just as you all resent the idea of Canadians hovering around wanting to scoup up your franchise, Winnipegers resented a bunch of American millionaires swooping in and taking theirs. No one liked percieved outsiders taking something they consider to belong to them, and generally people “want it back”.

On the whole the Canadian sports media nurses a sense of grievance about Americans corrupting “our game”. With the party line being teams are a toy for billionaires who otherwise are indifferent to the sport itself and hockey outside the North eastern United states doesn’t have any cultural relevance in America or widespread fan support. Criticisms which are exaggerated but not entirely unfounded.

Ticket prices also need to be considered. The price for tickets in Phoenix, Florida and other cities in the US is a fraction of what’s paid in Canada. Where I live in Edmonton a single lower bowl seat is going to set you back at least two hundred dollars, and to sit in the nose bleeds you’re still spending roughly fifty bucks. Hockey is not a cheap source of entertainment and there are fairly steady sell outs all the same. Hence attendence in the southern US where ticket prices are rather drastically discounted and in some cases given away for free is viewed in a rather skeptical manner.

Television ratings for hockey in the US are routinely reported to lag behind all other major sports and even things like bowling. And by all reports the Coyotes have never managed to turn a profit.

To be objective its hard to see how the Coyotes will make money at any point in the near future. Their regional television contract isn’t going to become lucrative in the near future. Attendance is low to moderate at best and ticket pricing is weak. Its hard from the outside to see how you all propose to make the Coyotes a viable and ongoing concern in the short to medium term. As Keynes said “in the long run we’re all dead”.

The only immediate solution appears to be a rich fellow who treats the team as a toy and is prepared to lose tens of millions of dollars anually to keep things going. Unfortunately the current would be owner would evidently like the municipal government in Glendale to give him the money to buy the team.

With great respect to the many Coyotes fans, do you really think an owner who has to be paid to take on the team is going to sink much of his own money into the team and make things work presuming they can be made to work?

While I don’t approve of the exuberance of some of the Winnipeg fans who border on attempting to prematurally dance on the Coyotes grave, do understand that they lost something at a very low ebb. Now that fortune has favoured them they see the Coyotes as a fiscally teetering proposition which they possess the means to acquire which would right as they see it a historical grievance.

There do seem to be enough struggling NHL franchises that chances are Winnipeg will get its chance. I don’t know if it will be Phoenix, although unfortunately for Coyotes fans I don’t think Huzinger is the answer to your plight. For the team to stay in Phoenix you need a real owner, willing to invest his own money into the team and further money to make the game work in Phoenix. I just don’t see that white knight on the horizon for hockey in Phoenix.