An Inconvenient Truth: Poorly-Located Phoenix Coyotes Are Better Off Elsewhere

In previous years, the NHL stepped in to help financially struggling franchises in Ottawa and Buffalo. Both cities are strong hockey markets, and the move made sense in order to strengthen the league. Now, the NHL is desperate to save the Phoenix Coyotes, and in the process is making a joke out of the league and a franchise.

Winnipeg moved to Phoenix for more sun and more money during the terrible NHL southern experiment in the 1990’s. The Coyotes were actually okay in America West Arena for the first few years, and then more and more people recognized the blind spots in the arena and small capacity because of the floor size. Phoenix desperately needed a new arena, and the city of Glendale built an arena for the Coyotes. Moving to Glendale was the beginning of the end of hockey viability in Phoenix.

Attendance was decent for the first few years, but with a mediocre team and a bad location, the Coyotes have been losing money for awhile. Real estate is all about location, and the Coyotes play in an arena that is inconvenient for most of the people in the Phoenix area with money. Scottsdale, Mesa, Tempe, Chandler, Gilbert, Biltmore, and Paradise Valley house most of the rich and upper class people in the Phoenix market. All of those areas are east of downtown Phoenix.

The Coyotes arena is 20-25 minutes west of downtown Phoenix. For football, having a stadium in Glendale is fine, since most people have to make the drive 10 times a year, mostly on Sundays. The Coyotes have 41 home games, a majority of them on weekdays, and having people commit to season tickets to go out there 41 times a year is a burden.

Jobing.com Arena is nice, they have really effective air conditioning in there, and would be way more effective if it was in Scottsdale or Tempe or Mesa. Instead, it’s in a location where it will be at least a decade before there is enough of a population and businesses close to the area to build a sustainable season ticket base. New ownership and the NHL can’t change the fact that hockey will not thrive in Phoenix if they play in Glendale because the league can’t control demographics.

Although he comes off like a creep, I can understand Jerry Moyes’ frustration. He made a bad investment, and has been losing a lot of money on the investment. He had to file for bankruptcy, and saw an opportunity to get his debt paid off by selling the team to Jim Balsillie. Of course had Moyes done this before the NHL and the city of Glendale started paying his bills, he might have had a better claim. Now he’s stuck trying to sabotage Jerry Reinsdorf’s bid by releasing confidential documentation to make the city of Glendale look desperate.

Glendale is a lot like Moyes in this case; the city made a bad investment, and built Westgate City Center revolving around the success of the arena. If the biggest tenant leaves, the arena and the city center lose revenue and tax dollars and become a ghost town for a majority of the year. I know what Moyes is trying to gain; I know what Glendale needs to achieve; I know what Balsillie hopes to accomplish, yet I have no idea what the NHL is trying to achieve in this matter. With the current structure of hockey in Phoenix, it will fail. A failing franchise does not help build the value of the league, and keeping Balsillie out as an owner is acting petty and not seeing the big picture.

Moving a team to Hamilton might take away some fans from Buffalo and Toronto, but as Phoenix has proved, a season ticket base isn’t built by fans driving 45 minutes to an hour for every home game. Balsillie has money, and passion, and although his methods may be disliked, he’s eager to invest in a league and invest in teams like Nashville and Phoenix that would be better off somewhere else. An extra team in Canada in theory would hurt US television ratings, then again how much does the Phoenix market really add to viewership?

Most hockey fans here root for Montreal or Detroit or Buffalo or someone else. If the NHL is so set against Balsillie, sell it to an investment group from Saskatchewan or Omaha or Vegas. The Coyotes may still remain a money loser in those areas, but at least there is a chance they will succeed there. If the NHL is so desperate to keep a team in the Phoenix market, then they need to do the unprecedented action of building an arena in Tempe. Otherwise, they’re just wasting their time.