Phoenix Coyotes Situation Makes the NHL Look Stupid

Any smart businessman studying the current Phoenix Coyote situation would be either laughing his head off, or shying away from investing in the NHL. Or both.

For all Commissioner Gary Bettman's legal and business savvy, the Phoenix situation has become nothing more than a boring soap opera going in circles, with NHL losing large sums of money and looking more stupider in the process.

The whole thing should have been settled in 2009 with NHL accepting a generous $252 million package from Jim Balsillie, with suitable compensation for Buffalo and Toronto, and the Coyotes relocated in Hamilton.

Instead, the NHL torpedoed Balsillie for violating their constitution, bought the team and ran it at a loss, while setting a time period for bidders Jerry Reinsdorf and Ice Edge, the only potential buyers willing to keep the team in Phoenix, to battle it out for ownership.

Any potential buyer willing to keep the team in Phoenix has until December 31 of this year to reach a deal with the city of Glendale, or the doors will be thrown open to anyone who wants to buy the team and move it.

So far the two bidders named above are the only ones who believe hockey will succeed in Phoenix.

The city of Glendale doesn't like either rival bid.

They won't say yes to Ice Edge because they allegedly don't have enough financing, and they don't like Reinsdorf because of the monopolistic terms of his offer, which might involve them in a legal suit with the Goldwater Institute.

Glendale also has a knife to its throat because if the team moves, the city loses big bucks.

So the franchise remains in limbo operation while negotiations continue.

The other way to have settled the issue was to torpedo Balsillie since the NHL doesn't like him, scrap the idea of staying in Phoenix, and accept bids from any buyer right from the start.

But the NHL preferred this soap opera to continue.  Why?

First, because they are hoping against hope that local buyer can be found.  They believe that hockey can be revived in any city with a winning team, like the Chicago Blackhawks were.

But more importantly, is the NHL/Gary Bettman plan to make hockey one of the big four United States sports, with a rich American television contract.

This was Bettman's main task, charged by the NHL owners when he was hired.

His scheme was to place NHL franchises in unfamiliar American markets which he hoped would lead to increased American television viewership.

Instead many of them have lost money, the worst being Phoenix.

Bettman and the NHL see the relocating of the Coyotes as a loss of face and a positive proof that the United States has not made hockey a big four sport, which in turn diminishes the NHL's chances for a rich American television contract.

So the current situation is allowed to continue, with the NHL and Glendale continuing to lose enormous sums of money.

But the NHL refuses to admit defeat.

How bad would it be if the NHL canceled its December deadline and accepted relocation bids right now?

The most humiliating relocation would be to move the team out of the United States to Canada.

But if the NHL doesn't want to do that, there are at least three traditional American hockey markets—Milwaukee, Portland, and Seattle—that would probably be money-making franchises.

How much loss of face and damage to the NHL's American television plans would a relocation to one of those cities be?

There is also the possibility of relocating the Coyotes into another non-traditional American hockey market, particularly Houston or Las Vegas.

Of the potential relocation bidders, Winnipeg, fronted by Mark Chipman and Dave Thomson, is said to be the front-runner.

But a relocation to Winnipeg might not happen, once the bidding is thrown open after December 31.

Thomson and Chipman are stuck with a small arena in a small market.

Any of the above cities listed above, plus other American and Canadian cities, could place much better bids once the deadline time has passed.

Ice Edge and Reinsdorf could also submit relocation bids if they want to.

Meanwhile time continues to tick slowly away toward the end of the year while the Coyotes will continue to lose enormous sums of money.

The Coyotes will be in Phoenix for at least one more season.

Most likely, their soap opera show will be canceled then, and the team moving to where they should have moved in 2009.