So now that I can take a day off from planning the Leafs Stanley Cup parade, I went back and re-visited some of the media over the Arizona situation. I watched both of Bettman's news conferences as well as listened to a couple podcasts from PHNX Sports (a great podcast). I came away with the impression that while the league really wants a team in Phoenix, they really don't want it to be owned by Alex Meruelo. In the Arizona presser, Bettman wasn't shy to cut AM off, talk over him or correct him and didn't show any type of respect for an owner that he would to any other owner. He referred to Ryan Smith by name several times. By contrast, in the news conference later on in Salt Lake City, he didn't once say Alex Meruelo's name, rather called him the Coyotes owner (or former owner).
Meruelo for his part, stumbled through his statement, he read his opening remarks off of paper, he said he didn't like the media, that he had no personal regrets (even Bettman said he regretted that the Tempe vote didn't pass, AM said he did all he could and spent $7million dollars on the election, a number which was disputed by a city official who said he spent a little over a million). When asked about season ticket refunds, AM said to give him time and let him breathe.
Some of the details that have been talked about the potential future Coyotes team. He has the 5 year right to reactivate the team and the league needs 18 months notice that he plans to reactivate. This 5 year window is for him only, it's not transferable. On top of that, he can't reactivate the team and sell it, he must retain ownership for 5 more years on top of that. At this point, AM patted Bettman on the shoulder and said "I've been here for 5 years, I have 5 years to bring the team back and then I have 5 more years to own them after that, it shows that the league wants me". Bettman just gave a silly grin as if to say "I'm putting up with you because I have no other choice in order to get the new guy in that I actually wanted". When the team gets reactivated, there will be an expansion draft under the same rules as Vegas and Seattle had when they came in the league. It also sounds as if Meruelo misspoke when suggesting the AHL team would move to Mullet from Tucson. First, the lease with ASU was for 3 years plus an option for the NHL team not AHL. He may still have to pay out at NHL prices. Also, he still has 3 years left on the lease in Tucson. Also, the AHL schedule is heavily weekend oriented, as are the ASU uses for Mullet, so there may not be room in the schedule to fit the Roadrunners in. Plus, they draw almost as many people in Tuscon as the Coyotes did at Mullet. Another small thing Bettman mentioned, and he said this could be good or bad depending on a person's point of view, but they switched around the local TV market a bit so that Phoenix was in the Utah local market so their games would be seen there.
From the PHNX Sports podcast perspective, the sentiment from fans seems to be they want nothing to do with AM running a future team but they recognize that he is the best chance to get a team back. But the people don't appear to like him or trust him.
As for the Salt Lake City press conference, obviously Bettman was in a much better mood. I found it interesting, and telling, that the NHL has this one posted on their website, but the Coyotes press conference I had to find it on youtube, posted by the PHNX podcast. Most of the info from this conference has been out already, but the most interesting stuff was regarding the arena. Smith started off by saying his default position was to build a new arena. But then his team presented plans for renovating the seating over the following 2 summers and gradually bringing the hockey-optimized seating to 17-17.5k while not destroying their ideal NBA seating. They are going to start off with 12,000 good seats and another 4000 obstructed seats, mostly behind the nets. Sounds like it's too late for this year to do much in the next 5 months. He didn't come right out and say there is no plans for a new arena (even with the Olympics for 2034), but he said "I may have only graduated Brigham Young but even I know it's better for our company to have a 100 acres out in the south end with a new arena and thousands of homes, but downtown is best for the city and state", and it sounds like the plan is to renovate the Delta Center. He also acknowledged that it's almost impossible to assemble land in the downtown for a new arena and even the church is having trouble finding land there. He also said that the Jazz would have followed the hockey team to a new arena, as it made no sense to have 2 arenas there and he didn't want to do that to downtown. So, who knows, I'm surprised no one came out and asked how far into the future he foresaw a new arena.
Prev
Linear Mode
