The battle to keep the Arizona Coyotes in the valley has intensified in recent days after the city of Glendale decided it will not renew its lease agreement with the team. This means that the 2021/22 season will be the last one played at Gila River Arena. Some fans consider this a good thing because it will give the Coyotes ownership a chance to move the team to a more centrally located part of town, which could boost attendance. Other fans view this as a very bad thing because it means the franchise now has the liberty to move out of state to a city that can better foster sustained success for a hockey team. It’s a bad situation the Coyotes put themselves in and was an inevitable outcome after years of legal battles and kicking the can down the road with no long-term solutions. It’s not unreasonable to assume things will get messy and fast, but there might still be hope for a smooth transition if the NHL commissioner gets involved. It won’t be the first time Gary Bettman decided the fate of this franchise.
The Arizona Coyotes franchise was originally located in Winnipeg starting in 1972 and were known as the Jets. They were moved to Arizona in 1996 as a result of NHL Commissioner Gary Bettmans’s desire for the league to expand west, and they branded themselves as the Phoenix Coyotes. They were successful in their early days in the valley with six straight seasons of .500 or better and made the playoffs in five of those six years. However, the team fell into a pit of despair shortly after missing the playoffs in the 200/01 season, and success has been few and far apart ever since. Attendance dropped significantly as a result.
Arena problems have plagued the Coyotes since their first day in the valley. They originally shared America West Arena (now Footprint Center) with the NBA’s Phoenix Suns, but the conditions were less than ideal. While the Arena worked for basketball, its design caused a lot of line of sight issues for hockey fans and attendance dropped as a result. The team had no choice, but to relocate. After lots of political drama, the Coyotes were eventually moved to Glendale and began playing in Glendale Arena (now Gila River Arena) starting in the 2003/04 season. The move was a workable solution at the time, but poor play, low attendance, and bad financial decisions led the Coyotes to bankruptcy, and facing possible relocation and the fate of the franchise hanging in the balance.
In 2009, the Coyotes ownership group, led by Wayne Gretzky, decided to file for bankruptcy. With concerns about how the team was being operated, League Commissioner Gary Bettman bought all of the ownership shares and put the Coyotes under his control. He then guided the team through bankruptcy proceedings and then waited to sell the team to an owner that would be committed to keeping the team in Arizona. Bettman saved the franchise, but once again, this proved to be just another temporary fix.
The league sold the team to a Canadian ownership group called Renaissance Sports and Entertainment ahead of the 2013/14 season, and the Coyotes rebranded themselves as the Arizona Coyotes. The team has changed ownership multiple times since then, and its relationship with the city of Glendale got worse as a result of conflicting opinions and desires. The team performance hasn’t been that great either.
The future of the Coyotes staying in Arizona is in jeopardy. In the immediate future, the team will likely go back to sharing an arena with the Phoenix Suns. from there, the team will explore the possibility of sharing an arena with the Arizona State hockey team, as the division one program is in the midst of building a new multipurpose facility to replace oceanside arena as the new home for Sun Devils hockey. If that doesn’t work, they’ll have to either build a new arena or renovate the Footprint Center to accommodate both basketball and hockey. If all of that fails, they may have to move out of state, and nobody wants that to happen. The league could also step in to help facilitate venue changes.
Coyotes fans were already fortunate to keep their beloved team once, but Bettman may not want to pull all of the stops to prevent the team from leaving this time around. With Vegas, and Seattle each being granted a franchise, league expansion seems to be off the table for Bettman, but franchise relocation is still a desire for the league. Houston is one such proposal. With Seattle joining the pacific division, and the Coyotes being moved to the central division, relocating the Coyotes to Houston is a feasible option, but it likely won’t happen overnight because that city would have to figure out Arena logistics, including the possibility of sharing with Houston’s NBA team the Rockets. So, it is likely Bettman will find a way to control this situation like he did in the past, and if he is committed to keeping the Coyotes in Arizona, he will give the team another get out of jail free card, but Coyotes fans shouldn’t hold their breath.
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