Sodboy13

The Seattle expansion fee was $650MM, and the reported way this plays out is the league paying $1B to Alex Mereulo to eff off, then collecting $1.3B from Ryan Smith. So basic math says "yes," but the league line I've seen is "we're getting twice as much as the expansion fee this way," which explains a good bit about this league's business savvy. The mitigating factor I'm willing to consider is that Mereulo may be quietly in hock to the league a fair bit, and this "billion" he gets involves a good bit taken off the top to make his creditors whole.

There is a certain poetry in the Coyotes getting Chivas USA'd in the end.

Yeah, but now what do I do with my life?

I've been on this ride so long that I was around for a particularly off-kilter member telling us all that the Coyotes would skate on the frozen blood of the non-believers. I'm ready for whatever comes out of the woodwork here.

It might actually be happening?

Today I learned Brian Burke killed off "Brass Bonanza" while he was GM in Hartford. I bet he's still ticked that he could never be the league's number one killjoy because he worked in the same era as Lou Lamoriello.

Yes, but it's a very long list.

To add one specific instance to @Sykotyk's thorough runthrough of the AFL's spike and collapse: The Firebirds were actually doing well in Indiana after the move, but their owner wanted out. He found a buyer, was offered $6 million for the team, and was ready to sell at what he considered a fair price. Problem was the AFL was putting up this big flash splash and cash front, and David Baker had declared the expansion fee to get into his amazing league was $25 million. He couldn't have that undercut by franchises being sold for what they were actually worth, so the AFL forcibly folded the Firebirds rather than let the sale complete.

LEAGUE: "We are an extremely valuable and desirable pro sports entity." PLAYERS: "Okay, then you can give us pay and benefits proportional to your declared value." LEAGUE: "No, sorry, we were lying. League's closed now, bye."

There's a good column today detailing this pivot by companies from planned obsolescence to active consumer hostility. More and more companies are now waving it in our faces with "yeah, our product is worse now, what are YOU gonna do about it" and having it happen in something as familiar and comforting as baseball (and not just on the uniform front, either) strikes a nerve in a way the tech overlords' bullcrap or constantly shrinking ice cream cartons doesn't, and it also makes consumers more aware of the increasing frequency at which we are being rawdogged. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/04/roku-tv-ads-patent/678041/?gift=bQgJMMVzeo8RHHcE1_KM0Y7O5mArBWf5kSkOx4yHpVw&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

Overall, these uniforms range from "not bad" to "pretty good." But they are also clearly a couple of rungs below what we would classify as "professional" in American football. The use of the same serif block font for team names and locations on every jersey is the stuff of, say, a better-off high school program, not FBS or the pros. I feel like I'm looking at a supplier catalog as I scroll through.

Look at the start date for this topic. We're almost thirteen years in here, and the very loud problems of the Coyotes predate the topic by a few more years than that. It has never been good or looked promising that entire time. In fact, one can argue that the NHL fumbled the Phoenix market years before the Coyotes even existed. Jerry Colangelo wanted his new arena for the Suns to have an NHL tenant. The pre-Bettman league office told him they had no interest in ever putting a team there, ever. So Jerry saved himself a few bills by making a basketball arena that could technically hold a rink if, say, the Roadrunners were interested in partnering up. The Winnipeg Jets were sold to a couple of guys who did not want to move to Phoenix. They wanted to put the team in Minnesota, and couldn't make it happen. So they settled for Phoenix as part of Bettman's Sun Belt Strategy and played in a configuration that made the Isles at Barclays look like frozen heaven while their ideal new arena would certainly be right around the corner. Before the second season was done the original owners were bailing and there were serious talks of selling to Paul Allen and moving everything to Portland. It has been that bad for that long, it has bordered on farce since before a time when we all toted the internet in our pants, and even those who haven't mired themselves in the particulars over the years like I have can see the college rink and the arena plans failing in a landslide vote and the losses upon losses upon losses and say "good riddance" to all of it without a shred of ill will toward the players, frontline employees, or remaining fans. And I still wouldn't bet against them playing at Mullett next season.

And before that were given subsidies at the expense of a city's fire department.

And I recall the story after the move being that Winnipeg ownership was intending to bring the Moose moniker up to the NHL, to the point where they had commissioned prototype uniforms, but they realized "the Jets are coming back" was too strong a tide to fight and too much free money to turn down. Oddly, the Coyotes removing the location name from their shoulder patches when they revived the Kachina would make it easier to just bring the same home and road looks to Utah.

Who would you prefer to drop the ceremonial first puck, Clint Malarchuk or Richard Zednik?

Taking a moment to remember that brief period in the mid-2000s where the Utah Grizzlies were the AHL affiliate of the Coyotes and it went so badly they had to reboot the team name in the ECHL.

I barely have it in me to say "Here we go again" anymore.

So it looks like Fanatics will be selling Canadian-made true authentic jerseys at retail again, instead of them only being scarcely available through people on eBay who know a guy. 425 American dollars, though. Woof.

Fanatics seems to have a bit of a City Disconnect.

The Brewers' road grays have arrived. The Twins' alts do not seem as urine-y as the Phillies', at least not in these photos.

Two weeks in, and we have our NBA "oops my uniform fell apart" moment.

We might get a tangible good out of this fly-by-night reboot yet: Royal Retros has announced they've struck a deal to manufacture AFL throwback merch and will have their product line out later this month. Finally, I can get the Houston ThunderBears shirt of my dreams.

Good God almighty.

I hope they unveil it with John Rocker wearing it. Brewers are back on the road and back in navy tonight. Have the road grays been seen yet?

Well, the Detroit Wheels played at Eastern in Ypsilanti. It, uh, could have gone better.