NHL Anti-Thread: Bad Business Decision Aggregator

[Wings2]

4 hours ago, the admiral said:

Do the Wings still have the juice to fight a move back to playing Chicago, Minnesota, and St. Louis now that Mike Ilitch and his magic toupee are gone?

 

Mike is still dead as a door nail but the toupee might be alive somewhere. 

[dont care]

I immediately discredit anyone who says a team isn’t successful in a particular market because the stadium is hard to get to. If fans actually wanted to see the product they would overcome the hassle of getting to a game. They also act like it’s only a problem they have when the majority of stadiums don’t have great ways of getting to them. You are going to have to park at a train station and ride a variety of subways to get to the game. Or drive to it deal with traffic and hope you find parking that is cheap enough. Unless you live directly next to the stadium it will always suck getting to games. North east teams are probably the only exceptions with their variety of subway systems that make it much easier. 

[IceCap]

Well that's the other problem. That the stadium's location is a red herring being used by people with an ideological motivation to keep this team in Arizona at the expense of potential profitability elsewhere.

 

What happens if the Tempe rink gets built and they still don't draw? How long do the "GROW THE GAME!" people expect us to wait before we judge the success/failure rate there? Ten years? Another twenty five? 

 

Are there people who seriously think millions upon millions upon millions of dollars - both public and private- should be wasted over the course of half a century just to acknowledge that hockey in Arizona won't work? 

 

Yes. There are people who think that. And we should be free to point out how dumb that opinion is. Even if the NHL insists on humouring them for the sake of Bergman's ego. 

[The_Admiral]

Why would Tempe look at an organization that doesn't pay its bills and say "yes, we need to go out of our way to accommodate them"? I know Arizona is dumb and loves corporate welfare but this is a new low. How many more arenas does greater Phoenix need, especially if lots of people are permanently afraid of crowds?

[IceCap]

32 minutes ago, the admiral said:

Why would Tempe look at an organization that doesn't pay its bills and say "yes, we need to go out of our way to accommodate them"? I know Arizona is dumb and loves corporate welfare but this is a new low. How many more arenas does greater Phoenix need, especially if lots of people are permanently afraid of crowds?

The Tempe process, from what I can tell, hasn't been a slam dunk. They've had to shift proposed sites a few times and their most recent option will cause problems with an airport.

 

I'm sure there are rubes in Tempe who will be swayed by the idea of a NHL/NBA sized arena to bring events to the area, but the Coyotes have dicked around in the state enough. It's not just Glendale they've messed with, the it's the state too. So it wouldn't shock me if the powers that be in Tempe have gotten a few memos along the lines of "be weary with these people."

[monkeypower]

23 hours ago, Red Comet said:

I like the old Scouts jerseys. In 2021, however, you’d have to be on hallucinogens to think they’d bring back a uniform from a team that failed after 2 years. And that’s not even getting into any other issues such a uniform would have that would be verboten for me to explain further on. 

 

23 hours ago, the admiral said:

The Devils cited some vague Scouts inspiration in their crappy redesign. It's not impossible.

 

There was a NAHL team, owned by Lamar Hunt Jr.'s company, who moved to Kansas City (or technically a suburb) for the 2020-21 season and changed their name to the Scouts, with a new logo.

 

However, they went dormant because of the Covid season in 20-21 and then also were going to be dormant for the 21-22 season as wll, but were sold and moved to Amarillo in time for the 21-22 season.

 

So there was a return of the Scouts, but they failed worse than the original Scouts because at least the original Scouts played more than no games..

[Sodboy13]

Moving off the Coyotes for a moment, I was at Costco this morning, because I hate myself. There was a display of vouchers for the Blackhawks, good for two 100-level seats and $50 food and beverage credit. The package cost $350. So the Hawks realize they may not be that top-level draw that sells itself anymore, but they haven't grasped that being a consistent playoff misser means they can't charge $150 for a seat somewhere in the back of the lower bowl and call it a discount worthy of an impulse buy.

[Sodboy13]

 Back to the grind, Craig Morgan reports the Coyotes are taking a serious look at playing in a 5,000-seat rink where they'd rank below the college team and get cut out of weekend dates, and they'd have to build their own team facilities with their own money which they definitely have. He also gets Bill Daly on the record not dismissing this idea outright, portraying it as the way station between Glendale and the (still not even approved) new rink in Tempe. If it gets that far, the league is going to try to sell it as a Brooklyn Islanders situation, and ooh lordy, it ain't that.

 

https://gophnx.com/2021/12/12/exploring-the-coyotes-interim-arena-options/

[The_Admiral]

Quote

Tucson Arena’s seating capacity for hockey is 6,791. The Findlay Toyota Center in Prescott Valley seats approximately 5,100, and ASU’s new arena, which will be ready this fall, seats 5,000.

 

Multiple sources said that the Coyotes are considering these options, or a combination of the three, and that option does not appear to concern the league.

Great, if you can figure out how to exist in three places at once, you have something going.

[LMU]

38 minutes ago, the admiral said:

Great, if you can figure out how to exist in three places at once, you have something going.

So, the Coyotes just have to become the Thirteenth Doctor.  No pressure.

[The_Admiral]

If only someone could EX-TER-MIN-ATE that team

[IceCap]

1 hour ago, the admiral said:

Great, if you can figure out how to exist in three places at once, you have something going.

 

Gary Bettman- If the new Jets don't sell at least 15,000 tickets every game I'll move them! 

 

Also Gary Bettman- The Coyotes can play in a 5,000 seat arena, no probs. 

[SFGiants58]

Bettman thinks the Phoenix Coyotes are his Pet Sounds. Unfortunately, they’re his Summer in Paradise.

 

Bettman is still less vile than Mike Love.

[rams80]

3 hours ago, the admiral said:

Great, if you can figure out how to exist in three places at once, you have something going.

 

Also, you're trying to make 3 home arenas with less than 6500 capacities work in what I am informed is still a gate-driven league. Bigger clownshow than the last couple of years of the Virginia Squires in the old ABA.

Trying really hard to see how this isn't a nakedly bad faith attempt to drive down league revenues for revenue-sharing and salary cap purposes.

[tigerslionspistonshabs]

List Of 6 Possible NHL Expansion Cities Revealed.

 

https://www.hockeyinsiders.net/articles/list-of-6-possible-nhl-expansion-cities-revealed/?fbclid=IwAR1VV6vPXvRFVj5H5D4gPgUlb93XtrLApAHTGlvhSMsQvRAecmAObpWqYfY

 

[Sodboy13]

Congratulations to Gary Lawless on naming six cities, which is literally all that is.

[IceCap]

5 hours ago, tigerslionspistonshabs said:

List Of 6 Possible NHL Expansion Cities Revealed.

 

https://www.hockeyinsiders.net/articles/list-of-6-possible-nhl-expansion-cities-revealed/?fbclid=IwAR1VV6vPXvRFVj5H5D4gPgUlb93XtrLApAHTGlvhSMsQvRAecmAObpWqYfY

 

The NHL over-expanding AND giving them no out to a no-win scenario in Arizona would be hilarious. 

 

But that list is meaningless. For one, Toronto 2 isn't happening. Not unless a potential ownership group feels like handing a billion dollars over to MLSE. 

[spartacat_12]

On 12/11/2021 at 8:19 AM, dont care said:

I immediately discredit anyone who says a team isn’t successful in a particular market because the stadium is hard to get to. If fans actually wanted to see the product they would overcome the hassle of getting to a game. They also act like it’s only a problem they have when the majority of stadiums don’t have great ways of getting to them. You are going to have to park at a train station and ride a variety of subways to get to the game. Or drive to it deal with traffic and hope you find parking that is cheap enough. Unless you live directly next to the stadium it will always suck getting to games. North east teams are probably the only exceptions with their variety of subway systems that make it much easier. 

 

I mean if you look at the league's attendance rankings every year, the teams with suburban arenas are almost consistently at the bottom of the list. That isn't a coincidence.

 

Yes, most downtown venues aren't the easiest to get to, but people who live outside the city are used to travelling downtown because that's how cities are designed. If you buy a house in the suburbs you expect that if you want to go to a concert, sporting event, or most jobs (pre-pandemic) then you'll be commuting. People living in a city centre don't want to travel to a suburb to go to an event.

[FCMacbeth]

7 hours ago, tigerslionspistonshabs said:

List Of 6 Possible NHL Expansion Cities Revealed.

 

https://www.hockeyinsiders.net/articles/list-of-6-possible-nhl-expansion-cities-revealed/?fbclid=IwAR1VV6vPXvRFVj5H5D4gPgUlb93XtrLApAHTGlvhSMsQvRAecmAObpWqYfY

 

If 6 possible cities are given the honour of relocating the poor Yotes out of a cactus wasteland, and 1/3 of it ends up in Canada, Bettman will die of a massive heart attack.

 

But in all honesty, with the exception of Houston and Quebec City (which still has a chance of getting back the Nords even by a bit), none of the other cities are getting an NHL franchise soon. Austin is a pile of wank compared to Houston, California doesn't need a 4th team aside from LA, Anaheim and San Jose, a 2nd Toronto team will struggle against the much-established Leafs, and Kansas City AFAIK can only host an AHL-level team .

[mcj882000]

I could see a second Toronto team working if they were to market themselves as, say, "the team Torontonians can actually afford to watch!" But regrettably I just don't see that happening in today's "make ALL of the money" economic climate.