NHL Anti-Thread: Bad Business Decision Aggregator

[IceCap]

1 hour ago, CDCLT said:

I generally agree what you posit in this post but genuinely what's the difference here? Why would a Dallas-Houston rivalry not happen but KC-STL would?

Houston seems to have all the shortcomings that plagued Atlanta and Phoenix. KC less so. More chance for KC to succeed more chance for a rivalry to actually work. 

 

2 hours ago, MJWalker45 said:

As insane as it sounds, I don't think the NHL wants to go back to Quebec, no matter what they may say.

Then they're idiots 

[JayMac]

It seems like there are 4 options:

 

1. Try to work something out in Phoenix

2. Move franchise to Houston

3. Move franchise to Atlanta

4. Move franchise to Quebec City

 

Option 1 is a terrible idea. Option 2 is a big unknown. Option 3 is probably the worst idea. That leaves option 4 as the only good option. But this is Bettman and the NHL. Option 4 might not even be their plan D.

[SCMODS]

I wouldn't be surprised if Salt Lake City is on the radar even with the seating issues at Vivint Arena. Billionaire Jazz owner Ryan Smith has had interest in hockey. 

[habsfan1]

[GDAWG]

Just because the NHL works in Dallas doesn't mean it will work in Houston, so it should be Quebec City.  

[TBGKon]

3 hours ago, LMU said:

 

3 hours ago, IceCap said:

lol the Suns have a perfectly fine arena why would they do that?

 

Didnt the Suns just complete renovations on their arena?

[mcj882000]

Alright, so having done some research on this, I've come to the conclusion that Delta Center in SLC is completely inadequate for NHL hockey. You all mentioned how it has the problem of stacked seats on one endzone because the rink is too long for the normal arena space, ala Barclays Center and Talking Stick Arena? 



Well, it turns out Delta Center has that problem on both endzones. (And possibly along the sidelines, depending on how wide this non-NHL rink is!) Listed capacity for hockey, according to Wikipedia: 14,000.

[charger77]

1 hour ago, Gary said:

A second for wouldn’t work in Detroit or even Michigan. The Red Wings are beloved there and a relocation of another team would be laughed at and moved the next year

 

Beloved / Supported when they are doing well.  Attendance at the new Little Ceaser Arena has been poor, can't imagine a new crappy relocated Coyotes would take on any dissatisfied Wings fans.

[Gary]

35 minutes ago, TBGKon said:

 

 

Didnt the Suns just complete renovations on their arena?

They did last year, but can also house a hockey rink as well. The Arizona Rattlers play at Footprint and is the same diameter of a hockey rink 

[spartacat_12]

5 hours ago, MiK said:

ESPN (so take it with a large grain of salt) is throwing around Salt Lake City as a potential option for relocation, only going as far to say "Jazz owner Ryan Smith has met with Bettman within the past year."

 

Now that's an interesting location. Anyone know if hockey has any type of following in the Beehive State?

I was listening to today’s 32 Thoughts, and they talked about SLC. It sounds like Smith is more interested in the clean slate of an expansion team, but it is a possibility for the Yotes. They’d need to do some work on the arena to accommodate the ice though. 
 

The other cities that got brought up were Houston, KC, Sacramento, and QC. 

[SCMODS]

I don't think Golden 1 Center in Sacramento has a hockey set up. 

[IceCap]

Shout out to @Still MIGHTY who passed this my way.

 

Actual economists look at Coyotes arena’s projected $154m in tax gains, find it’d actually be $7m in losses

 

https://www.fieldofschemes.com/2023/04/18/19853/actual-economists-look-at-coyotes-arenas-projected-154m-in-tax-gains-find-itd-actually-be-7m-in-losses/

 

Quote

Projecting $154 million in new tax revenue when it would actually be a $7 million loss is quite the math error, and is worth diving into the report’s technical appendix to see WTF exactly CSL did here. It gets a bit, uh, technical, but the main points are: CSL applied an economic multiplier (for how money gets respent more than once in a geographic area) for the entire Phoenix metro area and applied it as if it were only for Tempe; failed to account for $47 million in lost taxes that would have gone to the city treasury if locals spent their money elsewhere in Tempe, but which would now be siphoned off to help pay for the arena; and used the wrong multiplier for hotel spending. 

The upshot: “When these changes are made the project instead of having a gain in nominal dollars of $136 million comes out as a negative $7 million.”

 

 

Quote

But that’s not all! The GCI study also found that projections of an arena hosting 45 non-hockey events a year “may be optimistic” and would likely cannibalize concerts from Phoenix’s and Glendale’s arenas — which admittedly doesn’t hurt Tempe, but it would mean the overall Phoenix area would be largely just shuffling around the same spending while taking on a half-billion dollars in arena expenses. And it projected that Tempe would do slightly better, tax-wise, by building the same mixed-use project the Coyotes have planned for around the arena, but no arena itself.

Emphasis mine 

 

 

[habsfan1]

Salt Lake City is an odd choice.

 

Their 12 000 seat arena for the ECHL Grizzlies is smaller than Winnipeg's building. They've never had much demand for NHL hockey, to my knowledge. If there are hardcore fans from that western area, I imagine they already support the Avs.

[McCall]

Is there any interest for a second Bay Area franchise, like in San Francisco at the Chase Center? Or is it even suitable for hockey?

[mcj882000]

49 minutes ago, Gary said:

They did last year, but can also house a hockey rink as well. The Arizona Rattlers play at Footprint and is the same diameter of a hockey rink 

With the same exact problem the Coyotes had when they played there in the late-90s/early-00s:


From almost the same vantage point, no less.

[Gary]

3 minutes ago, mcj882000 said:

With the same exact problem the Coyotes has when they played there in the late-90s/early-00s:


From almost the same vantage point, no less.

I’ve been to both in the 90s and never had a problem with the view imo

[TBGKon]

1 hour ago, Gary said:

They did last year, but can also house a hockey rink as well. The Arizona Rattlers play at Footprint and is the same diameter of a hockey rink 

True, but its definitely a Barclays situation (if its anything like the Rattlers setup)

 

[gosioux76]

31 minutes ago, habsfan1 said:

Salt Lake City is an odd choice.

 

Their 12 000 seat arena for the ECHL Grizzlies is smaller than Winnipeg's building. They've never had much demand for NHL hockey, to my knowledge. If there are hardcore fans from that western area, I imagine they already support the Avs.

 

I don't think showing demand for NHL hockey has ever been a pre-requisite when it comes to this league's expansion strategy. 

[LMU]

I mean, come now, anyone advocating for the team moving back to the arena that was inadequate two decades ago and hasn't fixed anything has been breaking into Bettman's liquor cabinet.  And this when the last ditch plan just went up in flames.

 

 

 

[FinsUp1214]

47 minutes ago, habsfan1 said:

Salt Lake City is an odd choice.

 

Their 12 000 seat arena for the ECHL Grizzlies is smaller than Winnipeg's building. They've never had much demand for NHL hockey, to my knowledge. If there are hardcore fans from that western area, I imagine they already support the Avs.

Strangely enough, I only know one Avs fan here and he’s a co-worker who is originally from Denver anyways. One other co-worker is a Wild fan because he lived in Minnesota for a while, another co-worker is a Kraken fan because he worked in Seattle for a few years and adopted it as a second hometown, and a friend of mine is a Caps fan because she worked in DC for a few years. There’s a decent number of Knights fans here, but not nearly enough for me to say Utah is strongly Knights territory either.

 

This is a long way of saying I think there’s interest in hockey here, but those who are fans here either root for teams from places they have other connections to, or just recently hopped on to the Knights wagon. The Avs don’t really have a foothold here at all, so there wouldn’t be any worry of cutting into any sort of territory.

 

The biggest challenge for an SLC team would be the stadium. Soon-to-be-again Delta Celter wasn’t really built with hockey in mind and has bad sightlines, and as you mentioned,  Maverik Center (formerly E Center) in West Valley is a minor league stadium. They’d either have to build a new stadium and grit out a season or two at the Delta Center, or renovate either existing stadium.