Las Vegas Coytoes?

[DustDevil61]

Article

I know that this isn't the only "the Coytoes could move" thread, but Jerry Reinsdorf (owner of White Sox and Bulls) may want to move the 'Yotes to Vegas. This could get really, really ugly for Bettman and the NHL.

[tBBP]

Put the team in Vegas. Hell, the NHL could use all the exposure they can get...imagine the publicity of being the first of the Big 4 to put a team in Vegas...

/from an admittedly non-knowledgeable hockey fan

[-kj]

What, they're bringing RHI back?

[rams80]

1. I think the NHL would rather expand to Las Vegas

2. Putting a team in Vegas at the moment would be a fiscal disaster; the recession has hit that market almost as badly as it hit Detroit.

[CC97]

1. I think the NHL would rather expand to Las Vegas

2. Putting a team in Vegas at the moment would be a fiscal disaster; the recession has hit that market almost as badly as it hit Detroit.

3. The NHL wants to remain in Phoenix... right?

[Sodboy13]

1. I think the NHL would rather expand to Las Vegas

2. Putting a team in Vegas at the moment would be a fiscal disaster; the recession has hit that market almost as badly as it hit Detroit.

3. The NHL wants to remain in Phoenix... right?

I wouldn't say so much it's that as it is "The NHL wants to remain free and clear of Jim Balsillie."

[Gordie]

"We, the owners and operators of the NHL's Las Vegas Coyotes, are not just about hockey. We're about entertainment."

Comp tickets to the hockey game, 'cause it's the attached casino that brings in the real money.

Big-time concerts, boxing, and shows in the arena on non-hockey dates.

[Bleujayone]

Can someone truthfully say what the heck the NHL and Bettman have against Jim Balsillie? Is it a legitimate business reason or is it some immature personal one? I mean really, he's loaded, he wants to invest in the league during a stressed economical climate, he wants a team to succeed by putting it in a market that will actually support the team as a social staple and not just a niche, he's familiar with the sport and supports it - not jut jumping on a bandwagon, and he's willing to do whatever it takes to achieve financial stability and success. What on Earth do these guys want?

Phoenix has been given more than a decade to develop a market and fan base and failed. You can blame it on any number of things; poor management, poor market, or just bad luck. But whatever you attribute it to, the team is doing badly, and it is far from an isolated incident. There are several other teams that have been running in the red consistently and some have also toyed with the idea of relocating to a different market to address the matter. Something needs to be done and maybe relocating a few teams to places that actually consider hockey a major league sport is a step in the right direction. I still feel there should be a 2 to 1 ratio of American teams to Canadian ones. I can easily think of 4 teams to move to Canada just as I can think of 4 markets in Canada that could easily be more profitable than the current American ones. I can also think of several American markets that could support hockey better too if one wanted to stay below the 49th. Expansion is out of the question, and the NHL needs to get it through their collective heads that there are some place that cannot support hockey profitably no matter how large the market. It probably helps if you're in a market that has people that play hockey, has schools and colleges that play hockey, have.......winter. Call me silly. Any sport, be it hockey, baseball, football, lacrosse, etc has little chance of being popular if its not in a market that have fans who also play it. Tampa is one of those markets that stands out as an exception to the southern market vortex simply because it has so many transplants from up north...and even that won't carry the franchise forever if not run properly. If relocating some of these teams to places more inclined to support the sport will help stabilize the league overall then I say let them already.

Maybe Bettman needs to step down and go back to basketball. He really didn't see the damage done by stripping Canada of some of its teams, didn't see the danger of over expansion especially in questionable markets, really dropped the ball when it came to the lockouts and has managed the integrity and evolution of the game as poorly as one can. Television? Current fans can't even see the games let lone attracting new ones. If he's going to constantly put up roadblocks against new blood, new money, and new ideas simply because they don't jibe with his master plan, then maybe it's time he should go- before the damage is so widespread that nothing can be done to fix it.

[Sodboy13]

Can someone truthfully say what the heck the NHL and Bettman have against Jim Balsillie? Is it a legitimate business reason or is it some immature personal one? I mean really, he's loaded, he wants to invest in the league during a stressed economical climate, he wants a team to succeed by putting it in a market that will actually support the team as a social staple and not just a niche, he's familiar with the sport and supports it - not jut jumping on a bandwagon, and he's willing to do whatever it takes to achieve financial stability and success. What on Earth do these guys want?

Someone who doesn't use his money as an excuse to take a wild and prolific piss on the league's rules, regulations, and procedures, one would guess.

[Luigi74]

"We, the owners and operators of the NHL's Las Vegas Coyotes, are not just about hockey. We're about entertainment."

Comp tickets to the hockey game, 'cause it's the attached casino that brings in the real money.

Big-time concerts, boxing, and shows in the arena on non-hockey dates.

The old days of casino's comping tickets or anything to none high rollers is long gone, and Las Vegas is over saturated with large theaters and smaller arenas for concerts, shows, boxing, UFC and so on.

They could do good drawing out of town fans from cold weather hockey hot beds during the winter but that wont be enough to support the franchise, they would need a strong season ticket base and they aren't going to get that in Las Vegas.

[OnWis97]

I was going to come here and say that the fear of Vegas ought to disappear. It's about the growingest city / urban area in America and should have the population base to support a team (MLB, NFL, NBA anyway, but maybe not hockey). I have not been there, but the population base is about way more than prostitution and legal gambling. But is there really substance to this? Or is it all about a perception we are so used to we don't even know how meaningful it is?

I then remembered a 2002 football game. Wisconsin vs. UNLV in Vegas. The power shut off with about 7 or 8 minutes to go and Wisconsin easily covering a 7 point spread (lead at 20 or so). The game was called and all bets off, as it needs to go 55 minutes to count. It's surprising that it did not make a bigger deal on sportscenter. Truthfully, I don't know if there were more bets on Wisconsin that day and whether the casinos stood to loose alot by them covering. And I really don't know whether the outage was an accident. I was just taking with some of my fellow badgers about it a couple weeks ago and many of them are astonished that it did not get more press and highly suspicious that it could not have been an accident. I don't know. But at the least, it adds to the perception problem.

http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2002/sep/03/b...ut_spared_unlv/

[OnWis97]

Can someone truthfully say what the heck the NHL and Bettman have against Jim Balsillie? Is it a legitimate business reason or is it some immature personal one? I mean really, he's loaded, he wants to invest in the league during a stressed economical climate, he wants a team to succeed by putting it in a market that will actually support the team as a social staple and not just a niche, he's familiar with the sport and supports it - not jut jumping on a bandwagon, and he's willing to do whatever it takes to achieve financial stability and success. What on Earth do these guys want?

Someone who doesn't use his money as an excuse to take a wild and prolific piss on the league's rules, regulations, and procedures, one would guess.

In the mid 1990s, the T-wolves should have been sold and moved to New Orleans. The buyer was going to be Bob Arum, a boxing promoter of questionable character. The NBA blocked the deal. I don't recall their official reasoning, but some thought that they simply did not want Arum associated with the league.

[NoHoJoe]

1. I think the NHL would rather expand to Las Vegas

2. Putting a team in Vegas at the moment would be a fiscal disaster; the recession has hit that market almost as badly as it hit Detroit.

3. The NHL wants to remain in Phoenix... right?

4. Gretsky is a Multi- Millionaire. He should from a consortium with some of his fellow Canadians to buy the Coyotes and move the team BACK TO WINNEPEG!!!!

[NoHoJoe]

Can someone truthfully say what the heck the NHL and Bettman have against Jim Balsillie? Is it a legitimate business reason or is it some immature personal one? I mean really, he's loaded, he wants to invest in the league during a stressed economical climate, he wants a team to succeed by putting it in a market that will actually support the team as a social staple and not just a niche, he's familiar with the sport and supports it - not jut jumping on a bandwagon, and he's willing to do whatever it takes to achieve financial stability and success. What on Earth do these guys want?

Phoenix has been given more than a decade to develop a market and fan base and failed. You can blame it on any number of things; poor management, poor market, or just bad luck. But whatever you attribute it to, the team is doing badly, and it is far from an isolated incident. There are several other teams that have been running in the red consistently and some have also toyed with the idea of relocating to a different market to address the matter. Something needs to be done and maybe relocating a few teams to places that actually consider hockey a major league sport is a step in the right direction. I still feel there should be a 2 to 1 ratio of American teams to Canadian ones. I can easily think of 4 teams to move to Canada just as I can think of 4 markets in Canada that could easily be more profitable than the current American ones. I can also think of several American markets that could support hockey better too if one wanted to stay below the 49th. Expansion is out of the question, and the NHL needs to get it through their collective heads that there are some place that cannot support hockey profitably no matter how large the market. It probably helps if you're in a market that has people that play hockey, has schools and colleges that play hockey, have.......winter. Call me silly. Any sport, be it hockey, baseball, football, lacrosse, etc has little chance of being popular if its not in a market that have fans who also play it. Tampa is one of those markets that stands out as an exception to the southern market vortex simply because it has so many transplants from up north...and even that won't carry the franchise forever if not run properly. If relocating some of these teams to places more inclined to support the sport will help stabilize the league overall then I say let them already.

Maybe Bettman needs to step down and go back to basketball. He really didn't see the damage done by stripping Canada of some of its teams, didn't see the danger of over expansion especially in questionable markets, really dropped the ball when it came to the lockouts and has managed the integrity and evolution of the game as poorly as one can. Television? Current fans can't even see the games let lone attracting new ones. If he's going to constantly put up roadblocks against new blood, new money, and new ideas simply because they don't jibe with his master plan, then maybe it's time he should go- before the damage is so widespread that nothing can be done to fix it.

Since the Habs last won the cup back in 1993, The Stanley Cup Should be Renamed THE BETTMAN CUP!!!

[Sodboy13]

Seriously. Get F***ed. Find a bridge.

[FiddySicks]

As a Northern Nevadan, I'd absolutely LOVE to see a pro sports franchise fall flat on it's face in that stink hole.

[The_Admiral]

Couple'a bad posts in here, and they're not even mine for once.

I still haven't seen any real proof that the Reinsdorf/Coyotes (or coytoes) thing isn't a red herring to keep the bankruptcy courts from letting Balsillie get his mitts on the team, given Reinsdorf's ability to avoid bad investments (he won't sign a pitcher long-term, and yet he'll buy a bankrupt hockey team?). Everything's been of the "aw, dang, and here we were JUST about to sell them to...um...let's see...Jerry Reinsdorf, yep!" variety.

This speculation becomes doubly silly when you consider that Las Vegas is anything but a boomtown at this moment, and triply silly when you consider that the reason Reinsdorf's name was bandied about in the first place was his supposed commitment to the city of Glendale.

[Viper]

Does anyone else get the feeling Vegas is going to end up being to the NHL what Tampa Bay used to be to MLB before the Rays, and Los Angeles is to the NFL now - i.e. the city practically every team threatens to move to, but are really just using as leverage to get a better deal in their current city?

[BBTV]

Does anyone else get the feeling Vegas is going to end up being to the NHL what Tampa Bay used to be to MLB before the Rays, and Los Angeles is to the NFL now - i.e. the city practically every team threatens to move to, but are really just using as leverage to get a better deal in their current city?

That's Kansas City. Much like Tampa in the '80s, they actually took the steps to build the place. Tampa nearly had the Giants and White Sox (among others), Kansas City nearly had the Penguins and... well, we'll see.

[The_Admiral]

Yes, but even more transparent a threat.

(Reuters) - The co-chief executive officer of BlackBerry maker Research in Motion Ltd received U.S. antitrust approval to buy the National Hockey League's Phoenix Coyotes, U.S. officials said on Tuesday.

Antitrust authorities completed their review of James Balsillie's deal for the Coyotes without taking any action to block it, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission said in a notice.

Balsillie offered to buy the money-losing hockey team in May when it filed for bankruptcy protection, but his offer is contingent on relocating the Coyotes to Ontario. NHL officials have said the league is committed to keeping the team in Phoenix and have fought with Coyotes' owner Jerry Moyes over who controls the hockey team.

Balsillie has threatened to drop his offer if the team's sale and relocation cannot be agreed upon by June 29.

The Coyotes have not made a profit since moving to Arizona in 1996.

Okay, so where do we go from here?