[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by flameswin

Is there precedent for this, though? I can't see the NHL being at a point where they have;

a) a team ready to move, and;

b) an ownership group and arena ready

and then saying "Well this would be perfect, except we just re-aligned our divisions, so unfortunately you guys will have to wait until an eastern team is in trouble, but thanks for being ready!!

We've certainly seen the opposite where the league has a team ready to move and an ownership group ready in Winnipeg, and then they just played them in the former team's division until they realigned.

Maybe sureloss or someone else more in the know could point to a time where they've ditched a move over alignment issues, but I just couldn't see them doing it from a business perspective.

It's partly politics and partly money. Detroit was promised to be moved to the East years ago and Columbus apparently as well. This has created an unbalanced league with 16 teams in the East and only 14 in the West. It was done with the obvious plan to expand in the West, QC wasn't part of that plan even though they seem a natural. One part of it may be the American TV contract where saying they have a potential 5.5M American viewers in Phoenix trumps having zero viewers in Quebec.

I can't name a time where they've ditched a move because of alignment issues but this last alignment was made with a plan in place and moving a team from the West to the East wasn't part of it no matter the logic. As for the seeming logic of the move, if logic was the priority, the Coyotes would have been gone to Hamilton, or Kansas City, or Portland years ago.

As for Glendale's motives, they may be able to cut their losses without a deal with the Coyotes.

In additon, Morgan states, “What that lease agreement will look like is anyone’s guess. Glendale City Councilwoman Yvonne Knaack said recently that the annual fee to the city could “be anywhere from $6 (million) to $10 million on operating, and then maybe another $9 million on debt.”
Councilmember Sherwood publicly recognized a figure of at least $10M to $12M annually for a lease management agreement. Vice Mayor Knaack acknowledged a similar figure as well. She is also correct about the arena construction debt of approximately $9M a year. This is where it gets dicey. Will this council accept a deal that requires a substantial annual payment along with the annual construction debt? Combining the two, the figure will be somewhere in the $20M range annually. But that requires this council to cut expenses elsewhere to absorb the costs of the deal and to continue to build a contingency reserve fund. To date there has been absolutely no will to cut by the new council. In fact, they are considering adding 15 firefighter positions and a new $650K truck and 31 police positions to this budget. They simply cannot do both – manage the annual costs associated with the arena while creating new budgetary expenditures.

http://joyceclarkunfiltered.com/glendale-will-they/

Right now they are paying the Coyotes 15M per whereas they could get another arena management company to do it for less (10M to 12M.

Actually the deal with the Coyotes doesn't look that bad since according to TSN they only cost Glendale $8.5M.

The city was then to receive a portion of the revenue generated from the arena's operation. The Coyotes paid the city about $6.5 million last season, meaning the city's net loss on the arena was about $8.5 million.

They want to renegotiate just to save more money. Their argument to cancel the deal is that one of their negotiators had a conflict of interest.

Of course this $8.5M cost doesn't include the $9M per Glendale pays in arena debt. There is no way they get out of that.