Quote:
Originally Posted by PeteMoss
They could win the auction and then open it up to offers - probably have more suitors if they have a place to stay in Arizona instead of just the Utah guy. Try to increase the price.
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I don't know if there would really be any appeal for that. The buyer would still need to build the arena.
I know in Florida, it has long been said that the Violas are willing to lose money with the Panthers because their lease deal on the arena gives them the revenue from all events in the arena and those concerts and other events generate enough revenue for them to more than offset their losses from the Panthers.
The difference is that the building in Florida is publicly-owned, and the terms of the lease require the Panthers to be there for the Violas to get their benefits.
With these sorts of "Stadium District" projects (like the Ice District in Edmonton, Little Caesars in Detroit, Truist Park in Atlanta, etc.), the arena or stadium is the hook that gets the public interested and makes the local government willing to pay for the building while giving the sports team access to the surrounding land for further development.
If Meruelo is truly looking at building this with only private money, you really have to wonder, why even bother with the arena portion of it, when the Phoenix metro area already has two large-scale indoor arenas and the Coyotes have been bleeding money for most of their existence.
If you think about it, it would probably make more sense to build a 15,000 seat venue specifically designed to host concert tours and not even bother with the arena part of it. He'd still get the benefits of having an entertainment district to draw people in without propping up the money-losing Coyotes.