The sale of the Arizona Coyotes to Utah has been formally approved by the NHL’s Board of Governors, per Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli (Twitter link). The vote received unanimous support from the board, shares The Athletic’s Chris Johnston (Twitter link). The NHL has promptly released their first statement on this transition (Web link).
This news brings a quiet end to the long-running saga surrounding the Coyotes search for a home in Arizona. The team has been pushing to build a new arena since their lease ended at Gila River Arena at the end of the 2021-22 season. They searched through many options, ultimately settling on building and sharing a small, 5,000-seat arena with Arizona State University’s hockey teams. The Coyotes played their first game at Mullett Arena in front of a sold-out crowd on October 28, 2022. They’ve since maxed out their attendance in nearly every game since, though the devotion from the fans wasn’t enough to will the team to a new rink. The ownership group, led by Alex Meruelo, ultimately couldn’t find a new parcel of land to build a full-size rink before their timer ran out. After a lot of back-and-forth between the Coyotes ownership and the NHL, it was ultimately decided that the Coyotes will relocate to Salt Lake City for the 2024-25 season.
The decision to relocate has come with a lot of contingencies for Meruelo and the Coyotes brand. Most notably, ESPN’s Greg Wyshynski shares that a return to Arizona wouldn’t require approval from the Board of Governors (Twitter link). Meruelo could instead get his team back quickly by building a full-size arena, with NHL Deputy Commissioner telling Wyshynski, “[Meruelo] has already been approved as an NHL owner.” The Coyotes will continue forward as an “inactive” franchise while Meruelo continues searching for a new home.
The disbandment of the Coyotes has been devastating to fans that have supported the impossible – hockey in the desert – for the past 28 years. Arizona only once averaged below 12,000 attendees prior to their move to Mullett – and it wasn’t by much, averaging 11,989 attendees in the 2009-10 season. But they rebounded well, even averaging 14,606 fans throughout the 2019-20 season. The devotion of Coyotes fans was never once in doubt – a passion made clear by the community’s rallying to support the Coyotes’ last home game on Wednesday, April 17th. Watch parties across Arizona came together to witness one more Coyotes win – a 5-2 victory over the Edmonton Oilers, the same score as their first game as a franchise. The emotions of the evening were captured beautifully by a five-minute sign-off from broadcaster Todd Walsh, who’s covered the team since their 1996 move (Twitter link).
I see Utah in the Pacific and Vegas sliding over to the Central division.
I hope not.
Buy a map.
Vegas 4 hours from Anaheim & LA.
Utah staying in the Central makes less geographic sense than Vegas moving to the Central Rand McNally!
Wilf, 99% of your takes are bad, but this just makes no sense at all.
Wilf, which state borders California, Nevada or Utah?
Yep, let’s take a team that is further west and move it east, then replace that western team with another that is further east. Let’s ignore geography and mess with the rivalries that Vegas has built over seven years.
SLC is further east than Vegas. As is Phoenix. SLC is actually further east than Phoenix. But it makes sense to move them to the Pacific and Vegas to the eastern side of the conference? Now if you wanted to make travel easier I could see a division realignment of Winnipeg, Chicago, Minnesota, Edmonton, Calgary, Seattle, Vancouver, and Utah with the other consisting of LA, Anaheim, San Jose, Vegas, Colorado, Dallas, St. Louis, and Nashville. But then you may as well shuffle the East as well and put Toronto, Detroit, Ottawa, Montreal, Boston, Columbus, Buffalo, and Pittsburgh in one and Florida, Tampa, Carolina, Washington, NYI, NYR, NJD, Phili in the other. But I think the league is comfortable with alignment right now.
Maybe when Phoenix gets another team, Atlanta returns, and 2 of Houston, KC, Cincinnati, and Quebec City get teams they can look into realignment.
F
Are they bringing the Coyotes name with them to Utah? They should leave it in AZ and pick a new nickname.
It’s going to be a new name.
@LetsGoDodgers — Not only leave it in AZ, but bury it in the desert somewhere, make it look like an on-purpose, then use good sense for a new Utah-centric name.
So Meruelo (and the NHL) were a LOT further along in the “sell the team” process than either of them actually let on.
Starting to think that this deal has been in the works since he bought the team. He’s making a $575m net profit on a $425m purchase in 2019. Recent valuation was $625m, yet he got $375m more, almost 50% more.
Never was a chance of getting a new arena built, and biggest joke was even the dump site turned them down – that was his joke on Phoenix. And then playing at a college rink.
Like taking candy from a baby, he must think.
I like the logic but I don’t see merulo as that savvy a character. I could definitely be wrong though!
He always tries to sell himself off as a Cuban emigre who swam over escaping Castro then you read his parents were accountants and he was a millionaire in his twenties. Meruelo is owner of
Meruelo Group
Arizona Coyotes (NHL)
KWHY-TV and KBEH
KLOS, KLLI, KPWR, KDAY and KDEY-FM
Fuji Food
Grand Sierra Resort
Sahara Las Vegas
Colom Island
Thinking this deal was set the day before he bought the team. Kinda sleazy.
$425m purchase? I read a couple articles that put the price closer to $300-325m. Andrew Barroway was broke when he sold.
Wow, Jealous much?
I thought it was $300m but latest figures said $425m and I just wanted to err on the side of the latest numbers. I believe closer to $300m and thus he netted $700m.
I hear he netted $300-350 due to what he owed from playing at Mullet and lack of revenue. He would be crazy to jump back in and pay $1 billion for expansion team. Plus he has a bad name in AZ.
You have the right numbers as his operating expenses were not covered by 82 games played in a stadium a fourth the standard size. Not sure if we’ll see an NHL team in Phoenix for a long time, as the Utah, Vegas, and So Cal teams will soon have all the AZ fan base.
That sale took as long as it takes the Pens to blow a 2 goal lead.
I think the NHL was finally fed up with the entire tainted history of the Coyotes. They had to do it while they had someone willing to pay 1.3 billion
Start the raffle for new franchise names…
Utah cactus?
I like the Yeti.
Utah Ska.
Pairs well with the Utah jazz for musical themes that have nothing to do with the state!
Utah Grunge
I hope they come up with a better name than the basketball team did by keeping Jazz! Are there any actual jazz clubs in the state of Utah?
Utah never changed the name after relocating from New Orleans in 1979. Odd but true
5,000,000 people live in the Phoenix metropolitan area and last night 3000 showed up and 1000 were from Edmonton. Arizonians love to keep their taxes out of private construction enterprises, so we got what we demanded. 4,997,000 Phoenix people had something better to do last night and for the past 30 years. Diamondbacks average 31,000 for 81 home games. Save the tears.
The Dbacks are actually competitive.
Yeah, but imagine them playing in a college baseball stadium. What NHL player wants to sign with a team that plays in a park smaller than he would in the minors. I’m a long-time Coyotes fan, but until we get a finished arena, we’re not a major league franchise. And Phoenix is not a hockey market, so it better be a multi-use stadium.
Glad this is finally over.
Finally an end to this. Feel bad for Coyotes fans, but good for Utahans.
There will continue to be 8 teams in the Central, And 8 teams in the Pacific. Everyone is a critic but nobody has a better idea. LMAO!
The Utah NHL entry has filed 5 team names with the U.S. patent office. All really bad names!
What are they? Swarm? Sting? Stuff like that? Yeti?
I don’t like the bee stuff. I get the connection, but it seems a bit too unintimidating.
Let’s see if they can come up with a name worse than Golden Knights. I’m betting so.
Golden Eagles
I was hoping for Stingers.
The team was mostly uncompetitive during its tenure in Phoenix. They won 2 playoff series in 28 years. Also, this is a Suns town, so if they bring back the franchise, they had better win and win consistently.
Ten long, tortuous days ago, I suggested the new team in SLC be named the Salt Lake City Golden Eagles, in spite of a nagging feeling that I had heard that used before. Thanks to a new article on NHL.com, now I know where I had heard it. They existed across 5 different leagues from 1969-1994. As the Hall-of-Famer in Pittsburgh would say, “I’ve seen that fish before!” Thanks, Mikey!
The Colorado Eagles are the Avalanche minor league affiliate and it might be too close in similarity for the league to like it.
Yep; I remembered them best when they had an affiliation with the Seals.
@wreckage — That occurred to me too, after the fact. And, for the time being, at least, they want to go with the Utah Something-or-Others. Now, it’s back to the drawing board of ideas…
SLC Golden Eagles at one point were the top farm team for the California Golden Seals
“They’ve since maxed out their attendance in nearly every game since,“ favourite line of the article. All that needs to be said about hockey in Arizona. They couldn’t even fill a 5000 seat arena. Too bad for fans though, I like their young team, think they’ll be good sooner than later.
I missed that! That is perhaps the most devious bit of yellow journalism I’ve ever read. Like being “undefeated” after an opening day win.
@DigbyGuy — Have you done a spot audit on their NHL game sheets? Attendance numbers that almost look rubber-stamped at 4,600 for every home game. That’s stinky.
Blizzard, Venom, Fury, HC, and Hockey Club are the names up for trademark. All under the state name not city name as well. Sorry, but I think the Utah Yeti just rolls off the tongue better and has a better marketing potential.
Plus a corporate sponsor right off the bat.
Singular nicknames need to be banned.