7/10: Craig Morgan of PHNX Sports reports that Meruelo has signed all necessary paperwork to relinquish his assets to the Arizona Coyotes. As of today, the National Hockey League owns all branding and intellectual property of the Coyotes’ franchise and can sell it to a prospective buyer.
6/25: Alex Meruelo, the owner of the inactive Coyotes franchise, informed staff yesterday that he’s walking away from the club, PHNX Sports’ Craig Morgan reports. The news comes less than a week after the Arizona State Land Department canceled an auction for a parcel of land Meruelo intended to use for a new arena for the franchise, which was officially deactivated this month after its hockey operations were sold to the Salt Lake City-based Smith Entertainment Group.
Meruelo told Coyotes staff yesterday that the franchise has “no plans to pursue further arena options” after the canceled auction, per Morgan. The City of Phoenix attested that Meruelo’s group did not attain the zoning permits necessary to acquire the land in time for the auction.
The news brings a swift end to the initial plan NHL commissioner Gary Bettman laid out in April when he announced the initiation of the transfer of the Coyotes’ hockey ops to SEG, which would then establish a new franchise – the Utah Hockey Club. Meruelo received a reported $1B for Arizona’s players, reserve list, draft picks and front office staff, which he would then pay back to the league as an expansion fee if he was able to construct a new arena within five years. That plan hinged on a contingency of Meruelo having an arena at least halfway built by the end of 2027, which is now impossible without the already last-ditch effort for the parcel of land in question in North Phoenix.
Meruelo retained the branding rights to the Coyotes and ownership of the AHL’s Tucson Roadrunners as part of the sale. It’s unclear if he’s able to transfer the Yotes name and logo to a new owner, who could then try again to establish an expansion franchise in the Phoenix area. As for the Roadrunners, which will remain the minor-league affiliate of the Utah Hockey Club next season, they’ll play all of their home games in Tucson next season. A plan announced last month would have seen the Roadrunners play six regular-season home games out of the 4,600-capacity Mullett Arena on Arizona State University’s campus in Tempe, where the Coyotes played for the past two seasons. However, in line with the cancellation of the auction, that’s no longer the case.
Notably, Morgan reports there are “at least two groups with interest in bringing an expansion team back to Arizona.” However, without a dedicated arena, the timeline for expansion back to the state is likely extended past the five-year window of exclusivity initially afforded to Meruelo.
Meruelo intends to resolve the remaining assets that comprise the Coyotes, Sportico’s Barry M. Bloom reports. That process will involve returning the Coyotes name and logo to the NHL, which will theoretically allow them to sell the branding rights to the next ownership group to apply for expansion in the Phoenix area. He is retaining ownership of AHL Tucson but intends to relocate them to Reno, Nevada, after completion of a new 10,600-capacity venue there, likely ahead of the 2026-27 season.
Arizona hockey may work yet.
@DarkSide830 — Optimistic you are, young Skywalker!
This waste of space couldn’t even get a piece of property zoned correctly. No wonder the rest of it never panned out.
Finally… a step forward!
So basically, Meruelo squeezed as much cash out of this as he could before the Acme anvil fell on his head. Meep, meep!
And still ends up with more money than he can spend in a lifetime. Must be nice haha.
@Gbear — Roadrunner, if he catches you, you’re through! Meep-meep! VOOM! :)
Do you think any of the remaining staff will ever see a final paycheck?
Coyotes laid off most of their remaining staff last week. According to Morgan, they received a severance package that included a one-month paycheck and healthcare through July.
They’ll get paid, but the Meruelo Group will charge a 150% processing fee, so they’ll end up owing him money.
That sounds about right. A billion dollar payday and the staff gets a month of pay and a month of healthcare. That’s a meager send off… if they actually get it.
@Josh — Did Meruelo run out of the coveted “2-for-1 Two bags of pucks and some dirt” coupons for the unlucky former employees?
“Here! Take a few of these. They’re just like real money!”
For the record, the NHL has stated multiple times that Meruelo can’t transfer the rights to the Coyotes to anyone else. With him out of the picture, a new team in Arizona would have to follow the normal expansion process (but given how hard Bettman tried to keep the Coyotes in Arizona, it’s pretty much a foregone conclusion that they’ll get a new team). It’s just a question of when that process can start. Meruelo saying he’s walking away from the team is meaningless. Unless there’s a clause in his agreement with the NHL that lets him opt out (and he activates that clause), it will be a wait until 2027 or at least the date at which it’s no longer possible for an arena to be built by 2027.
The arena situation will still be the major roadblock to bringing the NHL back to Arizona, unless Mat Ishbia/the city of Phoenix are willing to share and renovate the Footprint Center.
“What a maroon!”
— Bugs Bunny
That arsehole is laughing all the way to the bank. He got his $$ and F’d over Coyotes fans in the process.
Please sell or relinquish the Coyotes brand so they can just keep that in Utah and be the Utah Coyotes. It would be far better than whatever those awful finalists are. Keep the Kachina logo alive!
He has the rights to the Coyotes logo? Does that mean whomever brings an expansion team to Phoenix, will not be able to name them the Coyotes?
Too early/don’t have enough information to know for sure.
At this point he still holds the ownership to the rights and unless he sells them to another owner, the Coyotes name and brand is pretty much dead.
I’m not sure if he will or not, because “walking away from ownership” could mean anything, but as far as I can tell this gives no indication that he’s selling anything or if the Coyotes are still inactive.
Also, re: your username…Perge!
Hes not allowed to sell them from what I’m hearing.
Can’t remember where I heard it – 32 Thoughts? – but I believe retention of the name and such was part of the five year contingency and reverts to the NHL if he doesn’t meet the requirements.
1 billion dollars for a worthless franchise, Great scam job!
Now he’s moving the Roadrunners to Reno. Is there no end to the extent to which this guy intends to screw over Arizona hockey fans?
And those of us in Tucson will be without a team a year from now.
good bye to rotten trash
Expansion team to Phoenix really… you had your chance, let’s hope it never happens again
Houston…. Houston…. Houston next up
He knew what he was doing and I’m sure the NHL did too. He wanted out and wanted to get paid for it.
He has no intention of utilizing good faith to put a team in Phoenix, next year, five years from now, or ever.
NHL is lousy at picking rich guy owners. It’s either a Boots or one of these guys. Let’s hope the guy in Ottawa isn’t a moron too.
You could make three riveting full length documentaries about rich/fake rich conmen who got one over on Bettman due to his blind pusuit of US expansion.
To be fair…
As much as I love Mario, he TWICE tried to sell the Pens to con men only to have Bettman (thankfully) stop him.
Also, you forgot Spano (the GOAT of NHL franchise fraud), the fat guy who owned the Kings and ended up in jail whose name escapes me at present, I think DeBartolo did time, Howard Baldwin bought the Pens on credit just to make a terrible movie starring Jean Claude Van Damne and Luc Robitaille….LONG list of infamy.
I believe you are referring to Bruce McNall? Legend in his own mind but ultimately got into legal and financial trouble and had to trade Gretzky and others when meeingt payroll became problematic.
I totally forgot about the iconic Bruce McNall.
Why does hockey seem to attract these people?
Buying into other sports franchises is a high bar, the NHL remains (relatively) affordable, so you get these grifter tryhards who know they wouldn’t be given the time of day by other leagues, but they know they can make promises of cash to people like Bettman and be accepted.
@66TheNumberOfTheBest — Spano temporarily fake-owned the Islanders. Hate on him if you want, but Mikey knew something was rotten in Denmark at the very onset.
The biggest Bettman bet have been break off
Who would you give the next expansion team too?? Phoenix or Atlanta?????
$2 billion later, the answer will be both…unless Houston outbids one of them.
Scanned the NHL for 1 billion dollars for a worthless franchise!
Scammed!
“I’m not even mad, that’s amazing.”
– Ron Burgundy
Hahahahahahahaha!!
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
*** AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA ***
How soon does gary Announce Arizona/Atlanta expansion . He will do that before he retires.
Wtf. If this was the endgame, why didn’t they just give Utah the Coyotes name? Bettman continues to spectacularly achieve as the worst sports executive in history. #UtahYotes
Maybe this can save Utah from using one of those awful names the fans narrowed down for them, lol!
Whatever the marketing company they hired decides what the team name will be.
Actually, they put the team name up for fans to vote on.
link to deseret.com
They all say that. But in reality the marketing company they hired already has the name. They hope the name is brought up by fans so they get a winner. It’s a easy way to get fans excited. A couple teams in the minor league baseball had to extend the “competition” since no one picked the name but finally someone did.
If they used a marketing company, they would’ve come up with cool names like the new ECHL franchises have. This is what happens when you don’t let a good marketing team do their thing.
The Knight Monsters? WT?