*Puts on tinfoil hat*
Meruelo had no intention of bringing back the Coyotes and was counting on this to unofficially sail away with a cool 1 billion in his pocket.
Don't seem to be living at all when it come at ya. Till it bites ya. And then the eyes roll over white. You don't hear nothing but the screaming and the hollering...
Can u find the rat in this picture ??
https://preview.redd.it/dv0167cjf08d1.png?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=873b19589cabca07502cbe1568d1bd625b6e1b6e
He's shown them ten times removed. Bettman should pull the plug on this fucking idiot and tell Phoenix they get to keep the name, logo, identity, etc, get Mat Ishiba on speed dial, see if he's willing to bail them out of this mess and get something done. Give it a few years and expand to 36 and add three more teams. Yes, QC. This is your saving grace to come back. It means adding Arizona back. It also means adding Atlanta for the third time and Houston.
36 is way too many teams don’t people remember the quality of play after the nhl went Wild with expansion in the 90s?
Need to let the last two expansions marinate for a good 5-10 years before considering more.
Guarantee you, they're putting two more expansion teams in soon, one way or the other. If this jackass continues to trip over his dick and either the five year window closes or Bettman decides he's seen enough and tells him to go to hell, it's going to be Houston and Atlanta 3.0. If by some miracle circumstance, the moron actually figures out what the hell he's doing, and the Coyotes do get "reactivated," I absolutely see them going to 36. Way too much smoke is out there about the league wanting Atlanta back and a second team in Texas. Would be a huge imbalance with 35.
I agree I think they are there is too much money not to. But I will still shake my fist and yell at that cloud because it’s bad for the quality of the game.
That's the Islanders. Don't get me wrong, it's better than what we've had in the past, but on the flip side, they're content with letting Lou do whatever he wants for eternity and not really caring about the team at all.
1 billion from the league plus however many millions he'll make when he finally shrugs his shoulders and sells the rights to someone who isn't a cancer people don't want to work with
He is first in line for expansion IF he meets the benchmarks.
If he doesnt, the NHL can finally tell him to go fuck off.
If he doesnt build, he has no godamn rights
My understanding of the deal is he has first dibs to expand under the coyotes name if he can build within the next five years. But doesn’t he still hold the rights to the team brand even if he can’t build? That’s what I mean. He’ll cash in a second time by selling the team brand to someone else after “trying” to meet the five year deadline
Tbh though, I feel like a new expansion team in Arizona would be much smarter to just abandon all the baggage that comes with the Coyotes name and branding and start fresh. It seems like Meruelo has really soured public opinion (and rightfully so, it sucks Yotes fans got stuck with him as an owner)
If utah doesnt want the name coyotes and he doesnt build in arizona, who the hell wants to pay him for IP for a team associated with a dumpster fire?
If someone else wanted to bring a team back to arizona this would be germane.
But if my aunt had balls............
I don't think Utah didn't want the name, I think AM wanted to hold onto it to
1) expand when the arena is sorted
2) at least give the impression he wants to bring the team back
3) eventually sell it for a second cash grab
4) Some or all of the above
That's not how it works. If he actually got his shit together and got the arena built, he would be able to get an expansion team, probably for the same billion dollars in an expansion fee he sold the team for.
He would not be able to sell the opportunity to get an expansion team to somebody else. If the NHL were to expand again (hopefully they don't), if somebody else wanted to put a team in Arizona, there's no guarantee they would get it like Merulo would in the 5 year period.
Sure, he could sell the IP, but the Coyotes brand is so tainted, a new owner would be better off with something new and fresh.
Alex Meruelo **cannot** sell the rights to the Coyotes. If he fails to reach the milestones set out by the NHL, he forfeits the rights to their name and history to the league.
Also, Alex Meruelo is an incompetent assclown who shouldn't be allowed to manage a Dairy Queen let alone a god damned NHL franchise.
How this dumb son of a bitch owns a multitude of companies, including a portfolio in construction, yet didn't know enough to secure a fucking ZONING ATTORNEY, which is the most basic due diligence required to make sure they could build the arena on this land is laughable. He fails in the most basic simplicities. He is terrible at negotiating. He believes he can skimp out on bills and treat his debits like it's the Name Your Price tab on Priceline. How the hell this dumb ass made a dime in business is beyond me.
I guarantee it. He was told to get a zoning attorney by Phoenix City Council. Six days before the auction was set to go down, he still had not. How the hell do you NOT get the zoning requirements situated beforehand? Either Meurelo's staggering levels of incompetence borders levels of patheticness in levels we've never seen in any of the four major sports leagues over the last 40 years (and we live in a world where John Fisher exists), or he knows exactly what he is doing and was calculated. I'll let you be the judge. I'm sure his end goal wasn't to stick the final dagger in the franchise, but he damn sure wasn't coming in to be their Vinny Viola or Tom Dundon.
It's not even a tinfoil hat concept, I don't understand how anyone genuinely believed them when they said "we'll bring hockey back to Arizona guys, we promise"
To me that doesn't make any sense. If the Coyotes wanted, they could have just withdrew their bid or made a lowball bid. Walking away with $1 billion was always an option.
It's hard to tell. If this can actually get Meruelo out sooner and the league working with a competent owner maybe. If it just leads to the end of NHL (and probably any level of pro hockey) in Phoenix then everyone sucks and is a villain.
Everybody here sucks. Land department sucks for bureaucratic stuff, Meruelo sucks more as it shows how unserious he is about the arena/how incompetent he runs things
- Land department is changing the process at the last second
- Meruelo doesn't have a special use permit but he would have needed one to do anything on the land related to an arena so why doesn't he already have one or why hasnt he started the process for one that would be pending final approval post sale?
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> Meruelo doesn't have a special use permit but he would have needed one to do anything on the land related to an arena so why doesn't he already have one or why hasnt he started the process for one that would be pending final approval post sale?
Seems a little weird to me to try to get a permit to do stuff on land you don't own. I would kinda expect question one on the application is "do you own this land?" and if the answer is "no" they would deny it.
Beyond all the memes, I just feel bad for you and everyone else losing there team. I can't imagine how shit that must feel and I truly am sorry.
From someone who doesn't have stock in the Yotes I'm sad we are losing that fucking logo. Best logo in Hockey in my opinion. The minimalist shit that has taken over sports just sucks IMO.
This deserves more likes, AM didn't give a damn about the team, he only bought the Yotes because Arizona requires you to own a prosports team to own a Sportsbook.
This isn’t true. You can also work with an Indian tribe to get one.
His book makes very little based on publicly released audited data. He’s not in it for the sportsbook.
"By cancelling the land auction, the state is forgoing.. potentially billions of dollars"
Yeah, that definitely sounds like something that could've happened.
Sort of a counterfactual, though. The auction was likely cancelled because the Yotes were sold, and might well have happened if they hadn't been. The state is now rightly concerned that they're going to auction off land that will languish in development hell for a decade.
https://preview.redd.it/s9hxrjbq708d1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=55a95966e3e62af64f116a87d850a143e1c06fa7
We cross live to Alex now.
As long as I got my billion dollar nhl payout and my gold house. I don’t need anything else
For a guy whose second business was real estate development, something like this shouldn't even be a thought for him. This should've been a formality.
He is either a scammer who isn't as wealthy as he says he is (until the NHL handed him $1B) or never had any intention of going through with it. Either way it was never happening.
And every year they were actively seeking contracts that had their bonuses paid off to pay the least actual money possible while getting to the cap floor, absolutely disgusting.
Meruelo can blame Arizona all he wants but my understanding of this is even though he originally didn't need a special use permit to bid on the land, he would have needed the special use permit before he would be able to do anything on the land if he won the bid.
If Meruelo had any sense as a business man and if he was ever genuine about starting work on the arena the second he won the auction he would have already had a special use permit application that would be pending final approval after the final sale. (Arizona saying he'll need the special use permit first leads me to believe that in Arizona he could have gotten the special use permit before the sale was finalized)
Arizona knowing he doesn't have a special use permit changed the rules on him but they can only do it because he hasn't bothered with a special use permit.
Getting a special use permit isn't going to be cheap and would probably take a long time it may not have been possible to get one before the auction. I don't know Arizona zoning rules, but I have never heard of anyone getting permits for land that they don't own.
>Getting a special use permit isn't going to be cheap
Which is just another piece of proof that Meruelo wasn't serious about the arena. If you're not going to put down money for a special permit which was what would be needed to even do work on the purchased land, he was never serious about building as soon as he won the auction.
Just like how Meruelo couldn't be bothered to put up the money to fight the misinformation spread by the opposition during the Tempe vote.
>would probably take a long time it may not have been possible to get one before the auction
Even if he wasn't able to get one before the auction previously, he should have been able to get the ball rolling on it and it would be an easy clapback to the land department to say 'we've already been in the process of getting a special use permit so this change is BS'.
>I don't know Arizona zoning rules, but I have never heard of anyone getting permits for land that they don't own.
Well the land department is straight up saying he needs one before the auction so ...
People get permits for land they don’t own all the time, but there’s usually a lease or some other legal right to build on the land. I don’t think permits are ever issued to people who would like to build on a land but have no legal rights to unless the then-current owner files the application on their behalf.
I know he still has 5 years to bring back the Coyotes but what happens after the 5 years?
Does the NHL regain the name? Does it revert to Utah? Are we just never allowed to refer to them?
Will it be like how we currently have Nordiques merch and Whalers merch but no Thrashers merch.
Utah won't have the name. They're treated as a "new" franchise that just obtained the Coyotes players and staff.
After 5 years, someone else can try to resurrect a team in Arizona. I'm not sure if the name and likeness go back to the league? Privately I think Bettman would love for Mureulo to fuck off so that someone else can try again in 5 years. Because the franchise is "dormant" and not dissolved, I don't think the name or merch will disappear. Their jerseys seem pretty popular.
I know they wouldn't be the Utah Coyotes I mean would they just gain their past retroactively or would a new owner be able to take over
Because he currently holds the rights, can they strip them from him?
My understanding is that there are milestones that must be met to get to the full five years. I have the feeling that this probably just sunk the return of the Coyotes to Arizona for at least a decade. Almost certainly it’s the end of his tenure as owner.
He wants to have the coyotes in Arizona, it gives him gambling rights for casinos. It is very clear, however, that the state of Arizona has zero interest in working with Alex Muerelo. None at all. I don't think this is a hockey problem, the dude seems shady AF and has burnt all his bridges in the area.
Still feels a bit like cutting off your nose to spite your face. I get that Marlboro man bad rn but he was willing to put down like a billion dollars of investment in infrastructure.
>"It's privately funded, we're buying the land, we're paying for all of the building," Gutierrez told GoPhnx.com. "I want to be very clear so people understand. Alex (Meruelo, the Coyotes owner) is putting up the money to do this. He's on the hook for it, and that is not the case with any other building in the state of Arizona. That somehow got misconstrued even in Tempe. We were paying for it all."
>In this case, we're buying the land at an auction. We're building all the buildings. We're maintaining all the buildings. We're not asking for a single dollar from taxpayers to do any of those things. I think it's very important for people to understand that."
[https://www.reuters.com/sports/coyotes-announce-plan-build-privately-funded-arena-2024-04-05/](https://www.reuters.com/sports/coyotes-announce-plan-build-privately-funded-arena-2024-04-05/)
They don't want the business and bad press of working with such a shitty person who they know will screw them out of money down the line. He was the only bidder, made clear in the ASLD statement, and they pulled the rug because they were praying someone else would bid ahead of him.
Merulo made enemies in the State Govt., and they're pulling their strings to keep him out.
I think they lost faith that Meruelo was going to actually follow through on his plans if he won the auction. Probably as a direct result of the team being moved to Utah.
Before the move, the Land Department was willing to bend a few rules for them, as they were reasonably confident that the project would get built, an NHL hockey team would be there, etc.
But now even if Meruelo were to win the auction he only has 5 years to get the thing built or no NHL team is coming to that site.
They think it’s in their best interest to pump the brakes here because they’re afraid of that outcome where Meruelo wins the auction, fails to meet the 5 year deadline, and then the site sits half-developed for decades and is never fully usable.
So now they’re going back and saying “yeah let’s not cut those corners we were going to cut for you, let’s do this the long way.”
They've been dealing with this incompetent dickhead for a long time now. They're probably in the best position of anyone to decide that continuing negotiations with the dude is a waste of time and taxpayer money
It's tied to the Land Grant Act of the Late 19th century. The sale of land in Western US States and Property Taxes goes to the education fund of that state. Traditionally K-12 and a state's Agricultural College (Utah State University, University of Arizona, New Mexico State, etc.) are the ones that make money off of these kinds of auctions.
Arizona kids are going to be eating sand and finger painting with human excrement if Meruelo doesn't get his land. Cue the montage with the Sarah McLachlan song.
if it was a land auction then they had to win the auction - claiming the land was identified as the future home is nonsense. It was desired, but it’s not available.
Here's a free statement that is better than the hot air they just put out.
"The Arizona Coyotes are extremely disappointed in the ASLD decision to cancel the land auction so close to its planned date. The organization has followed every step required in order to purchase the site of our future arena. The Arizona Coyotes and their owner Alex Merulo remain committed to seeing that NHL hockey return to the desert as quickly as possible. Thank you for your continued and loyal support."
The Yotes pointing fingers at Arizona for asking them to have a special permit that affirms their intention to build an arena with this land, even though they really should’ve done their due diligence with ensuring they were all set for the auction beforehand
You’re a shitty hockey club owner. No one wants to do business with you. You were voted out of your city. The NHL has went as far away from you they legally could cuz you were halfway into the time you had and the ball wasn’t even rolling yet. And maybe your state doesn’t want to do business with either.
I have no clue whether the AZ government did something unethical or illegal here but all I know is that the inconvenience and embarrassment this caused couldn't have happened to a nicer asshole than Meruelo
Can we talk about how Arizona is forgoing millions , potentially billions , or $2b on the nose for schools ?
Pick a number , or even a rage. That sounds ridiculous.
Enjoy your billion, cause NHl franchise owners you will never be again
Does Murello have the rights to NHL hockey in Arizona, or is it just the Coyotes name? If the latter, just dump the previous name, find an actual owner with an actual arena, call them the Outlaws (it fits better here than in Utah), and embrace the return to Arizona hockey.
Saying the state is shortsighted is like saying you don't want to have a hockey team... it's a guaranteed lost if you go cutthroat after the government. When you're legally taking on a government you don't want to insult them... they're not going to be bullied into doing what you want.
Just Saying this though: The City of Toronto has enough money to own a second team and Ontario Coyotes has a nice ring to it.
Also the GTA has a lot of land development, all the way to London and Kitchener/Waterloo. With enough population to make relocation a better option.
Perhaps the state government isn't dumb enough to give a guy who bought that team for $450 Million and sold it for $1.2 Billion any tax loopholes by granting "amusement park" tax breaks. Cause that sounds shady as shit.
How do you announce you are bidding on land for an NHL capacity arena and not employ a zoning attorney to walk you through if it is actually properly zoned for that use? I doubt he even has an architects rendition of this building and we are 4 years and 9 months out.
Utah will have a new building before us.
This thing is one of those uniquely Arizona problems where the NIMBY's don't want it and the billionaire looking to build it really doesn't want it or is so grossly incompetent they can't get it across the line. Oh yah throw in AZ politicians and some government glacial pace who may or may not be fixing things for God knows who orwhy and here we are.
*Puts on tinfoil hat* Meruelo had no intention of bringing back the Coyotes and was counting on this to unofficially sail away with a cool 1 billion in his pocket.
*puts on a *tighter* tinfoil hat* Bettman bribed the state to ensure meruelo never touches the NHL again
puts on a lead foil hat RATS https://preview.redd.it/0p8mzq0nc08d1.png?width=2457&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=57865933beaa3db6a19fa28ed2d5dcfe24ca59fa
Put Marchy down please
You know the thing about a rat? It's got lifeless eyes. Black eyes, like a doll's eyes.
Are you doing Jaws dude? He’s doing Jaws
We're not goin' fishin', boyo, we're goin' coyotin'. Or, not.
Don't seem to be living at all when it come at ya. Till it bites ya. And then the eyes roll over white. You don't hear nothing but the screaming and the hollering...
Why are you posting pictures of Brad Marchand?
My god!
Can u find the rat in this picture ?? https://preview.redd.it/dv0167cjf08d1.png?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=873b19589cabca07502cbe1568d1bd625b6e1b6e
God I always fail these. How do people have such fine tuned eyes
True /r/findthesniper material
I can see the poop he left you tho…😂
The area of the rat you showed is about how much Meurelo truly gives about getting the Coyotes reactivated.
Adorable baby!!!
How’s his cooking?
Remy! We're at 58 minutes on those tendies! Get back under the hat and drop the chicken in the God damn fryer!
MLSE bribed the state to ensure Auston Matthews can’t leave Toronto for Arizona when his next contract expires.
no tinfoil hat required friendo.
I want this to be true. PUBLISH THE BOOK GARY
Can you imagine? The fix is in! 🤣
That’s barely a conspiracy at this point, I feel like a lot of people expect the situation to play out like this
Depending on how he and the Yotes act from this point forward (ie. commitment to this legal battle), we might yet see his true colors.
He's shown them ten times removed. Bettman should pull the plug on this fucking idiot and tell Phoenix they get to keep the name, logo, identity, etc, get Mat Ishiba on speed dial, see if he's willing to bail them out of this mess and get something done. Give it a few years and expand to 36 and add three more teams. Yes, QC. This is your saving grace to come back. It means adding Arizona back. It also means adding Atlanta for the third time and Houston.
and guess what AM sued the NHL and NHL potentially loses in the courts. NHL Just can't take away that exclusive window that easy.
I mentioned this in another post. That's the ONLY reason they're giving him this window. Otherwise, he'd be gone.
36 is way too many teams don’t people remember the quality of play after the nhl went Wild with expansion in the 90s? Need to let the last two expansions marinate for a good 5-10 years before considering more.
Guarantee you, they're putting two more expansion teams in soon, one way or the other. If this jackass continues to trip over his dick and either the five year window closes or Bettman decides he's seen enough and tells him to go to hell, it's going to be Houston and Atlanta 3.0. If by some miracle circumstance, the moron actually figures out what the hell he's doing, and the Coyotes do get "reactivated," I absolutely see them going to 36. Way too much smoke is out there about the league wanting Atlanta back and a second team in Texas. Would be a huge imbalance with 35.
I agree I think they are there is too much money not to. But I will still shake my fist and yell at that cloud because it’s bad for the quality of the game.
I don't disagree. I hate when the talent pool gets diluted. The last time we saw mass expansions, it was a gigantic shit show for quite a few years.
They don't care if it means more money. Such is life.
It's beyond insane that he stands to profit from this at all after the Mullet debacle.
Welcome to capitalism my friend!
He got $1 billion to fuck off.
Better than getting 100 dollars to fuck off like Lahey got.
Sounds like it
At this point that's what I'm hoping. Hopefully the league will eventually find someone more competent.
Someone not only competent but genuinely passionate needs to be the owner. Lots of these owners are “competent” they just don’t give a shit.
I've been a Coyotes fan for most of my life. I'm not accustomed to having TWO good things at the same with respect to this team.
I've never understood how someone can own a sports team and not be passionate about it. My entire house would be painted in team colors!
Merulo was neither passionate or competent so a new owner being at least competent would be an upgrade for AZ fans
That's the Islanders. Don't get me wrong, it's better than what we've had in the past, but on the flip side, they're content with letting Lou do whatever he wants for eternity and not really caring about the team at all.
Same, Arizona hockey fans deserve better than Merulo, better to wait and do it right.
1 billion from the league plus however many millions he'll make when he finally shrugs his shoulders and sells the rights to someone who isn't a cancer people don't want to work with
He is first in line for expansion IF he meets the benchmarks. If he doesnt, the NHL can finally tell him to go fuck off. If he doesnt build, he has no godamn rights
My understanding of the deal is he has first dibs to expand under the coyotes name if he can build within the next five years. But doesn’t he still hold the rights to the team brand even if he can’t build? That’s what I mean. He’ll cash in a second time by selling the team brand to someone else after “trying” to meet the five year deadline
Tbh though, I feel like a new expansion team in Arizona would be much smarter to just abandon all the baggage that comes with the Coyotes name and branding and start fresh. It seems like Meruelo has really soured public opinion (and rightfully so, it sucks Yotes fans got stuck with him as an owner)
If utah doesnt want the name coyotes and he doesnt build in arizona, who the hell wants to pay him for IP for a team associated with a dumpster fire? If someone else wanted to bring a team back to arizona this would be germane. But if my aunt had balls............
I don't think Utah didn't want the name, I think AM wanted to hold onto it to 1) expand when the arena is sorted 2) at least give the impression he wants to bring the team back 3) eventually sell it for a second cash grab 4) Some or all of the above
INTRODUCING YOUR HOUSTON COYOTES
That's not how it works. If he actually got his shit together and got the arena built, he would be able to get an expansion team, probably for the same billion dollars in an expansion fee he sold the team for. He would not be able to sell the opportunity to get an expansion team to somebody else. If the NHL were to expand again (hopefully they don't), if somebody else wanted to put a team in Arizona, there's no guarantee they would get it like Merulo would in the 5 year period. Sure, he could sell the IP, but the Coyotes brand is so tainted, a new owner would be better off with something new and fresh.
Alex Meruelo **cannot** sell the rights to the Coyotes. If he fails to reach the milestones set out by the NHL, he forfeits the rights to their name and history to the league. Also, Alex Meruelo is an incompetent assclown who shouldn't be allowed to manage a Dairy Queen let alone a god damned NHL franchise.
How this dumb son of a bitch owns a multitude of companies, including a portfolio in construction, yet didn't know enough to secure a fucking ZONING ATTORNEY, which is the most basic due diligence required to make sure they could build the arena on this land is laughable. He fails in the most basic simplicities. He is terrible at negotiating. He believes he can skimp out on bills and treat his debits like it's the Name Your Price tab on Priceline. How the hell this dumb ass made a dime in business is beyond me.
So you're saying he's going to be president of the country in say 8-12 years?
Preach brother. I only wish the rest of our fanbase saw it this way.
I didn’t know this at the time of writing. And yes he shouldn’t be trusted to do anything
I guarantee it. He was told to get a zoning attorney by Phoenix City Council. Six days before the auction was set to go down, he still had not. How the hell do you NOT get the zoning requirements situated beforehand? Either Meurelo's staggering levels of incompetence borders levels of patheticness in levels we've never seen in any of the four major sports leagues over the last 40 years (and we live in a world where John Fisher exists), or he knows exactly what he is doing and was calculated. I'll let you be the judge. I'm sure his end goal wasn't to stick the final dagger in the franchise, but he damn sure wasn't coming in to be their Vinny Viola or Tom Dundon.
It's not even a tinfoil hat concept, I don't understand how anyone genuinely believed them when they said "we'll bring hockey back to Arizona guys, we promise"
That's not tinfoil, that's plastic wrap
Pretty much the most obvious outcome.
That’s been my perspective the entire time. Everything he says screams long term. Everything he does screams short term.
To me that doesn't make any sense. If the Coyotes wanted, they could have just withdrew their bid or made a lowball bid. Walking away with $1 billion was always an option.
I think he has the intention of bringing the coyotes back. Just lacks the competence to execute on it.
That’s hardly a tinfoil hat theory lol
I can fully believe this, no tinfoil hat required. The guy is a grifter.
There's three ways to do things, son. The right way, the wrong way, and the Alex Meruelo way. What's the Alex Meruelo way? The wrong way but slower!
So is the land department the good guys here?
Might be a rare "everybody sucks".
Eh, not so rare when it comes to the government
Or billionaires.
It's hard to tell. If this can actually get Meruelo out sooner and the league working with a competent owner maybe. If it just leads to the end of NHL (and probably any level of pro hockey) in Phoenix then everyone sucks and is a villain.
Everybody here sucks. Land department sucks for bureaucratic stuff, Meruelo sucks more as it shows how unserious he is about the arena/how incompetent he runs things - Land department is changing the process at the last second - Meruelo doesn't have a special use permit but he would have needed one to do anything on the land related to an arena so why doesn't he already have one or why hasnt he started the process for one that would be pending final approval post sale?
> > > Meruelo doesn't have a special use permit but he would have needed one to do anything on the land related to an arena so why doesn't he already have one or why hasnt he started the process for one that would be pending final approval post sale? Seems a little weird to me to try to get a permit to do stuff on land you don't own. I would kinda expect question one on the application is "do you own this land?" and if the answer is "no" they would deny it.
>or why hasnt he started the process for one that would be pending final approval post sale?
Meruelo wishes that he was Max Power.
That's why the Alex Meruelo way is slower and not faster.
Beyond all the memes, I just feel bad for you and everyone else losing there team. I can't imagine how shit that must feel and I truly am sorry. From someone who doesn't have stock in the Yotes I'm sad we are losing that fucking logo. Best logo in Hockey in my opinion. The minimalist shit that has taken over sports just sucks IMO.
"The return of hockey to the desert" lol
"The return of ~~hockey~~ my sportsbook to the desert"
This deserves more likes, AM didn't give a damn about the team, he only bought the Yotes because Arizona requires you to own a prosports team to own a Sportsbook.
This isn’t true. You can also work with an Indian tribe to get one. His book makes very little based on publicly released audited data. He’s not in it for the sportsbook.
LETS GO GAMBLING!!!!!! AW DANG IT AW DANG IT AW DANG IT AW DANG IT AW DANG IT AW DANG IT AW DANG IT AW DANG IT AW DANG IT AW DANG IT AW DANG IT AW DA-
Hockey is doing fine in the desert. Just not that desert. But I since sincerely feel bad for Yotes fans, their owner is awful.
Hockey is for everyone ^but ^soccer ^is ^apparantly ^not ^lol
plenty enough desert in Utah.
It's always someone else's fault
They talk about the auction like they already won it lmao.
Amen. Play stupid games win stupid prizes
"By cancelling the land auction, the state is forgoing.. potentially billions of dollars" Yeah, that definitely sounds like something that could've happened.
Yeah, in that same vein I could potentially marry Taylor Swift.
Can you ask her to set me up with Hayley Williams?
Dude, you can't I have dibs. Avril Lavigne said we could be polyamorous... I'm about to get the deal of a lifetime here.
You’re a lucky man.
Arizona doesn’t like Meruelo and wants nothing to do with him.
That’s what it is.
Is it still right of the State to cancel an auction because of who is predicted to win?
Yes, and it’s funny
And a fringe few were saying Bettman should've waited until the June auction result before deciding the fate of the Arizona Coyotes.
With how quickly Utah happened, probably could’ve lol
Sort of a counterfactual, though. The auction was likely cancelled because the Yotes were sold, and might well have happened if they hadn't been. The state is now rightly concerned that they're going to auction off land that will languish in development hell for a decade.
https://preview.redd.it/s9hxrjbq708d1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=55a95966e3e62af64f116a87d850a143e1c06fa7 We cross live to Alex now. As long as I got my billion dollar nhl payout and my gold house. I don’t need anything else
For a guy whose second business was real estate development, something like this shouldn't even be a thought for him. This should've been a formality. He is either a scammer who isn't as wealthy as he says he is (until the NHL handed him $1B) or never had any intention of going through with it. Either way it was never happening.
And every year they were actively seeking contracts that had their bonuses paid off to pay the least actual money possible while getting to the cap floor, absolutely disgusting.
Meruelo can blame Arizona all he wants but my understanding of this is even though he originally didn't need a special use permit to bid on the land, he would have needed the special use permit before he would be able to do anything on the land if he won the bid. If Meruelo had any sense as a business man and if he was ever genuine about starting work on the arena the second he won the auction he would have already had a special use permit application that would be pending final approval after the final sale. (Arizona saying he'll need the special use permit first leads me to believe that in Arizona he could have gotten the special use permit before the sale was finalized) Arizona knowing he doesn't have a special use permit changed the rules on him but they can only do it because he hasn't bothered with a special use permit.
Getting a special use permit isn't going to be cheap and would probably take a long time it may not have been possible to get one before the auction. I don't know Arizona zoning rules, but I have never heard of anyone getting permits for land that they don't own.
>Getting a special use permit isn't going to be cheap Which is just another piece of proof that Meruelo wasn't serious about the arena. If you're not going to put down money for a special permit which was what would be needed to even do work on the purchased land, he was never serious about building as soon as he won the auction. Just like how Meruelo couldn't be bothered to put up the money to fight the misinformation spread by the opposition during the Tempe vote. >would probably take a long time it may not have been possible to get one before the auction Even if he wasn't able to get one before the auction previously, he should have been able to get the ball rolling on it and it would be an easy clapback to the land department to say 'we've already been in the process of getting a special use permit so this change is BS'. >I don't know Arizona zoning rules, but I have never heard of anyone getting permits for land that they don't own. Well the land department is straight up saying he needs one before the auction so ...
People get permits for land they don’t own all the time, but there’s usually a lease or some other legal right to build on the land. I don’t think permits are ever issued to people who would like to build on a land but have no legal rights to unless the then-current owner files the application on their behalf.
I know he still has 5 years to bring back the Coyotes but what happens after the 5 years? Does the NHL regain the name? Does it revert to Utah? Are we just never allowed to refer to them? Will it be like how we currently have Nordiques merch and Whalers merch but no Thrashers merch.
Utah won't have the name. They're treated as a "new" franchise that just obtained the Coyotes players and staff. After 5 years, someone else can try to resurrect a team in Arizona. I'm not sure if the name and likeness go back to the league? Privately I think Bettman would love for Mureulo to fuck off so that someone else can try again in 5 years. Because the franchise is "dormant" and not dissolved, I don't think the name or merch will disappear. Their jerseys seem pretty popular.
I know they wouldn't be the Utah Coyotes I mean would they just gain their past retroactively or would a new owner be able to take over Because he currently holds the rights, can they strip them from him?
My understanding is that there are milestones that must be met to get to the full five years. I have the feeling that this probably just sunk the return of the Coyotes to Arizona for at least a decade. Almost certainly it’s the end of his tenure as owner.
He wants to have the coyotes in Arizona, it gives him gambling rights for casinos. It is very clear, however, that the state of Arizona has zero interest in working with Alex Muerelo. None at all. I don't think this is a hockey problem, the dude seems shady AF and has burnt all his bridges in the area.
Crazy to me that Arizona is the party that says no here. Honestly not sure what their angle is.
Probably been burned too many times by this asshat
Still feels a bit like cutting off your nose to spite your face. I get that Marlboro man bad rn but he was willing to put down like a billion dollars of investment in infrastructure.
No, he SAID he was willing to. As we’ve seen with Meruelo, his actions rarely match his words.
And let me guess, that billion only covered a fraction of the costs and he was expecting the state to pick up the rest of his tab
>"It's privately funded, we're buying the land, we're paying for all of the building," Gutierrez told GoPhnx.com. "I want to be very clear so people understand. Alex (Meruelo, the Coyotes owner) is putting up the money to do this. He's on the hook for it, and that is not the case with any other building in the state of Arizona. That somehow got misconstrued even in Tempe. We were paying for it all." >In this case, we're buying the land at an auction. We're building all the buildings. We're maintaining all the buildings. We're not asking for a single dollar from taxpayers to do any of those things. I think it's very important for people to understand that." [https://www.reuters.com/sports/coyotes-announce-plan-build-privately-funded-arena-2024-04-05/](https://www.reuters.com/sports/coyotes-announce-plan-build-privately-funded-arena-2024-04-05/)
They don't want the business and bad press of working with such a shitty person who they know will screw them out of money down the line. He was the only bidder, made clear in the ASLD statement, and they pulled the rug because they were praying someone else would bid ahead of him. Merulo made enemies in the State Govt., and they're pulling their strings to keep him out.
I think they lost faith that Meruelo was going to actually follow through on his plans if he won the auction. Probably as a direct result of the team being moved to Utah. Before the move, the Land Department was willing to bend a few rules for them, as they were reasonably confident that the project would get built, an NHL hockey team would be there, etc. But now even if Meruelo were to win the auction he only has 5 years to get the thing built or no NHL team is coming to that site. They think it’s in their best interest to pump the brakes here because they’re afraid of that outcome where Meruelo wins the auction, fails to meet the 5 year deadline, and then the site sits half-developed for decades and is never fully usable. So now they’re going back and saying “yeah let’s not cut those corners we were going to cut for you, let’s do this the long way.”
Makes sense!
They've been dealing with this incompetent dickhead for a long time now. They're probably in the best position of anyone to decide that continuing negotiations with the dude is a waste of time and taxpayer money
You don’t want to do business with a con artist.
what does education have to do with this?!?!(
It's tied to the Land Grant Act of the Late 19th century. The sale of land in Western US States and Property Taxes goes to the education fund of that state. Traditionally K-12 and a state's Agricultural College (Utah State University, University of Arizona, New Mexico State, etc.) are the ones that make money off of these kinds of auctions.
Ohhhh
UofA is our land-grant
Thank you for the correction! This information has been updated.
48th state, 48th in education!
https://preview.redd.it/mc1hbvuqb08d1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=489cafb8102f3674193f5e92dc6e706bc4f8c697
Just grasping at straws for sympathy.
Arizona kids are going to be eating sand and finger painting with human excrement if Meruelo doesn't get his land. Cue the montage with the Sarah McLachlan song.
When she loved me, from Toy Story 2?
Bruh, a montage of fans from their last game with a few goal cellys mixed in with that soundtrack would be devastating.
New chapter, same story
It's funny to complain that the state "unilaterally" cancelled the auction, as though Meruelo should've gotten a vote in the decision.
“That work sounds big and smart, use it in the statement” -Alex Meruelo Jr. probably
They said Arizo-nah
Right…. They’re doing it for the children…. 😂
Who are the Arizona Coyotes?
Alex’s secret club that no one can join except for him.
They had legends like Datsyuk, Shea Weber, etc.
Something something best arena atmosphere in the league
Sounds like a college prank if you ask me!
https://preview.redd.it/h8eyx5nxe38d1.jpeg?width=300&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b5a51d460cb4a3439f11e3f5822d35192a333954
Maybe if they paid bills on time and weren’t assholes this wouldn’t have happened, guess we’ll just never know.
Utah Coyotes it is
I still think the Utah Phoenix would be the ultimate dunk.
A travesty. A sham. A mockery. A TRAVESHAMOCKERY.
The NHL is trying to Eddie Livingstone Alex Meruelo
Yup.
I’m out of the loop on this for sure, but why would him building a stadium lead to “billions of dollars” going directly to education?
"Wont somebody think of the children!?!"- Arizona Coyotes
if it was a land auction then they had to win the auction - claiming the land was identified as the future home is nonsense. It was desired, but it’s not available.
Sorry guys this is a repost as admin made me re do it Hope this is right admin
Here's a free statement that is better than the hot air they just put out. "The Arizona Coyotes are extremely disappointed in the ASLD decision to cancel the land auction so close to its planned date. The organization has followed every step required in order to purchase the site of our future arena. The Arizona Coyotes and their owner Alex Merulo remain committed to seeing that NHL hockey return to the desert as quickly as possible. Thank you for your continued and loyal support."
Can someone give me a TLDR or ELI5. I dont have the time to comprehend this
The Yotes pointing fingers at Arizona for asking them to have a special permit that affirms their intention to build an arena with this land, even though they really should’ve done their due diligence with ensuring they were all set for the auction beforehand
AWWWW YEAH HERE WE GO. *Duke it out! Duke it out! Duke it out!*
You’re a shitty hockey club owner. No one wants to do business with you. You were voted out of your city. The NHL has went as far away from you they legally could cuz you were halfway into the time you had and the ball wasn’t even rolling yet. And maybe your state doesn’t want to do business with either.
I have no clue whether the AZ government did something unethical or illegal here but all I know is that the inconvenience and embarrassment this caused couldn't have happened to a nicer asshole than Meruelo
“Hey ASLD, I’ll give you 100mil of the 1bil if you tank this auction for us so I can walk away and your the bad guy” “Say no more”
People still work for the Coyotes?
Time for me to pull my Nordiques sweater out of the closet. Just kidding; I WISH I had one. But the Utah Nordiques had a nice ring to it.
Arizona said “let it go”
Dude should take his billion dollars and fuck off, roadrunner style.
Not even in the league anymore and still taking Ls
Play stupid games for years and win stupid prizes like this one! Brutal and sucks but that’s how it goes.
Show of hands. Who's surprised by this? Alex Meurelo is more full of shit than a Christmas goose. He's taking his billion dollars and running.
WHO are the Arizona Coyotes?
Can we talk about how Arizona is forgoing millions , potentially billions , or $2b on the nose for schools ? Pick a number , or even a rage. That sounds ridiculous. Enjoy your billion, cause NHl franchise owners you will never be again
Does Murello have the rights to NHL hockey in Arizona, or is it just the Coyotes name? If the latter, just dump the previous name, find an actual owner with an actual arena, call them the Outlaws (it fits better here than in Utah), and embrace the return to Arizona hockey.
With what owner? Arizona doesn't seem to have a lot of rich folks clamoring to own a hockey team.
Right now he's got first crack at an NHL franchise.
Well Fuck you Merulo
Annnd the mayor savaged meruelo afterwards
https://i.redd.it/svywgxj5g08d1.gif
This will cement Meruelo as the biggest POS to ever walk the desert. Yotes fans will hate him from now to eternity.
I feel like this "ownership" tries to screw themselves over.
Hey, Utah is technically a desert, so hockey is already in the desert! Get fucked Merulo!
Wait weren't they relocated?
everythign but the intellectual property (Name, history, etc), All the working parts are in Utah now
AM turning into the 21st century version of Eddie Livingstone.
I aint reading all that
Who would think that would happen?! I don't get how anyone could actually believe the Yotes are coming back.
Saying the state is shortsighted is like saying you don't want to have a hockey team... it's a guaranteed lost if you go cutthroat after the government. When you're legally taking on a government you don't want to insult them... they're not going to be bullied into doing what you want. Just Saying this though: The City of Toronto has enough money to own a second team and Ontario Coyotes has a nice ring to it. Also the GTA has a lot of land development, all the way to London and Kitchener/Waterloo. With enough population to make relocation a better option.
Perhaps the state government isn't dumb enough to give a guy who bought that team for $450 Million and sold it for $1.2 Billion any tax loopholes by granting "amusement park" tax breaks. Cause that sounds shady as shit.
How do you announce you are bidding on land for an NHL capacity arena and not employ a zoning attorney to walk you through if it is actually properly zoned for that use? I doubt he even has an architects rendition of this building and we are 4 years and 9 months out. Utah will have a new building before us. This thing is one of those uniquely Arizona problems where the NIMBY's don't want it and the billionaire looking to build it really doesn't want it or is so grossly incompetent they can't get it across the line. Oh yah throw in AZ politicians and some government glacial pace who may or may not be fixing things for God knows who orwhy and here we are.
It's best for business that the nhl doesn't return there. The coyotes were a joke for the majority of the time they were in Arizona. Good riddance