THERE’S LITTLE UPSIDE FOR NHL TO REMAIN IN ARIZONA
It was heartwarming to hear NHL commissioner Gary Bettman once again voice the league’s commitment to keeping pro hockey in Arizona — as long as it’s not in the city of Glendale.
“The Coyotes cannot and will not remain in Glendale,” Bettman told the media assembled for the NHL general managers meeting in Boca Raton, Fla. His comments came a day after he sent a letter to the Arizona legislature, urging lawmakers to support a bill that would provide public funding for a $395-million arena. The proposal calls for a public-private partnership, but the lion’s share is coming from the taxpayers.
Taxpayers, in this case, would include the good citizens of Glendale, a modest suburb known for its antique shops. Fifteen years ago, Glendale agreed to spend $220 million to erect the arena currently known as the Gila River Arena. In a scenario that should be familiar to Montrealers, the city still owes $140 million and will be making payments until 2033.
But it was blame the victim time this week as Bettman said the Coyotes were being forced to seek a new home. Bettman said the current need for a new arena stemmed from the city’s decision to cancel the Coyotes’ lease in 2015. What he didn’t say was the cancellation — the Coyotes currently occupy the arena on a year-by-year lease — followed years of bad-faith bargaining on the part of the team.
Bettman tried to justify the call for public funding with a vision of increased tax revenues and jobs — 2,500 during the construction and 3,500 after the project is completed. This piein-the-sky thinking has largely been discredited by economists such as Smith College’s Andrew Zimbalist. Here is Zimbalist in a 2009 interview with Freakomonics co-author Stephen J. Dubner:
“All of the independent, scholarly research on the issue of whether sports teams and facilities have a positive economic impact has come to the same conclusion: One should not anticipate that a team or a facility by itself will either increase employment or raise per capita income in a metropolitan area.
“Generally, the reason for this is threefold. First, most of the spending at a stadium or arena is from residents of the metro area; as such, it is simply redirected expenditure within the local economy, e.g., from the bowling alley or restaurant to the ballpark. Second, much of the income generated by the team leaks out of the local economy, as owners and players save a substantial portion of their earnings in the world’s money markets or spend their income outside the host city. Third, in the typical case, the city and/or state contributes roughly two-thirds of the financing for the facility’s construction and takes on obligations for additional expenditures over time.”
I could feel a little sympathy for the Coyotes if they tried a little harder. They rank 29th in NHL attendance with 12,995 fans and that number would be even smaller if they didn’t offer tickets at deep discounts and draw fans in with hokey promotions like Larry Fitzgerald bobblehead night. (One of my favourite souvenirs from years past is a Coyotes John McCain bobblehead.)
The fact is the attendance reflects the team on the ice, which has the second-worst record in the NHL. The carpetbagging owners are losing about $10 million a season and, while they’re hoping the situation will get better with a move to the more-affluent east of the valley, they’re not spending any money to get better. At first glance, the team is spending over the salary cap, but that’s because they are carrying cap space from injured players Dave Bolland ($5.5 million), Chris Pronger ($4.8 million) and the retired Pavel Datsyuk ($17 million).
Ironically, the Coyotes drew even fewer fans in 2011-12 when they reached the Western Conference final — one of only eight playoff appearances in the 21 years since the team relocated from Winnipeg. That season, the Coyotes were last in attendance with 12,420 fans a game.
There are two other sets of numbers that should convince folks that hockey has a limited future in Arizona. If the NHL’s future depends on a new publicly funded arena, note that seven out of 10 Arizonans are opposed to using public funds for an arena — or a new ballpark for the Arizona Diamondbacks.
And while it’s nice to say you have a team in the 13th-largest market in the U.S., where’s the upside when 99.997 per cent of the population doesn’t go to hockey games and the TV ratings are among the worst in the NHL?
The fact is the attendance reflects the team on the ice, which has the second-worst record in the NHL.