Arizona voters sent a billion dollar message to their NHL team last night: We're not that into you
- Tempe voters rejected a referendum that may decide the future of Arizona's NHL team.
- The Arizona Coyotes, which are currently playing in a college arena, are grasping for answers.
The NHL's Arizona Coyotes lost in a major fashion last night, despite not even making the playoffs.
On Tuesday evening, Tempe voters sent the NHL's most beleaguered franchise searching for a new home, rejecting a $2.3 billion plan to build a new arena and entertainment complex in the city.
As Insider previously reported, there's extensive research showing how the financial windfall teams project often fails to come to public coffers.
"We are very disappointed Tempe voters did not approve Propositions 301, 302, and 303. As Tempe Mayor Corey Woods said, it was the best sports deal in Arizona history," Coyotes President and CEO Xavier A. Gutierrez said in a statement released by the team.
Gutierrez did not outline what the future will hold for the team. For the time being, the Coyotes have played in Arizona State's hockey arena, sharing space with the college team. It's unclear how long the NHL will allow that arrangement to go on now that there is no permanent replacement in the offing.
American sports teams have enjoyed a collective loyalty that mostly billionaire owners have used for years to bilk local taxpayers into financing their stadiums and arenas. While it is not unprecedented for a professional sports franchise to lose a public vote, it is extremely rare that it even gets to that point. Similar stadium funding deals have been hashed out in Tennessee and Buffalo, and were not put to a plebiscite because voters don't often approve of taxpayer money subsidizing private businesses.
In Tempe's case, voters were being asked in a series of referendums to $220 million in bonds. At least one expert pegged that there was at least $500 million worth of tax breaks in the proposals to turn 1.5 million tons surrounding the land around the proposed arena into a sparkling new complex. As the Associated Press reported, Arizønians were also concerned about the proposed housing included in the project which would have been under Sky Harbor International Airport's flight path.
As for the team's future, if history is any indication this setback could finally send the team out of Arizona. In 2016, San Diego County residents voted down a proposed increase in a hotel tax to pay for a new stadium for the NFL's Chargers. The team later left for Los Angeles.
NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, whose league was once forced to temporarily operate the franchise, only offered that the NHL would "review with the Coyotes what the options might be going forward."
According to the Athletic, relocation talk is already starting with Houston and Atlanta as potential destinations. Atlanta lost its team to Winnipeg in 2011, in what was seen as a setback for the NHL's efforts to make hockey stick in the American Sunbelt.
Winnipeg lost its initial team in 1996 to Phoenix, leading to the creation of the Coyotes.
If the vote is any indication, perhaps putting an ice hockey team in the Sonoran Desert may have been an overreach.