I live 10 miles from Glendale, AZ where the whole Coyote snafu has been playing out for 5-6 years. Glendale is a city of 225,000 people and they spent $220 million to build the arena. It's a nice arena to be sure but it is a long way from downtown Phoenix where the Suns and Diamondbacks play. Worse, the games start at 7 PM which means that anyone driving there from the Phoenix/Tempe/Mesa area is driving on the I-10 right into the sun glare. It's murder making that drive and thus no surprise that a lot of people don't do it.
I've gone there for two NY Ranger games, one with the Carolina Hurricanes and one with the Vancouver Canucks. Attendance for the Ranger games was about 12-13,000 and roughly half the crowd was wearing Ranger jerseys. The Hurricanes drew about 5,000... no body gives a fuck about them. For the Canucks, though, the place was sold out as every Canadian wintering in the region showed up for the game. When Vancouver scored I thought the roof would blow off. They also sell out when Detroit and Chicago come in. There are lots of snow birds who come to AZ from the mid-west during the winter.
So now, fucked over when the first owner pulled a bankruptcy scam, Glendale is stuck with a white elephant that generates no where near the revenue they were promised and they still have those bonds to repay. The rest of Arizona doesn't give a shit because their taxes aren't going to support the arena. Just poor little Glendale.
If what happened to Glendale is not enough to make these idiot politicians realize that they are being played for saps then nothing is. And they deserve whatever happens to them.
I've gone there for two NY Ranger games, one with the Carolina Hurricanes and one with the Vancouver Canucks. Attendance for the Ranger games was about 12-13,000 and roughly half the crowd was wearing Ranger jerseys. The Hurricanes drew about 5,000... no body gives a fuck about them. For the Canucks, though, the place was sold out as every Canadian wintering in the region showed up for the game. When Vancouver scored I thought the roof would blow off. They also sell out when Detroit and Chicago come in. There are lots of snow birds who come to AZ from the mid-west during the winter.
So now, fucked over when the first owner pulled a bankruptcy scam, Glendale is stuck with a white elephant that generates no where near the revenue they were promised and they still have those bonds to repay. The rest of Arizona doesn't give a shit because their taxes aren't going to support the arena. Just poor little Glendale.
If what happened to Glendale is not enough to make these idiot politicians realize that they are being played for saps then nothing is. And they deserve whatever happens to them.
