Coyotes Owner Meruelo Folding What’s Left of the NHL Franchise

Arizona Coyotes owner Alex Meruelo has told his remaining executives that he is dissolving what’s left of the NHL franchise, a source with knowledge of the situation told Sportico Tuesday. The story was first reported by local sports site PHNX Sports.

Meruelo told his staff Monday he will no longer pursue building a new arena to house the team in the Phoenix area, and that the franchise should be disbanded within a month. Meruelo will retain the minor league Roadrunners, who will now play their entire 30-game 2024-25 home schedule in Tucson, Ariz., before eventually moving to a new arena when it is completed in Reno, Nev.

The decision came three days after the Arizona State Land Commission canceled an upcoming auction for a plot of land where Meruelo hoped to build a $3 billion arena and entertainment complex in anticipation of a reborn franchise in north Phoenix.

The auction for 95 acres of north Phoenix land was scheduled for Thursday at the starting price of $68.5 million. In what was explained as a highly politicized process, the commission said it had determined that Meruelo must seek a Special Use Permit to build an arena on that property, which had already been zoned for such a purpose.

Phoenix mayor Kate Gallego indicated she was not interested in helping Meruelo build an arena that would compete to host non-sporting events with the city-owned Footprint Center in downtown Phoenix, where the NBA’s Suns and WNBA’s Mercury play.

This decision will likely be a topic of discussion at Thursday’s NHL Boards of Governors meeting. Meruelo is expected to return the team’s marks, logo, name and rights to the Phoenix area to the NHL, which he retained in April when the NHL facilitated a sale of the franchise.

The hockey operations and players were sold to Utah Jazz owner Ryan Smith for $1.2 billion a day after the end of the 2023-24 season and moved to Salt Lake City in a deal that closed June 13. The team, which has since been rechristened the Utah Hockey Club for now, will open play at the Delta Center in October.

Meruelo was paid $1 billion, way above value for the franchise, but he retained the rights to an expansion team if he could build a new arena that would be completed within five years. In that event, he would’ve had to pay back the $1 billion to the NHL and start from scratch.

Meruelo bought the team in 2019 for $425 million and has since lost between $30 million and $60 million a season, the source said. The team played the last two seasons in Mullett Arena, a 5,000-seat college building on the campus of Arizona State University in Tempe, Ariz., after being evicted from what’s now called the Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, Ariz.

In Sportico’s most recent NHL valuations, the Coyotes were valued at $675 million, last in the league.