Alex Meruelo faces steep climb to convince anyone he should still be Coyotes owner

Alex Meruelo struck the right tone in his opening remarks at a news conference on Friday to announce the sale and relocation of the Coyotes to Salt Lake City.

“My family and I are devastated and to our fans, we share your disappointment and your heartbreak,” he told media gathered at the Hyatt Regency Phoenix. “I am sorry things got to this point. I take full responsibility for my decisions and for the outcome.”

It was reminiscent of the only other news conference Meruelo held in his nearly five-year tenure — the one in which the NHL introduced him as the franchise’s new owner on Aug. 1, 2019. It started well, but what followed on Friday was the same sort of train derailment that we witnessed in his 57 months as steward of NHL hockey in Arizona. 

Meruelo professed concern for the Coyotes players when he finally acceded to the league’s wishes to escape Mullett Arena. The players would tell you they rarely felt Meruelo’s commitment to taking care of them on the same level as other NHL teams, whether it was the team’s off-site training facilities near the Ice Den Scottsdale, the aging team plane, or meals for players’ wives or staff for which company cards were declined on small bills.

Meruelo insisted that his latest arena proposal in northeast Phoenix would be built without taxpayer dollars or tax breaks, but the theme park district that the team is seeking would exempt the franchise from paying property taxes. That’s a far cry from the taxing situation in Tempe that allowed citizens to vote, and included an arena district tax in Tempe that only would have impacted visitors to the site

Meruelo professed a commitment to supporting youth hockey but youth hockey leaders are preparing other means to support themselves because they do not trust the Coyotes will maintain the level of support that the NHL provided while it was still in Arizona.

When asked what would become of the business staff that is not accompanying the team to Salt Lake City, Meruelo said the team was “going to look at not doing anything for the next 60 days” while they assess the situation, with the intent of keeping everything intact. Staff members say they have heard conflicting reports of 30 or 60 days, with several noting they would not be surprised, given their past dealings with this ownership group, if layoffs came sooner.

Meruelo said he spent $7 million on the Tempe entertainment district campaign, but Tempe council member Randy Keating, citing public records, countered that the Coyotes only spent $1.1 million.

We never got the opportunity to clarify those discrepancies, or to ask Meruelo why multiple sources say he denied a request for more money for the campaign the day after the Tempe City Council voted 7-0 in favor of supporting the project.

We never got the opportunity to ask what role his children played in the operation and ultimate failure of this franchise as team executives.

We never got to ask why a litany of vendors balked when Meruelo said he always pays his bills; countering that he was either late in paying them or tried to renegotiate contractually agreed-upon fees.

We never got a sense of his annual losses — a fact that might have helped shape public opinion in his favor — other than commissioner Gary Bettman admitting, “Was he losing a bunch of money? You betcha. He was losing a ton.”

We never got to ask other important questions because Meruelo handpicked the three media outlets to which he was willing to speak before the news conference, effectively controlling the message he was willing to offer.

Those incongruencies were compounded by other remarks including his now meme-worthy “I don’t like the media” statement, or his answer to a question about when season-ticket holders could expect a refund of their money: “Just give me a chance to breathe a minute.”

In my admittedly limited dealings with Meruelo, I never doubted his resolve to get this arena deal done. Critics have wondered if he will even show up for the land auction on June 27 instead of walking away with a nifty profit off the sale of this team. I have no doubt that he will show up. This is personal to him. Business success is woven into his fabric and ego. He does not want to lose.

There are benchmarks within his five-year window of opportunity that he must achieve to win, however.

Per Bettman, Meruelo must reactivate the franchise at least a year and a half before the end of the five-year window. He can do it earlier, but the arena has to be at least 50 percent completed at the time he reactivates. 

“We’ve seen plans, so it’s just a question of seeing the progress,” Bettman told me in a brief one-on-one conversation after the news conference.

Deputy commissioner Bill Daly added that Meruelo will have “to make a significant deposit on the purchase price by then… so basically, it’s gonna be the next three years in which that has to happen. Reactivation notice must happen prior to Dec. 31, 2027.”

The problem that Meruelo faces when seeking support from the City of Phoenix and others is that he has not built many bridges with local politicians, community leaders or business leaders through his mode of operation. In truth, he has burned far more.

It didn’t help that the team’s social media account chose to tag Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego when asking for the city’s support, but that’s the tip of the iceberg. Meruelo had an arena deal — albeit in an imperfect location — when he took over, but he mishandled that situation, he walked away from a potential deal with Arizona State University, and then he lost the Tempe vote in resounding fashion. He ended up playing at a 4,600-seat college arena, he alienated his staff and players, and then he lost the team — all in a span of less than five years.

Public opinion of Meruelo in Arizona is at an all-time low. Bettman tried to dismiss this notion by saying “There are plenty of times that fan bases get aggravated with the ownership of a team,” but this is no ordinary discontent. The team isn’t just dysfunctional. It’s gone. After enduring so many hardships over the past 28 years, Coyotes fans were finally seeing a light at the end of the tunnel with a hockey operations staff that was building sustainable success.

Now they have nothing but anger and sadness. The prevailing local hope is that Meruelo will fail in his quest — and do so in short order so that the NHL can open this market to another group that might offer better leadership.

Coyotes fans are tired of poor ownership — a lengthy history in which the league’s vetting process shares a significant amount of blame. Coyotes fans are tired of empty promises. All they ever wanted was a chance to root for a well run and successful hockey team.

You’ll find precious few in this community who still believe that Meruelo can spearhead that charge. You’ll find precious few who want him to spearhead that charge.

Top photo via Getty Images

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