Reports: NHL Exploring Arizona Coyotes' Relocation To Utah For ...

The Arizona Coyotes celebrate a win over the Vegas Golden Knights at Mullett Arena in Tempe, ... [+] Arizona. (Photo by Norm Hall/NHLI via Getty Images)

Nothing is done until it’s done. But according to multiple reports, the NHL is exploring the possibility of relocating the Arizona Coyotes to Utah as early as the 2024-25 season.

Ryan and Ashley Smith control the Smith Entertainment Group, which owns the NBA’s Utah Jazz and the team’s arena, the Delta Center, as well as Real Salt Lake of Major League Soccer. In January, the company formally applied to initiate the process of adding an NHL team to its portfolio via expansion. But relocation could accelerate the timeline.

Smith’s cheeky social-media call-out for name suggestions for a Utah-based NHL team on Monday also suggests that something might be afoot.

While NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman has publicly backed the Arizona Coyotes for years in their ongoing quest for an arena they can call home for the long term, Wednesday’s reports suggest that an alternate vision may be taking shape.

As first reported by Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff, the new plan would involve the NHL purchasing the Coyotes from current owner Alex Meruelo in a deal reportedly worth about $1 billion, per Emily Kaplan and Greg Wyshynski of ESPN. Then, the league would sell the franchise to Smith Entertainment Group with a price tag of about $1.3 billion.

The $300 million difference would be split among the NHL’s owners, as a relocation fee.

That’s less than half of the $650 million that was divvied up when the Seattle Kraken joined the league in 2021 — which is why league owners, as a rule, prefer expansion to relocation. But in this case, the move would eliminate the Coyotes’ ongoing drain on league finances — they ranked 32nd in the league with revenue of $120 million, according for Forbes’ 2023 NHL valuations, and are currently playing at Mullett Arena on the campus of Arizona State University, with a capacity of just 4,600 for NHL hockey.

And ever since the Coyotes first relocated from Winnipeg in 1996, Bettman has made it clear that the Phoenix area is valued as an NHL market. The latest reports suggest that if the Coyotes do move up to Salt Lake City, Meruelo would retain the first option to bid on a new expansion franchise once a viable new arena is in place and ready to house NHL hockey.

Majority Owner, Chairman & Governor, Alex Meruelo of the Arizona Coyotes speaks at an introductory ... [+] press conference on August 1, 2019. (Photo by Norm Hall/NHLI via Getty Images)

Meruelo and his colleagues thought they had a plan in motion when they went to a civic referendum on a 100% privately-funded $2.1 billion entertainment district project in Tempe which would have included a 16,000-seat arena. But the project was voted down in May of 2023, leaving the organization scrambling once again to come up with an alternative.

The latest plan involves a 95-acre parcel of land in North Phoenix, which is being put up for auction by the state on June 27. Reports have indicated that Meruelo is determined to win the auction at all costs. The Coyotes released renderings of the project on social media on April 4 — with a timeline to have the arena open in time for the 2027-28 season.

But June 27 is awfully late for the league to find out whether the bid will be successful, or if more unseen hurdles arise. And given that this organization has been struggling to find its forever home since the first day it touched down in the desert, it’s not a stretch to wonder if more challenges lie ahead.

If the bid is ultimately unsuccessful, there wouldn’t be enough runway left after late June for the league to relocate the Coyotes before the beginning of the 2024-25 season. The last time the league relocated a team, in 2011, the Atlanta Thrashers’ move to Winnipeg was announced on May 31 and the sale was finalized on June 21.

So that’s where the contingency comes in. Utah is in close geographic proximity, so a move wouldn’t require any changes in divisional alignment. And while Ryan Smith is eager to get the NHL into his home state as quickly as possible, the league is also keen to get into a market that’s growing, that’s sports-mad, and that is primed to go on a winter sports-oriented building spree as it sets the stage to host the Winter Olympics for a second time, in 2034.

If the Coyotes relocate and Meruelo gets his project off the ground, the league can then watch the progress of the development as a non-stakeholder for the next few years — and without the embarrassment of having Mullett Arena as part of their circuit.

If all goes well, they can award a new expansion franchise — likely at a fee that’s closer to the $1 billion sale price of the Coyotes than the $650 million paid by the Kraken.

Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet suggested on Wednesday that one option on the table could be for Meruelo to have a five-year window to bring back the Coyotes, under the right conditions.

In an update to his story on Wednesday afternoon, Seravalli said that the members of the NHL Board of Governors have been updated on the possibility of the sale. He also cautioned that lots of work still needs to be done in order to get a deal to the finish line — but we could hear an announcement in just over a week’s time.

The Coyotes have been eliminated from playoff contention and have four games left on their regular-season schedule. They’re in Vancouver to take on the Canucks on Wednesday (10:30 p.m. ET).

Will their final game of the year, against the Edmonton Oilers at Mullett Arena next Wednesday, also be their last in the Valley of the Sun?