Tempe leader: Arizona Coyotes’ 'terribly inept campaign' in his city sealed the team’s fate
Tempe officials are once again grappling with hockey woes amid rumors that the Arizona Coyotes will end their nearly three-decadelong stretch in the state if they move to Utah under a new owner.
Tempe voters may have sealed that fate when they overwhelmingly rejected the NHL franchise's proposal to build an arena in the city last May.
The election was one of the most contentious in Tempe's recent history. The team's plan got pushback over everything from its economic impact, to its property tax breaks, to the value of the planned project site. It even triggered a lawsuit between Phoenix and Tempe over the project's proximity to Sky Harbor International Airport.
City Councilmember and Coyotes fan Randy Keating braved major political backlash for his outspoken support of the project. But now he's taking shots at the team's owners who he said “strung along” fans about their future in Arizona, even as they planned to sell to a Utah billionaire who wants to bring the team to Salt Lake City.
“This breaks my heart. The #Yotes fan base deserved so much better than to be strung along like they were,” he Tweeted on Saturday. “Here’s hoping an expansion team indeed comes (to Arizona), to an ownership group that deserved it. We fans certainly do.”
He later told The Arizona Republic that “the way they treated the fans was shameful.”
The council member blames the Coyotes’ ineffective and late-to-begin campaign for the outcome of their project pitch in Tempe, which he believes ultimately doomed the team's hopes of staying in Arizona.
“They ran a terribly inept campaign,” he told The Republic. “I think losing in Tempe was what killed it. After that, there's really nowhere to go. They looked at some other places and didn't find anything else.”
What we know: Will the Arizona Coyotes move to Utah?
Tempe Mayor Corey Woods, who also supported the Coyotes proposal in his city, was more diplomatic in his view of how things turned out.
"The case was not made to residents as to why (the project) was a necessary thing or something that would enhance the city,” he said.
Woods thinks that media stories about the Coyotes’ rocky tenure in Glendale and certain less-than-flattering aspects of their proposal “gave people some pause” at the Tempe ballot box. He also pointed to a general trend in public opposition to professional sports stadiums nationwide.
But despite the outcome, the mayor said he doesn't regret putting the decision up for a public vote because that's what both the Coyotes and "a substantial portion of our electorate was asking for."
"It was a $2.1 billion project. It was arguably the largest project that would ever have been built in the city of Tempe's history," he told The Republic. "There were a lot of residents at the time who were also asking to have a bigger say and a public vote. So, it made sense."
Woods added, "At the end of the day, it played out the way that it did. I haven't spent any time second-guessing how it all went down."
As for his take on the Coyotes potentially leaving the state, Woods said, “It's always a hit when you lose a professional sports franchise, and it leaves the community. But my hope is that at some point professional hockey will return to the Valley.”
Reporter Sam Kmack covers Tempe, Scottsdale and Chandler. Follow him on X @KmackSam or reach him at sam.kmack@arizonarepublic.com.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Tempe leader: Arizona Coyotes’ 'inept campaign' doomed team to leave
