Coyotes attendance is bad because the team is bad and the arena is bad. AZ is a bandwagon sports town, there is no local loyalty to losers, especially a) when they are not homegrown and b) there are so many transplants.
How is the arena bad? That arena at Westgate is nice and set up perfectly for hockey. Probably one of the nicer venues in the NHL.
Phoenix is a city of 4+ million people, hockey has had 20 years to catch on and it hasn't. The only team I see people here being bandwagon with are the Cardinals. The Suns and Diamondbacks fill their venues with diehards regardless of losing. The Suns for example blow and still averaged over 17,000 a game last year. Hockey just doesn't belong here. I feel like Las Vegas will be exactly the same (from the residents at least).
The only way hockey flourishes in Vegas will be due to fans of other teams filling the arena like Bruins fans, Rangers fans etc. when they come to visit.
I wouldn't say failed miserably, they've been here in AZ for 20 years now. its a process tho and when your team is winning your franchise is winning. I think what they thought was gonna bring in a lot more fans was the move to Glendale because the cardinals are out there as well. not so much of an investment yet but the city is growing rapidly. just succs for me cuz its more of a drive to see them play.
20 years and they haven't produced a winner. ESPN has attendance figures stored all the way back to the year 2000 and they've been bottom 3 in attendance every year except from 2004-2006, which was when Gretsky was brought in to boost attendance. The city of Glendale is screwing the Coyotes out of the arena, because the team is losing the city millions of dollars per year. They even had a bankruptcy a few years ago and the NHL had to fund the team for like 4 years. To me they've failed miserably.
Maybe they'll be more successful if they move back downtown, who knows, they had pretty terrible attendance there too though. The Coyotes already said they won't be back in Glendale after this two year lease is up, would the arena downtown even want them back?
