Coyotes settle lawsuit with Scottsdale PR firm

The Arizona Coyotes have settled a lawsuit with their former political adviser Jason Rose over sponsorship of Rose’s Scottsdale polo event.

The two sides reached an undisclosed settlement last week stemming from a suit filed in May 2014 by Rose+Moser+Allyn Public & Online Relations, according to Maricopa County Superior Court records.

“The parties have agreed to resolve the matter amicably,” said Nicole Stanton, attorney for IceArizona Hockey, the Coyotes’ ownership group.

Stanton and Rose declined to comment on terms of the settlement.

Rose’s dispute with the Coyotes and team President Anthony LeBlanc is tied to political consulting work that Rose said he provided shortly after the team signed a $225 million deal with Glendale in July 2013 to manage Gila River Arena.

The Scottsdale public-relations firm’s lawsuit said the Coyotes hired Rose to defeat a referendum attempt aimed at blocking the arena deal.

The Coyotes recently renegotiated their arena deal following a separate legal dispute with Glendale.

Under the settlement terms, according to the suit, the Coyotes would pay Rose a $25,000 base fee plus a $250,000 bonus if the referendum was unsuccessful, which it was.

The team was to pay $55,000 annually from 2014-17 to sponsor the Bentley Scottsdale Polo Championships, now in its fifth year, and provide two front-row hockey tickets for eight games per season over five years, according to the suit.

Rose was paid the base fee and a 2013 sponsorship fee of $25,000, but the Coyotes declined to sponsor the event in subsequent years, the filing said.

Attorney Grant Woods, representing IceArizona, said in October 2013 that the Coyotes would be under no obligation to continue the sponsorship “if the event does not work out for the team as expected,” according to court records.

In recent rulings, Superior Court Judge Karen Mullins allowed Rose+Moser+Allyn’s request for a jury trial but denied a request for the Coyotes’ financial records going back several years. She also declined to award attorneys’ fees to the plaintiffs.