As if the Arizona Coyotes and their fans haven't heard enough about arena management already:

#Glendale council set to discuss Gila River Arena management deal in exec session Aug. 25. City plans an RFP for a new arena manager. — Peter Corbett (@PeterCorbett1) August 20, 2015

On the surface, this looks like the beginnings of yet another spat between IceArizona and the City of Glendale. But this turn of events is neither unexpected or even bad news for the ownership group.

The gist of the problem is that managing Gila River Arena is difficult. The venue is not ideally located in the Valley, and has to compete with the US Airways Center and Ak-Chin Pavilion (formerly Desert Sky Pavilion) and Wells Fargo Arena for events among comparably sized facilities (as well as Chase Field or University of Phoenix Stadium for certain major events).

So not only are their alternative venues in the Valley at roughly the same size, two of the major facilities - USAC and Ak-Chin - are managed by LiveNation, which has massive clout when it comes to booking concerts. So even if Gila River Arena is a nicer venue than US Airways Center, Global Spectrum has struggled to find artists to partner with.

As a result, non-hockey attendance figures fell pretty well short of expectations last year. And, if revenues are falling short of projections, that's one more cost for the ownership group as they continue the Herculean task of turning the Coyotes' finances around.

Both IceArizona and Glendale have anticipated the possibility of a new arena manager, as provisions for changing managers were included in Section 46 of the Arena Lease Amendment document:

the City shall have the option to replace the Arena Manager at any time after June 30, 2016; provided, that the City first delivers notice of such election (the "Arena Management Replacement Notice") not less than ninety (90) days prior to the effective date of the replacement of the Arena Manager.

The fact that procedures for changing the arena manager were included despite the lease's already short term seems to indicate smoke on the horizon with regards to who controls non-hockey events. An additional part of Section 46 may prove to be the fire:

[...]notwithstanding such replacement, the Team Owner shall have the right to generate, collect and retain the Exclusive Arena Manager Revenues attributable to Hockey Events. Team Owner shall have no right to any and all revenues, including surcharges, that are attributable to Non-Hockey events.

To summarize, Glendale and IceArizona agreed to put a provision in their revised contract that allowed the City to find a new arena manager, as well as a provision that allowed IceArizona to retain all revenues from hockey events should Glendale end up finding someone else.

It's almost as if IceArizona knew this was coming, and wanted it to happen.

Thoughts