Tucson may be on the cusp of losing yet another professional sports franchise — this time to the greater Phoenix area.
While City of Tucson and other area officials were surprised in recent days to hear of the possibility of the American Hockey League’s Tucson Roadrunners leaving Southern Arizona, multiple news outlets have reported this weekend that talks for exactly that are ongoing in the wake of the all-but-definite departure of the National Hockey League’s Arizona Coyotes from the state.
The way it would shake out and impact Tucson, per those reports:
The Coyotes, currently owned by Alex Meruelo, would be purchased by Utah-based Smith Entertainment Group and moved to Salt Lake City; public announcements of the transaction would come on or around Wednesday, in virtual lockstep with the final NHL game in Arizona later that night.
Meruelo would, however, retain his ownership of the Roadrunners, the Coyotes’ AHL affiliate and the primary tenant of the city-owned Tucson Arena since 2016; Meruelo would also keep the Coyotes logos and trademarks to use as part of a future effort to bring the NHL back to Arizona at some point within the next five years.
The reports say Meruelo has interest in moving the Roadrunners to Tempe’s Mullett Arena once sale of the Coyotes is complete.
Roadrunners leadership declined to comment Saturday on the reports, while attempts by the Star to reach Coyotes management were unsuccessful.
The prospect of the Roadrunners leaving Tucson was first reported Wednesday by InsideAHLHockey.com, a sports news site providing league-wide coverage of the primary feeder league to the NHL.
When asked about those initial reports, City of Tucson spokesman Andy Squire told the Star Thursday that “at this point, nothing has trickled down to (the city or Tucson Convention Center) that would give us any information that has the Roadrunners relocating.”
Added Fletcher McCusker, chair of the Rio Nuevo board, which played a key role in bringing the Roadrunners to Tucson in 2016: “It would be a loss to the TCC to lose that, and we’ve invested millions of dollars in new ice and new lockers rooms and facilities for the Roadrunners.”
“I believe if they were to do that,” McClusker said, “we’d be very interested in replacing that team with another hockey team, given that we have these facilities, the fan experience (and) new ice.”
But the Roadrunners leaving is not a done deal yet, though; the Roadrunners’ element of the larger series of transactions appeared to be the least definitive, as reported Friday and Saturday.
Sportico, a news website devoted to coverage of the business side of global sports, cited an NHL source when reporting Saturday morning that “negotiations will be conducted to move the Roadrunners from Tucson to replace the Coyotes” at Mullett Arena in Tempe.
Sports radio host John Gambadoro of 98.7-FM in Phoenix, also citing an NHL source, similarly wrote Friday night on X (Twitter) that “(Meruelo) will explore options of having the (AHL’s) Roadrunners play at Mullett Arena.”
Opened in 2022, Arizona State University built the 4,600-seat Mullett Arena to house its NCAA Division I hockey program. The NHL’s Coyotes played at Mullett — by far the smallest facility among the NHL’s 32 teams — the last two seasons while Meruelo has attempted to secure land at multiple locations elsewhere in the Valley and then build a multi-billion-dollar arena and entertainment district to permanently house the Coyotes.
The Coyotes left their prior home in Glendale, currently named Desert Diamond Arena, after the 2021-22 season.
A Roadrunners move to Tempe poses a number of logistical questions, including what ownership might owe the City of Tucson to break the current 10-year arena lease two years early; believed to be between $3 and $4 million, that amount would likely be a combination of rent as well as a prorated payback of money spent to renovate the arena to bring it to AHL standards.
It’s also not yet known to what degree ASU has an interest in the Roadrunners sharing a facility with their NCAA program and other events.
The loss of the Roadrunners, currently in second place in the AHL’s Pacific Division and likely to host the entirety of a first-round AHL Calder Cup playoff series at Tucson Arena starting later this month, would be yet another blow to Southern Arizona’s proud, but pock-marked professional sports history.
The Tucson Toros, founded in 1915 but a beloved high-level minor-league baseball franchise from 1970-2008, long served as a top affiliate to Major League Baseball teams like the Cincinnati Reds, Cleveland Indians, Chicago White Sox, Oakland A’s, Texas Rangers, Houston Astros and Milwaukee Brewers. In 1998, the Toros were rebranded the Tucson Sidewinders and became the Triple-A affiliate of the expansion Arizona Diamondbacks. But the Diamondbacks moved the Sidewinders to Reno, Nevada, in 2011, renaming the team the Reno Aces.
It’s not impossible the Roadrunners in some form end up in Reno, too. Meruelo, who owns casino properties in Las Vegas and Reno, proposed last year a $1 billion sports and entertainment facility in Reno that includes a 10,000-seat arena that would house the University of Nevada basketball teams and also be ready for a high-level minor-league hockey team.
Other Old Pueblo professional sports departures include the MLB ending its run in Tucson a Spring Training home for multiple teams in 2010; Tucson had hosted Spring Training in some capacity as far back as 1947. The final teams to play in Tucson — the Diamondbacks, White Sox and Colorado Rockies — all left after the 2010 spring schedule for new facilities in the Phoenix area.
Triple-A baseball returned to Tucson in 2011 with the Pacific Coast League affiliate of the big-league San Diego Padres taking the field at Kino Veterans Memorial Stadium (known as Tucson Electric Park when it was previously home to the Sidewinders). But the Tucson Padres’ time in Southern Arizona was likely temporary from the start, and the team eventually moved to Texas and became the El Paso Chihuahuas.
Should the Roadrunners leave, Tucson’s remaining sports league connections would include the Indoor Football League’s Tucson Sugar Skulls and the semi-professional FC Tucson soccer club.
— The Star’s Charles Borla contributed to this report.
