Professional hockey’s Tucson Roadrunners are, for the most part, here to stay in Southern Arizona after the Tucson mayor and council unanimously approved amendments to its license agreement with Rio Nuevo and the team this week.
Tucson’s American Hockey League affiliate will host a minimum of 30 home games at Tucson Convention Center through the 2026-27 regular season, where the Roadrunners have called home since 2016. The amended agreement, according to councilmember Lane Santa Cruz on Tuesday, also allows for annual renewals past the 2026-2027 regular season.
The deal allows for the Roadrunners to play up to six regular season games in Tempe, Roadrunners’ president Bob Hoffman said last week to the Rio Nuevo governing board. The previous deal allowed for five Roadrunners’ home games to be played away from Tucson, but in the team’s eight years playing out of the TCC’s Tucson Arena, it had to schedule any home games outside of the region.
In this May 2024 file photo Roadrunners center Curtis Douglas raises his stick to and acknowledge the crowd. A new deal could keep the team playing at Tucson Arena for at least three more years.
Amid ongoing chatter the Roadrunners might leave Tucson — or split their season even more so between Tempe and Southern Arizona — the Rio Nuevo board voted last week to pay half the team’s Tucson Arena rent and about 18 months of office costs, amounts that would come in annually at around $180,000 and $60,000, respectively.
A fan holds up a sign in April supporting a fan effort to keep the Roadrunners in Tucson. On Tuesday the Rio Nuevo board approved a financial package to do that. It still needs the approval of the American Hockey League and the city council.
Additionally, the $2 per ticket fee on Roadrunners hockey games collected by Rio Nuevo will be waived.
The press to keep the Roadrunners in Tucson comes off the back of the sale and move of its NHL affiliate in early April.
Alex Meruelo, owner of the Roadrunners and the National Hockey League’s Arizona Coyotes, sold the hockey operations elements of the Coyotes’ NHL franchise to a Utah-based ownership fronted by Ryan and Ashley Smith in a $1.2 billion deal. The Smiths also own the Utah Jazz of the National Basketball Association.
The Coyotes played their last two seasons at Mullett Arena, located on Arizona State University’s Tempe campus with seating for between 4,500 and 5,000 for hockey, and prior to the NHL-urged sale, were scheduled to play there at least through the 2024-25 season.
Because the Coyotes and Roadrunners were both owned by Meruelo, minor-league teams like the Roadrunners are normally included in any sale of its major-league counterpart. However, when Smith Entertainment Group purchased the Coyotes from Meruelo, that did not happen.
Instead, as the Associated Press reported, Meruelo maintained “his business operations in Arizona in an effort to secure and develop a tract of land for a new arena in north Phoenix,” retaining ownership of the Coyotes’ name, logos, trademarks and business operations, meaning that a return of the NHL to the Valley may still be possible.
In retaining ownership of the Roadrunners, Meruelo said at the time of the Coyotes’ sale that he hoped to move them to Tempe to play out of Mullett Arena. After learning of the Tempe consideration, the Rio Nuevo board put together the package that now keeps the Roadrunners in Southern Arizona for the next three seasons at least.
The Roadrunners, formerly the Springfield (Mass.) Falcons, were purchased by the Coyotes and eventually moved to Tucson (and rebranded the Roadrunners) in 2016 to be geographically closer to the NHL club as it worked through ongoing efforts to solidify its own footprint in Arizona.
Rio Nuevo played a role in bringing the Roadrunners to Tucson at that time, investing millions into Tucson Arena upgrades to bring the facility to AHL standards.
