Billionaire Alex Meruelo is interested in purchasing the Arizona Coyotes hockey team.
A representative confirmed what had first been reported last week by Arizona Sports station 98.7 FM.
“While we are unable to provide more in-depth information at this time, we can confirm Alex Meruelo, owner of Meruelo Group including SLS Las Vegas and Grand Sierra Resort and Casino, has expressed interest in purchasing the National Hockey League’s Arizona Coyotes,” wrote Christopher Abraham, a spokesman for the Meruelo Group, in a statement.
It indicated that the businessman, who owns the Grand Sierra Resort hotel and casino in Reno, Nevada; SLS Las Vegas, a casino on the Las Vegas Strip, a chain of pizza restaurants, real estate and other interests, is in the advanced stages of negotiating to buy majority interest from Andrew Barroway, the current principal. Barroway would retain a minority interest in the team.
The Coyotes are not the most stable of teams financially, having filed for bankruptcy ten years ago. It hasn’t made it to the NHL playoffs for almost as long, since 2010-11.
The billionaire has a reputation for bringing failing companies back from the dead, instead of breaking them up and feeding off them. He used that formula for both casinos he owns.
The deal is advanced enough that it could be on the agenda of the NHL Board of Governors meeting on June 19.
It’s a deal that probably wouldn’t have happened a year ago before sports betting began its sprint to become socially acceptable. Chris Grove, managing director of sports and emerging verticals for Eilers & Krejcik Gaming, told the Las Vegas Review Journal: “Meruelo’s acquisition of the Coyotes would represent simply another step toward a fuller comingling of professional sports and gambling.”
Grove added, “While his purchase alone won’t be enough to change the world, the cumulative impact of such moves, alongside the successful efforts of Las Vegas to become a hub for professional sports teams and the rapid spread of legal sports betting, will be to eventually dismantle many, if not most, of the outdated league policies and procedures that have erected artificial business barriers between the worlds of gambling and pro sports.
