This is where you can leave, Steve, if you want to. There was a rumor yesterday from Az Sports, Arizona Sports, saying that Alex Burello was looking to find another owner for the team. That was the rumor. Again, I have not mentioned an arena here. I don't know. No. He's leaving.

He's leaving. They've walked out of the room.

There's Steven.

He's left. He's good.

But then, Jesse, the coyotes came roaring back. Yeah. Oh, there he is. What are you doing, Steve? I'm kicking Drew out. You're kicking Drew Yeah.

Am I on mic? I'm kicking Drew out. So which one? One, two, three, four. He wants to change the cameras. Oh, look at that. A great one. Oh, I like that. It's not a great idea. Do picture and picture. Okay, so every time I talk, I'm going to go to camera three. Where's the picture and picture button? Is it the top row? You can hit one of those, but you got to turn it on. Yeah, we have so many buttons. This is an awful podcast. No, this is great.

Why are we doing this?

I don't know. Here. Can I just shut up and talk about the stupid thing?

All right, are we shutting him off? I turned this mic off. All right, so It was so interesting. You left. Yeah.

You don't care. It's not your show if you leave.

So what I want to know is- You got to switch the cameras. Was there any coincidence with this rumor coming out? Then all of a sudden, a coyote's social media roaring to life and showing a whole bunch of stock footage about how great this arena is going to be.

No, because yesterday was the day when the auction bidding. It went live. The date was the official like, Hey, the auction can be discussed publicly now in Arizona.

Now, you did a video on it on the Jesse Blake Sports Report. I did. You think they're staying now?

Based on how these auctions typically go, it's going to be, I think it was 62 million dollars is the minimum bid. 65. 65, yeah. 65 is the minimum bid for this piece of land, 92 acres in northeast Phoenix. The way these typically go is they're 70 87% of the time, nobody opposes your bid. You go against nobody.

Why? Because nobody has 65 million dollars?

Because these are giant, almost 100 acres of land, and the people who want these lands are usually like an individual, like one corporation. You're not usually fighting against somebody else. Alex Morello has the money and it's also Alex Morello. Yeah, he's got the money. He's got the money, yeah. If he has the money, which he does, and the plans are accepted by the city of Phoenix. I should make sure Steve is still doing the camera stuff. I'm doing a great job. You're doing a great job. I'm doing unreal over here. Then it's like they just need to win the auction, and it looks like nobody's going to go up against them to win the auction. Next question.

They get the land. Then they have to get permits. Yeah. And that has to go through city council. And they're saying... Oh my God! And then they would say, Jesse, that the earliest that they could play there with no construction delay and no opposition from city council, It's 27, 28, which means they'd be at Mullet for at least three more years after this one.

Yeah, they were going to be at Mullet for this year. I'm looking at this like you got two extra years in Mullet, which is, I don't know. I think that's okay for what they're constructing because what they're constructing is a permanent home forever in Phoenix. The city council thing, I think that's such a distraction from like, Hey, this is actually a really good thing because for this bidding process in the auction, it's about the money. You got to be the highest bidder, but you also have to show what plans you have, what you're going to put on the land.

They have a lot of stock footage.

The people who are awarding the winner of the bid have to look at the plans and say, Yeah, those are cool. You're getting a thumbs up from the city. It's not like the city is like, I don't know what's going on this land, and then after you win, we're going to guess and see. No, they're already saying, Yeah, this is cool. Plus, you won the auction. Let's go for it. Then you do the normal thing with This is the worst experience of my life. Is you get the permits for everything. It's very normal.

It's normal, and it was normal in Tempe, too.

Yes. Tempe was a different situation, though, because they had to go through a public vote, which they didn't ever... They were never the front writer to win that vote. It's just simply money, and you have plans to do something with your land. It's very simple.

I will continue to be, especially considering the source which is the propaganda arm of the Arizona Coyotes organization. I will continue to be hesitant to celebrate as somebody who's rooting for this until such time as those permits are approved. It's not because I'm not taking shots at Craig Morgan here. I know that he's hooked into ownership. I know that he knows more than pretty much anybody else about this. But the ownership always presents one side like, this is a done deal. It's going to happen. The way it was presented to all of us with Tempe, thank you, Steve, is the fact that is that this is a slam dog.

It's going to happen.

And of course it is because they're going to sell it that way.

You have to- But I don't think we're getting the full picture here. You have to be skeptical of any news coming out of Arizona because of how the tenure of the franchise has gone for their entirety of existence. All they have had throughout the entire, what is it, 25 years now that the coyotes have existed is arena troubles. They've been back and forth. They miss rent, They got kicked out. They've moved. They can't pay taxes. They can't do a deal with Matt Ishmael. Everything has been a problem there in a college arena. Being skeptical of the situation is completely valid and fair. Okay. I feel like that's Completely justified. Until there's a shovel in the ground, nothing is 100%. But I look at it as based on what this should be, it should be good to go. See, here's what I think. Until the shovel's in the ground, nothing obviously is 100%.

We I've presented two things to you here. Jesse has presented and did a deep dive on all this stuff, which I really appreciate. I have also given you the rumor that Morello is looking for an alternate owner. Here's what I think. Both are true. I think that this is the last stab. It is not 100%, but although it's over 50%.

Nothing is 100% until it's done.

But I'll give you over 50%.

Maybe it's the last, last stab.

Yeah, but my point is- Just like the last one. As a smart owner, if he can't get this done, he's got to have somebody to sell it to.

Exactly. It would be such poor business to not do your due diligence in any outcome. This could go haywire and he could lose it. The impossible could happen, he can lose it. If he's sitting there with like, I'm unprepared, then you're a terrible business person. He needs to be prepared for every single situation. That's why you prepare for disasters because disasters could happen. He's doing the right thing by looking and seeing who might want to buy it and move it to Salt Lake City.

I have one more thing that I want to say. Gary Bettman's contract expires after this season, three more years. It's entirely possible that the coyotes are still not in their new arena if Gary Bettman retires at the end of this, which he won't. But I'm just saying, can you imagine Gary Bettman retires? Don't throw that. And we still, please do not throw a shoe at me.

I'm going to throw it.

Don't throw a shoe. I'm going to throw it. Things could break.

I'm going to throw the shoe. Got a microphone. There's a TV there.

Can you imagine? I'm going to throw the damn shoe. Gary Bettman still doesn't have an arena in Arizona under this contract. And what does that mean for his legacy?

I could see that if that happens, I assume it would be construction delays and all that stuff, or this doesn't go through. If this doesn't go through, they're in Salt Lake in next season.

And planning Arizona's expansion within the next five years.

I could even see them play somewhere else next year if this falls through. Okay. Because the Houston arena exists. The Salt Lake one, the one where the jazz play, it exists, but you have as bad as sight lines as you had at Barclays. It'd be awful, but they could move it. So I can see them moving. But I think it happens. Okay.

Now, Steve, come on back because we're going to talk about another relocation. No.