By Conor Redmond | Arizona Sonora News
Average fan attendance for the Arizona Coyotes dropped 13 percent in the last decade. At the end of this NHL season , the team finished 30 out of 31 teams in attendance.
The Coyotes attendance average for the 2007-2008 season was 14,820 fans. This season, they averaged 13,040 fans per game. The Coyotes play at Gila River Arena in Glendale, which has a seating capacity of 17,125.
The City of Glendale was forced to restructure their contract with the Coyotes in 2017 after continuously losing money since 2003. They restructured the contract, putting a sports and entertainment company, AEG Facilities, in charge of the arena operations, which has proven to eliminate the debt.
Glendale’s Assistant City Manager Tom Duensing compiled the revenues generated since the city-owned arena opened in 2003. According to him, every year since, until the restructure last year, the team had come up millions of dollars short of the cost of the debt service each year.
