Diamondbacks Follow Coyotes In Struggle To Stay In Phoenix Thanks to Stadium, Arena Woes

I don't know what the problem is in the Phoenix area, but two of the city's four major professional sports teams are having serious issues that could lead them to skip town entirely if there's no solution in sight.

The first, of course, is the Arizona Coyotes who have seemed to be on the cusp of leaving the desert for the better part of the last 20 years.

However, Arizona Diamondbacks managing partner Ken Kendrick talked about how his team couldn't rule out the option of looking for a new home either.

The D-Backs want to make renovations to Chase Field, and that will cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $400 to $500 million. The team wants some public money to help defray the cost, and… well, we've seen this play out a million times: they're having some trouble getting a thumbs up.

"There is likely to be, in time, an expansion of our sport to a couple of additional cities. Cities are letting MLB know their interest; their interest in getting a team is specific. They would be happy with a brand-new franchise, but they would certainly be very happy, you know, with, frankly, a successful, existing franchise," Kendrick said according to CBS Sports.

"It's not where we are spending time or energy. We may run out of time in Phoenix. We hope that won't happen. We're hard at it; we're continuing to have meetings. We've ramped up the dialogue in every way that we know how and we'll continue to do that."

After being left without an arena, the Arizona Coyotes have been forced to shack up in Arizona State's 5,000-seat Mullett Arena. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)

A Tale Of One City But With Two Teams Unhappy With Their Stadium And Arena Situations 

That's interesting… but there's no way the Diamondbacks are moving. 

Phoenix is a massive market, plus it doesn't make sense for the league to lose out on a team that plays in one of its Spring Training hubs.

The Diamondbacks just want some public money to defray the cost of renovations. It happens all the time.

The Diamondbacks situation is nowhere near as dire as the Coyotes'. The ‘Yotes were left without an arena entirely ahead of the 2022-23 season and cut a deal to play at Arizona State’s 5,000-seat Mullett Arena. Furthermore, the team's efforts to build a new arena have been unsuccessful to this point.

The Diamondbacks aren't without a place to play, and will almost certainly stay in town. However, it is interesting that this is the second team in the area that ran into issues securing public funding. It happened to the Coyotes last year when voters shot down a plan for a new arena in Tempe.