By Jason Perez, The Tempe Times

Tempe’s sports landscape could change quickly, as two ownership groups duel for use of one facility.

On Monday, a press conference was held at the Mission Palms Hotel, announcing that the city would welcome a brand new professional team in 2024: Tempe Heat F.C. of the American Soccer Premier League. The sport has gained momentum over the past decade, and the league was eager to enter the Phoenix metro area. Paul Jeeben, the owner of the DuoTrans driverless car company brought the expansion team to Tempe. Jeeben was joined by representatives of the city, and management from their new facility at the press conference, kicking a soccer ball around the floor in celebration.

The team will be playing their home games at Tempe Stadium, known locally as “The Keep”. Over the upcoming months, the stadium will receive a reconfiguration to replace some permanent seats with movable ones to accommodate both baseball and soccer, as well as other upgrades. Tempe Heat F.C. will be contributing several million dollars towards the facelift, which will not affect the stadium’s baseball capacity. The soccer layout is expected to hold 32,000 fans.

Despite the smiles at the announcement, there are some in town who are not quite as pleased about the news.

Once the press conference was scheduled last week and details began to emerge, sources revealed last weekend that the city’s baseball team, the Tempe Knights, have been aggressively trying to block the new team’s arrival at their facility. Even though the facility is actually owned by the city and not the team, the Knights were the only tenants until now. Scheduling was made relatively easily, and over the years PEBA was able to schedule favorable dates for the team’s home games, avoiding other events in town as much as possible; a luxury not all PEBA teams have… just ask the London Underground.

Flexible scheduling was seen as crucial for a team in PEBA’s smallest market. Every game is a chance to make money (or, more accurately, lose less money). Over the past few seasons, the Knights’ ownership group had grown weary of continuing with the status quo, as balancing the books had become increasingly difficult for such a small-market team, even when the 81 home dates were optimized as much as possible, and salaries continued to be cut. Having to share facilities only makes the financial issues worse.

From 2007 to 2022, the Knights lost over 140 million dollars. Even when the team won the PEBA Championship in 2012, the team lost 19.3 million dollars that year.

ASPL games are traditionally scheduled on weekends, and runs from May to September, entirely overlapping the Knights’ season. When asked for a comment following the announcement, the Knights’ VP of Baseball Operations, Ted Flynn, was honest in his answer: “Under the proposed situation, scheduling home series over the span of a weekend will be extremely difficult. We simply cannot draw enough fans by substituting Saturday night games for a majority of games on weekdays. This is a premium issue for our club.”

A company called KSM is in charge of overseeing Tempe Stadium, and the Knights pay them an annual fee to use the park… a fee that will reportedly increase next year since the stadium would be renovated. Although no one at KSM was willing to comment, sources tell us that after a heated meeting, the Knights were given an ultimatum: agree to the new terms, or pay a significantly higher fee to compensate Tempe Heat F.C. for a less-than-reasonable scheduling arrangement.

It is unclear what will happen with this boardroom showdown, but the Knights have a few options they can explore: give in to KSM’s demands and attempt to continue, seek PEBA Board approval for either a relocation if a suitable landing spot is found, or to fold the club altogether. When contacted, PEBA officials released a statement that they were aware of the situation, and “would be monitoring the events closely”.