Coyotes' chairman believes club could 'fast-track' profitability plan

After announcing a new sponsorship agreement for the team's home arena last week, Arizona Coyotes chairman George Gosbee reiterated the club's commitment to staying in the desert for the long run, and asserted his belief that the financial books may be in the black sooner than expected.

"I wish people would stop looking at the five-year out clause and start looking at all the long-term deals we're signing," Gosbee told FOX Sports Arizona. "I'm not sure it will matter if I say it, but we're committed to this market for the long run and we keep proving it.

"As an ownership group, we're really comfortable with how the club is working on financial platforms. We've always had a three-year plan for achieving profitability here, but with how well the NHL is doing, we think that could fast-track our plan and we could get there even earlier."

The Coyotes are set to benefit from record revenues for the league as a whole, boosted, in part, by Stadium Series games and lucrative television deals with NBC and Rogers. The switch from the Phoenix Coyotes to the Arizona Coyotes should help merchandise sales as well.

At the end of the day, however, Gosbee realizes the importance of putting a winning product on the ice.

The goal is to become more competitive on the ice, and that comes partly with more dollars. The key is to get the franchise profitable, and that's not going to happen overnight. Again, we think we might get there earlier than planned. If it happens faster than we thought it would, great, but if it doesn't that doesn't concern us. Not everything is going according to plan, and we still have some areas like attendance and parking that need our attention, but we feel very comfortable with where we are in the process.

The Coyotes have $54.7 million committed to payroll for 2014-15 (via Capgeek), ranking them 26th among 30 NHL teams.