Report: Arizona Coyotes to pay $1.3-million outstanding debt after threat of arena lockout

The Arizona Coyotes will be locked out of Gila River Arena if they don’t pay a $1.3-million outstanding debt, The Athletic’s Katie Strang reported Wednesday.

According to Strang, the team owes the debt in the forms of “delinquent tax bills and outstanding arena debt.”

The team, however, said in a statement the debt is due to “an unfortunate human error.”

“We have already launched an investigation to determine how this could have happened and initial indications are that it appears to be the result of an unfortunate human error,” the club said in a statement. “Regardless, we deeply regret the inconvenience this has caused. We will make sure that by tomorrow morning, the Arizona Coyotes are current on all of our bills and owe no state or local taxes whatsoever. And we will take immediate steps to ensure that nothing like this can ever possibly happen again.”

ASM, the Gila River Arena management company, was instructed by the City of Glendale that if the debt wasn’t paid by Dec. 20, to lock the team out of their home arena, Strang reported.

The team’s next home game would be Dec. 23 against Tampa Bay.