Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson yesterday announced that he “wants the city to spend the next two to three weeks exploring the construction of a downtown sports and entertainment complex, ‘with or without an anchor tenant,’” according to a front-page piece by Lillis, Bizjak & Kasler of the SACRAMENTO BEE. Johnson said that city officials “should remain focused on a downtown arena and perhaps follow ‘the Kansas City model,’” where Sprint Center operates without an anchor tenant. Without the NBA Kings -- and the $73.5M the team had been counted on to contribute to an arena -- the mayor acknowledged that “a new arena likely would be smaller than the facility city officials had proposed.” But he added that a new arena “could start off small and gradually be expanded should a professional sports franchise locate to the facility.” Johnson said that the city “could explore trying to lure” an NHL franchise. A potential hurdle to Johnson's idea is that the Kings “would be allowed to walk away from their existing $65 million debt to the city if the city financed an NBA-caliber arena without the Kings as anchor tenant.” Council member Kevin McCarty said, "I think it's time for us to take a timeout. It's time for us to pause, regroup and focus on our other priorities." Johnson said that the city “might be willing to re-engage” the Maloof family “on the collapsed arena talks, but only if they ‘honor the commitment’ of the handshake agreement” of a term sheet to finance the proposed venue. Johnson: "We've got to hedge our bets slightly different, we've got to be very cautious on how we proceed, and we've got to face the brutal facts. We cannot ignore the vacillation and the changes, that's just a reality we have to deal with" (SACRAMENTO BEE, 4/18).
EMPTY POCKETS: In Sacramento, Marcos Breton writes the Maloof brothers “are saying a downtown arena wouldn't be good for Sacramento, when in truth it wouldn't be good” for them. The Maloofs’ share of the Kings “is worth roughly $150 million and they would have had to take on $200 million to play ball with Sacramento.” Breton: “That’s called being underwater." The Maloofs "don’t have much going for them except the American axiom of possession being nine-tenths of the law” (SACRAMENTO BEE, 4/18). ESPN.com’s Tim Keown noted the Maloof brothers “lost vast amounts of money in the casino business, being forced to sell all but 2 percent of their stake in the Palms Casino in Las Vegas.” There is “a good chance they no longer have the kind of money you need to stay in the pro sports game, but they managed to persuade Sacramento … to provide $255 million of the $400 million for a proposed new arena.” Keown asked what if NBA Commissioner David Stern “looked at the Kings not as a nearly $300 million asset but a horribly mismanaged, failing business?” The league “might never have a better chance to cut ties with one of its bottom dwellers, owned by three brothers who managed to turn off one of the most loyal fan bases in sports with their incessant arena double-talk and the league's lowest payroll” (ESPN.com, 4/17).
BLAME GAME: NBA.com’s Scott Howard-Cooper wrote the Maloof brothers “are 100 percent at fault for the deal collapsing.” They did “nothing legally wrong … but playing yo-yo with the emotions of a loyal fan base is unacceptable, and to many unforgivable.” Feeling especially scorned “has turned an acrimonious relationship between the mayor and the Maloofs into an ugly public discourse and an embarrassment for both sides.” Howard-Cooper: “At some point, this has to become about keeping the NBA and not about blasting away at the Maloofs. Sacramento deserves better” (NBA.com, 4/17). CBSSPORTS.com’s Ray Ratto wrote the Maloofs “in their whirlwind tour of making friends by telling them to get lost … have shown either an incredible confusion based on their parlous financial state, or merely want to stall the process to the point where someone will come and buy the team off them just to get them to shut up.” The league has “made one big mistake -- trusting the boys to know what they want” (CBSSPORTS.com, 4/17).
