Clippers Owner Steve Ballmer yesterday said that he "doesn't see Seattle landing an NBA franchise 'within the next year or two years' to facilitate public funding for an arena," according to Geoff Baker of the SEATTLE TIMES. At the GeekWire Sports Tech Summit at Safeco Field, Ballmer said that there "have been no talks about NBA expansion at the owner level and that Seattle's quickest hope for an arena might involve bringing hockey" to the city first. Baker notes Ballmer had "partnered with entrepreneur Chris Hansen on his Sodo District arena project but left that group two years ago" to buy the Clippers for $2B. Ballmer said, "The league has really moved to favor teams staying in their current markets. You’d have to find a team that’s at the end of their (arena) lease, where it looks hard to build an arena and where they’ve tried really hard to build an arena. And you’d have to show that an arena can get built in Seattle. Because unlike most other cities that build an arena before they have a team, I don’t think an arena is going to get built here before a team comes here unless it gets done in the context of hockey." Ballmer added that he "feels an arena will eventually get built" in Seattle (SEATTLE TIMES, 7/14).
