Hours after the city of Alexandria ended negotiations to build a $2B arena to house the Wizards and Capitals, the District of Columbia struck a tentative deal with Monumental Sports and Entertainment owner Ted Leonsis to keep the teams in the nation’s capital through 2050. Pending approval by the 13-member D.C. Council next Tuesday, the agreement between Leonsis and Mayor Muriel E. Bowser has the city contributing $515M over three years to renovate Capital One Arena and a greenlight to expand Leonsis’ Monumental Sports and Entertainment business downtown.
Other provisions in the term sheet -- which was signed on the basketball court of Capital One Arena prior to Wednesday night’s game against the Nets -- include an increased police presence surrounding the venue, a new downtown Wizards practice facility, parking for Monumental staffers at various D.C. buildings and the city overseeing the WNBA Mystics’ training facility in SE Washington. The financing will come out of D.C.’s Capital Fund budget, with $500M going to upgrade the arena and $15M going toward the expansion of MSE’s downtown footprint.
“It’s a great day, and I’m really relieved,” Leonsis said at a news conference Wednesday evening. “... I had a difficult conversation [with Bowser and D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson] and said, ‘We can still be friends. Let’s take the high road.’”
SCALED-DOWN DISTRICT: Leonsis’ agreement three months ago with Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin for an arena at the Potomac Yard section of Alexandra included a mixed-use district -- a trend in the NBA that cities such as Cleveland and Orlando are pursuing. But with the teams staying in D.C., Leonsis’ hopes of an entertainment district are slightly more modest.
“In major metro areas, you’re in an arms race to build bigger and better and higher quality, and we’ve been running out of space.” Leonsis said. “We now have 200,000 square feet [in D.C.] that we can expand to. It’s not 12 acres [like Virginia], but it’s enough.”
POLITICAL MANEUVERING: Leonsis said Wednesday that since his announced intentions to move to Northern Virginia, he remained in contact with Bowser and was further encouraged by a new crime bill -- passed by the council -- that helped convince him to keep the team downtown.
“This is really the mayor’s day,” Leonsis said. “She did the right thing as a businessperson.”
Bowser, who also is trying to lure the NFL’s Commanders back to the city’s RFK Stadium site, said there will be safeguards to prevent MSE from leaving the lease prematurely. In an interview with the Washington Post, she said of Leonsis: “We appreciated our discussions about how we could grow together.” Following Leonsis’ initial announcement that he was taking the teams across the border to Alexandria, both the city and the owner were flooded with negative reaction, with both sides realizing how much the Wizards and Capitals mean to D.C.
“We’re not politicians,” Leonsis said. “D.C. did everything right from December on. Every single move that they made, we would put on the board and say, ‘That’s impressive.’ And when we looked at the other side of the board [at Virginia], some of them weren’t scoring as high.
“We are an incredibly valuable company. And we should be treated with that kind of respect. The city treated us that way, and that really was what the game-changer was for us.”
SBJ's Wes Sanderson contributed to this report.
