RealGM

Kings To Remain In Sacramento
By Luke Adams
February 27 at 12:34pm CST

A "framework of an agreement" to keep the Kings in Sacramento has been reached, Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson told reporters, including SI.com's Sam Amick (Twitter link). Johnson added, "It's game over, so our community should be really excited" (Twitter link).

Negotiations on Sacramento's $387MM arena proposal had been ongoing in Orlando over All-Star weekend, in anticipation of a March 1st deadline. According to Amick (via Twitter), the Maloof brothers, who own the Kings, have agreed to contribute $73MM in the deal. Amick also says the Maloofs will also pay a 5% surcharge on all tickets when the new arena opens in 2015, which will eventually add an additional $60MM to their contribution (Twitter link). According to Joe Maloof, those figures are slightly off -- he tells Tony Bizjak of the Sacramento Bee that the Maloofs' contributions will consist of $75MM now and $75MM later through ticket sales (Twitter link).

The agreement means that cities like Anaheim and Seattle, who are hoping to land an NBA team, will have to wait for another opportunity to arise. David Stern has repeatedly said he doesn't anticipate expanding the league within North America, so a franchise would have to be relocated for Anaheim or Seattle to be in play.