Sacramento as regional bubble host city?

MarxyLebronist · Post #1 » by **MarxyLebronist** » Sat Dec 5, 2020 10:34 pm

I can't post on General Board yet and am active in the two LA forums and a few others so far. I'm really interested in the COVID league management stuff and was impressed by the Florida bubble.

Sac seems like the perfect spot for any West-regional bubbles that become necessary to keep the league going. The new COVID protocols coming out today seem really punitive and position the league for some shut downs. California is already really restrictive and likely to get more so before the vaccine is distributed and/or the issue is under control via other means. But for whatever limited travel is necessary, I know the Sac airport is excellent and more manageable than every other major airport in the state. A bubble limits travel by definition, and so I was thinking more of how Sac has a smaller population than every other west-side conference team from PDX-through CA-and over to AZ. It's conceivably a more manageable area with some more reliable weather than PDX or the mountain states that could become a node of player campuses- or one big one like in FL- should the need arise. Particularly given the public investment in the Sac arena (vs. the SF arena, for example), I'd like to see a way the league can direct some sort of revenue that direction. But that's beyond the scope, and all teams would need fair share of any bubble proceeds. It just seemed like Sac would be a really logical site, unless the downtown location is actually still tough to manage lodgings, food, training and medical, travel in and out of, and so on. I don't know of any other pro-level arenas in the state that would be any better though, right?

Perhaps Phoenix would be better?

Any thoughts about this?

blind prophet · Post #2 » by **blind prophet** » Sun Dec 6, 2020 1:18 am

Well I drive by the old Arco for work, doesn't look like it is in great shape in the area, but it once had a practise facility, plus could be used as a side area potentially for games with a lot of work. Probably not enough time to do that. But you could in theory have two places to play and practice in the area if this was thought of before.

EZ transportation from the airport to the downtown arena, should be a decent amount of hotel space near the state capitol, probably not really needed as much with covid, but Sacramento during the wildfires had the highest rates in the nation for Hotel prices believe it or not.

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sacramento-most-expensive-us-city-for-hotels-survey-shows-301144255.html

Not sure if that's the case or not still, but if you figure places like NY, LA, Miami etc aren't getting a ton of tourists and have too many vacancies, maybe prices drop. That could be a concern here, would have to look into it.

But if we had more time using the old Arco + Golden 1 may be a decent idea.

MarxyLebronist · Post #3 » by **MarxyLebronist** » Sun Dec 6, 2020 1:33 am

That's a great point about multiple sites and Sac's potential being perhaps not as amazing as a big city if tourism is shut down. Vegas could even make perfect sense under those conditions.
Did the Florida site have more than one court available? I honestly don't know but it looked great.

Post #4 » by **City of Trees** » Sun Dec 6, 2020 4:49 am

Hey welcome to the board! Great topic!

Didn't the NBA tell Sacramento they haven't qualified to host an All-Star game due to the limited number of hotel rooms in the area?

blind prophet · Post #5 » by **blind prophet** » Sun Dec 6, 2020 7:24 am

City of Trees wrote:Hey welcome to the board! Great topic!

Didn't the NBA tell Sacramento they haven't qualified to host an All-Star game due to the limited number of hotel rooms in the area?

Yeah after Vivek et all stayed home they sorta promised us one, provided we improve the hotel situation.

MarxyLebronist · Post #6 » by **MarxyLebronist** » Sun Dec 6, 2020 5:38 pm

Oh wow had no idea about that, re: hotels. So that would work with the point about some work being needed on Arco, for sure: a bit more infrastructure still needed. Then again, this might ave more to do with the kind of hotel, right? There are definitely fancy enough ones near a huge state's capitol, aren't there? Maybe another vote for Vegas lol. But that airport is about the worst and there's no way to keep players safe in Vegas ha.

Post #7 » by **City of Trees** » Sun Dec 6, 2020 8:48 pm

As for old Arco arena site, the state spent $12M turning it into a COVID facility taking on patients. It's set to open next week due to the COVID surge in California.

But in a normal year the NCAA seems to agree with the OP's thought on Sacramento being a good host location

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.abc10.com/amp/article/news/local/sacramento/sacramento-to-host-ncaa-competitions/103-fb0e7184-277e-4d1f-88da-980354498d5a