SacTown Kings wrote:I mean if they are just renting the space and not owning the arena then why would they have to pay for environmental studies and pre planning things. Seems like whoever owns the stadium should pay for that.
The Maloofs are part owners of the stadium and will be in a revenue share with AEG.
408Kings wrote:What do you guys speculate the Maloofs have planned?
Do you think they just want to bleed the city a bit more, so they don't have to contribute much, if any, money themselves, yet still stay?
Or are they throwing a wrench into everything to jeopardize the deal so they can up and move?
Before I answer this question I think the Maloofs' current position needs some explanation:
After selling off their beer distributorship and losing all but 2% of the Palms the Kings are the last business entity that they own (not the last revenue generating entity however--they own nearly $200mil of Wells Fargo stock). So not only are they pretty much broke now (in NBA owner terms), but they have little to no way to amass a fortune again given that the Kings will always be an investment with modest returns
at best (a pro team shouldn't even be looked on as an investment for what it's worth).
So what do the Maloofs want? I think it's pretty clear they want 1 of 2 things:
1) They want a revenue generating entity like the Lakers, Clippers, Knicks, etc. that will pull in tens of millions of dollars worth of profit every year. They can then use these future earnings (and the team--whose value would skyrocket) as leverage for other business interests.
2) They want to pump up the value of the team and sell it for a huge gain, and then use that money for other business interests.
My feeling is their primary goal is (1), but (2) is plan B.
So with that said, what do the Maloofs want to do? Well, most likely their advisers have told them that they have little to no chance to move the team this year and possibly not next year either. And if the new stadium gets build they're locked into Sac for 30 some odd years. So what can they do? They can sabotage the arena plan in any way possible. If it falls down then they can go right back to the NBA BOG and say "look, we can't ever get a stadium here ... we can't continue to stay in Sac ... we want to move to Anaheim".
The Maloofs have a big problem here, though. The Sonics moving to OKC taught people that the NBA isn't bluffing. Don't give us a stadium, with at least some public money, and we'll leave. So, if the Kings were to leave with said publicly financed stadium, what exactly does that tell future cities? If you don't build a stadium for us then we'll leave ... but if you do everything you can to build a stadium then, well, we'll still probably leave. It's a really horrible business move, and Stern knows it. Unless the arena deal REALLY isn't a feasible idea then I can see Stern doing pretty much everything he can to keep it afloat (he did so already and that was BEFORE it looked like a deal would actually work). Allowing the Maloofs to leave, while great for THEIR bottom line, would remove any leverage small market teams would have in the future as far as getting a publicly financed stadium.