The Commissioner of the NBA, David Stern, is featured in a new interview on NBA.com out this morning and he spoke for a few minutes about the Sacramento Kings and the ongoing discussions to keep the team in town. You can check the interview out for yourself by clicking here. The discussion about the Kings starts around the 4:00 mark. Below is a transcript of what he had to say.
———————————-
Interviewer: Let’s talk about Sacramento. They’ve got about a week to get this deal done before your deadline kicks in. Do you think they’re going to make a deal?
Stern: Well, there is a lot of discussion going on. And it is our hope that by the March 1st deadline, they’ll be a financing plan that makes sense.
I: If there isn’t?
S: We’ll see. Ya know, here we go again.
I: So the plan is, has been, written about, would involve them turning over their parking to some private entity or corporation, parking enforcement and all of those things in the city, and that would allow them to raise enough money to help them build an arena.
S: I think it’s fair to say that the city is looking at multiple ways to fund a major contribution to the team, to the arena. Because it’s not just a basketball issue. The current arena is a place where there can no longer be NCAA tournaments held and the like. It’s outlived its useful life by a fair amount. And the city is looking for a contribution from the team. And the team has agreed to a substantial contribution; both directly from itself and also by catalyzing AEG to be interested. In effect, whatever money AEG puts in is because of givebacks by the team to allow AEG to profit from the arena causing a substantial amount of money to be given. So we see that as a team contribution. And so it’s going to wind up being substantial, whether it ultimately closes all the gaps we’ll know as we negotiate continuously, and I fully expect we’ll be negotiating in Orlando. (the site of this weekend’s NBA All-Star game)
———————————-
The Sacramento City Council is expected to place a key vote on the arena funding plan at next Tuesday’s meeting. The March 1st deadline is now less than 8 days away, and the terms of the deal have not yet been made public. Mayor Kevin Johnson said yesterday that he hopes to have a draft available for public review by Thursday, but that he couldn’t guarantee that.
Comments
Powered by Facebook Comments
Related posts:
Stern is the master of talking for 8 minutes without saying anything. The interviewer is David Aldridge, by the way.
“The current arena is a place where there can no longer be NCAA tournaments held and the like. It’s outlived its useful life by a fair amount.”
In case everybody has forgotten, this is an arena that opened in 1988, 1988! It is only 24 years old.
My question, if we build this new basketball arena are we going to have to build a whole new arena in 24 years when that arena has “outlived its useful life?” Where does this end?
Neither the Maloof’s NOR AEG has made ANY financial commitment AT ALL!!!
In fact, AEG’s Leiweke has stated PUBLICLY that not only will any agreement in Sacramento with their firm be substantially different from, for example, Kansas City’s, but also, that AEG would NOT contribute to capital costs of a Railyards arena, though I cannot for the life of me find his statement again — it was made in January, and several commenters at DAs Bee saw it too — but for some reason the statement has been ‘disappeared’ from the internet ethers…
…and the Maloof’s — they’re just a lost cause — they have nowhere NEAR the cash necessary to make an upfront capital contribution, and $80 million as published in the press as the city’s recommended amount — a PITTANCE for a building built to their specs — may as well be $80 BILLION… for they cannot even leverage the amount through their own bank — I won’t say how I dug THAT one out, but trust me – they can’t…. (lack of audited financial statements hasn’t helped their cause)…