When last we checked in on the Detroit Red Wings arena campaign, team owner Mike Ilitch was looking for possibly $300 million or more in subsidies, while the city of Detroit was about to have its finances taken over by the state. The latter has since happened, and the former remains on track, according to … well, according to Mike Ilitch’s son Chris:

The Detroit Red Wings will get a new arena.

It’s not if, but when and yet Chris Ilitch doesn’t know or want to say much about it.

”Everybody is working hard and there’s positive progress,” the president and CEO of Ilitch Holdings told The Associated Press after Wednesday’s Detroit Economic Club meeting.

What’s next in the process?

”It’s tough to say,” he said. ”I’d prefer not to make any predictions and just keep working away and continue to do our due diligence and see what we can put together.”

He’s not going to make predictions, but the Associated Press sure will. Remember, it’s not if, but when. Because that’s what serious journalism is all about.

In case you missed it, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder declared Detroit to be in a state of “financial emergency” on Friday, and sounds like he’s all but determined to appoint an emergency manager to oversee the city’s finances, as Michigan really really likes to do.

“Citizens are not getting the services they deserve and need,” Snyder said during a midday Friday public forum. “Public safety, lighting, transportation — all those areas need help and it’s time to call all hands on deck and say let’s all work together.”

So what does this mean for the Detroit Red Wings arena subsidy plan that’s in the works? In all likelihood, not much: The state is already looking at being heavily involved in the arena, so the governor probably isn’t going to stop Detroit from giving tax breaks to a project that he himself favors, even if they’re tax breaks that could otherwise be used to shore up city services. Besides which, Michigan’s emergency managers have so far been more interested in outsourcing public services and breaking union contracts than in reforming developer subsidies.

It could make things awfully interesting, though, as suddenly you’d have a major development subsidy deal being proposed at a time when the city council wouldn’t even be able to vote to have a say in the matter. That could look not so hot, since you’d potentially have an unelected administrator committing millions of dollars in future Detroit property taxes at a time when he’s telling the city’s elected officials that they can’t be trusted with taxpayer money. I don’t think irony can be grounds for a lawsuit, but if nothing else, it could give this a run for its money as Most Ironic Sports-Related Thing Ever.

One thing I hate about these crazy-busy news week: I inevitably leave something out. Like, for example, Bill Shea’s excellent article in Sunday’s Crain’s Detroit Business revealing that Detroit Red Wings owner Mike Ilitch is exploring having the state be the owner of his planned $650 million hockey-arena-plus-other-stuff development:

The suggestion to possibly use the Michigan Strategic Fund as the venue’s owner was discussed in a November meeting between state economic development executives and representatives of the Ilitch family, according to copies of emails obtained from the Michigan Economic Development Corp. by Crain’s through a Freedom of Information Act request.

The Michigan Strategic Fund may be familiar to readers of the book Field of Schemes, as the state-controlled agency that former Michigan Gov. John Engler used to funnel $55 million in state money to the Detroit Tigers for their new stadium in the late ’90s. (The fund didn’t actually have $55 million in it, so Engler augmented it with money from a state casino gambling fee that was actually controlled by the legislature, leading to the famous state supreme court ruling that while Engler wasn’t technically allowed to do this, they’d let him get away with it just this once.) That’s the Detroit Tigers that are owned by Mike Ilitch, so the man clearly known his government slush funds.

As I note in Shea’s article — see, this has been one of those weeks where I don’t even find time to cite article that I’m quoted in — the main benefit of state ownership to Ilitch would be that he’d presumably be freed from paying property taxes on the project, which could amount to a rather large subsidy. Add in the $150 million or so (actually probably more like “or so,” since the $12.8 million a year approved in December should go farther than that at current interest rates) in public funds that Ilitch already has his eye on, plus any other public moneys that could later be added, and we could easily be looking at half or more of this arena project being paid for by taxpayers.

Of course, it’s important to remember that this is just a proposal, and could be rejected by the state. (Though the state hasn’t exactly shown itself eager to drive a hard bargain with Ilitch.) In any case, it certainly shows us Ilitch’s thinking: Piece together as many obscure subsidies as you can, in order to leave yourself with as little to pay out of your own pocket as possible. It’s how he got Comerica Park built for the Tigers, so why mess with success?

Even as Detroit Red Wings owner Mike Ilitch is asking for about $150 million in state subsidies for a new hockey arena, it turns out he’s been getting a previously undisclosed public gift: His Olympia Entertainment company’s lease on Joe Louis Arena and Cobo Hall says that he needs to share 25% of all cable TV revenue for live events with the city, but he hasn’t paid a dime since 1980.

Needless to say, that could be a lot of money: Fox Sports Detroit is currently paying more than $100 million a year to televise games of the Red Wings, Tigers, and Pistons. How exactly the city’s share should be calculated, though, sounds like it’s going to be contentious: City finance staff estimated last year that Ilitch’s total delinquent debt is about $70 million; sports economist Andrew Zimbalist says it’s more like $10 million or so, since it only applies to rights to home games; and an Olympia official insisted in 2007 that it doesn’t owe squat, because Olympia itself doesn’t sell cable rights, only the teams themselves do, so nyah nyah nyah.

Whether the city will ever demand that Ilitch pay up, given that it’s in the middle of negotiations with him over a new lease for a new arena, is questionable. Detroit Mayor (and former Pistons star) Dave Bing is in the middle of a crackdown on tax delinquents, but when asked by the Detroit News about the cable TV money, he responded by email:

“During the City’s current negotiations with Olympia Entertainment regarding a lease for Joe Louis Arena, I have directed the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation (DEGC) to secure an agreement that is fair and equitable to both parties. Although our primary focus has been on developing a new lease agreement, we will take appropriate steps to collect any money that is owed to the City.

“We look forward to resolving all issues past and present in our negotiations with Olympia Entertainment.”

Reading between the lines, I’ll go out on a limb and predict that either Bing will absolve the past cable debts as part of a new deal, or Ilitch will agree to make some token payment in exchange for an equal amount of new subsidies. Meanwhile, it’s a reminder of what should be Lessons #1 and #2 of sports facility negotiations: Leases aren’t even worth the paper they’re printed on if 1) you don’t write them to be specific about who owes what and 2) you don’t remember to enforce them for 32 years.

Those long-amorphous plans for a new Detroit Red Wings arena suddenly got a whole lot more morphous yesterday, as the Michigan state senate voted to approve the use of tax dollars by the Downtown Development Authority toward any arena plan. Namely, the one that Red Wings owner Mike Ilitch announced on Tuesday, which would cost $650 million and include a mixed-use retail/housing/office development, and would be built, er, somewhere and be paid for somehow.

Ilitch and his senate allies have been playing up the “no new taxes” aspect of the DDA scheme, but of course old taxes are tax money too. The DDA funds are basically a TIF — they come from redirected property taxes in downtown that would otherwise go to city schools. This was a matter of some consternation yesterday to Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer, who complained, “For the first time in nearly two decades, the property taxes in Detroit were finally going to the right place, the schools. Now they’re swooping in on school taxes to help pay for a hockey arena in Detroit.”

Actually, from what I can tell, the DDA has already been using the money — currently running about $12.8 million a year, or enough to pay off about $150 million worth of arena — to pay off prior school debt, but now that that’s almost retired, apparently Ilitch figures the cash would make a nice down payment on his arena dream. The senate action doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll get it — the state house still has to vote on it, and then the DDA needs to work out an actual arena deal — but it’s certainly a great first step. Or a lousy first step, depending on your perspective.

There’s a great, detailed article today by Bill Shea of Crain’s Detroit on the finances of Joe Louis Arena, which concludes: The city is netting $2.6 million a year on the home of the Red Wings, including revenues from rent, ticket taxes, and a cut of concessions and suite sales.

Given that the arena was built in 1979 for only $30 million, that’s a pretty excellent deal for the city of Detroit — which is, no doubt, one of the reasons Red Wings owner Mike Ilitch wants out of Joe Louis. Ilitch has actually already let the lease expire two years ago, but continues to operate under its terms while negotiating a new one.

(Incidentally, this should serve as a reminder to anyone who worries that teams will “have to move” once their current leases expire: No, they don’t. The number of cities that have actually evicted teams is, while not exactly zero, pretty darn close to it on the major-league level.)

However, Crain’s notes, “stipulations in the contract call for the city to immediately lose the ticket tax and in five years lose the surcharge on concessions and suites,” so regardless of whether Ilitch gets a new arena, Detroit looks likely to see its arena revenues evaporate. Unless, of course, the city drives a hard bargain with Ilitch in negotiating a new lease — but as we’ve seen, that doesn’t happen too often.