September 16, 2006
Weekend update: California scheming
This week's leftover news comes with a decided West Coast flavor:
- The Maloof brothers, owners of the Sacramento Kings, have been on a whirlwind media tour to paint themselves as the victims in the failed talks to buy downtown railyards land for a new arena, insisting that city and county negotiators changed the terms of an agreement that, um, hadn't yet been agreed on. (Though some locals can't help noticing that the Maloofs have a tradition of throwing hissy fits.) As for what happens now with the scheduled November arena-funding vote, Joe Maloof told KCRA-TV news: "They're confused. We're confused. Everybody's confused." Can't argue with that.
- Speaking of stage-managed hissy fits, Oakland A's owner Lew Wolff made headlines on Friday by announcing he'd broken off talks for a lease extension on Oakland Coliseum (or whatever corporate name it bears these days). The A's lease now expires after the 2010 season - unless, of course, Wolff decides to reenter negotiations sometime in the next four years. As always, it's all about the leverage.
- The city and county of San Diego tried to make headlines by announcing they were proposing to begin negotiations to create a joint powers authority to build a new stadium for the Chargers - only to have the team blast county officials for not including two other prospective stadium sites, National City and Chula Vista, in the talks. Officials from those cities, meanwhile, said they didn't have a problem with the joint powers plan, which could ultimately be expanded to include them. Poor, poor headline writers.
- The Baltimore Orioles are asking that taxpayers pick up the bulk of the $38 million cost of rebuilding their spring-training home of Fort Lauderdale Stadium; under the plan, Broward County would pay $1 million a year, the state would rebate $500,000 a year in sales taxes, a user fee would supply $350,000 a year, and the team would pay $550,000 a year. And who would get the new revenues from the facility? The South Florida Sun-Sentinel article doesn't say. Clearly the campaign to get journalists to look at both the expense and revenue sides of the ledger in stadium deals is going to take longer than we thought.
- Finally, in the unlikely-homes-for-a-WNBA-franchise department, this week's contestant is: Albuquerque!
Not that I'd want to see this, Neil, but is there any chance the Maloofs can fix this by the Oct 6 deadline to finalize a deal?
I'm starting to think they will, and this was just all staged to get a better deal.
I can picture a huge love-fest starting on about Oct 7...
Posted by MikeM on September 18, 2006 12:32 PM
I'm sure that's their goal. Maybe they even figure that having lots of positive "We have a deal!" headlines a few weeks before the election will help the referendum's chances, though that seems like a longshot.
Posted by Neil on September 18, 2006 12:59 PM
The NBA has now stepped into this mess. They issued a statement on 9/20:
"It is very important, before Election Day, that a memorandum of understanding be completed and signed that accurately reflects the agreement that Harvey Benjamin of the NBA Commissioner's office participated in negotiating with the Maloofs, the city and the county over several months this summer." -- Joel Litvin, NBA president.
In other words, City, Do it the Maloof's way or something bad's going to happen.
Like what? You mean, like we won't have to build a $600 million project which we then rent to the Maloofs for $142 million? That's a bad thing??
I think the Maloofs have a better offer from someone else, and torpedoing Q&R was their best bet. Refusing to negotiate with the City now... Let 'em go. What's so hard about it?
Posted by MikeM on September 21, 2006 01:13 PM
Well, the developer has now stepped forward with a $2 million campaign contribution, even without the Maloofs on board.
And RE Graswich, a local columnist, on the radio this morning, talked about how there might even be a second team involved now, not necessarily an NBA team. He hinted it might be an NHL team.
Sacramento. An NHL team. I got a seven word question about that: Why?
These damned rookie City and County negotiators shouldn't be working on this deal. They just don't know what they're doing. It doesn't really matter who the recipient of this is, it's still a massive taxpayer giveaway.
I think this is all destined to get even weirder.
Posted by MikeM on September 22, 2006 12:09 PM
Maybe the Maloofs will try to buy the Pittsburgh Penguins and move the team to Sacramento to play their home games at the new arena if it gets built.
Posted by Daniel F. on September 22, 2006 07:25 PM