Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson seems resigned to the Kings leaving for Anaheim, and says that once the team that spent the last several years demanding a new arena leaves, the first thing his city should do is … build a new arena:
Johnson said embarking on a new arena is not for the sake of the Kings or the Maloofs, but for the city and the hundreds of jobs that would be created.
He said an entertainment and sports complex would take four years to build, and Sacramento would then be in a position to lure another team to town should the Kings leave.
“If we don’t build an entertainment-sports complex, we will never be a major league city,” Johnson said.
Of course, if you do build an entertainment-sports complex without getting a team to sign a lease first, odds are you still won’t be a major league city. Unless he means “major league” in terms of debt service.
In other Kings move rumor news, Daily News sports columnist Mitch Lawrence wrote Saturday that “sources close to the Maloofs say they’re willing to pay the two L.A. teams whatever it takes to relocate,” which seems kind of excessive. ($100 million? $500 squintillion?) Though Lawrence also wrote in the same column that “Ducks owner Henry Samueli is prepared to help the Maloofs with the financing, offering a $100 million loan,” something the Kings themselves said was off the table more than two weeks ago, so maybe he’s not the absolute most reliable source.
The one thing we can be sure of: If the Kings move to Anaheim, they’ll have to put “Anaheim” in the team name, because it’s in the city’s lease with Samueli. As for what the team name would be, you’re welcome to vote here.
You should see the games on TV right now. The arena isn’t half-full any more.
People are taking the move threat as something more than just a threat.
Of course an ex-NBA star can be expected to have an inflated opinion about the worth of having a NBA team in town.
I just question the wisdom of electing celebrities for what are non-ceremonial offices.
Well, if the people of Sacramento vote him out, KJ can always win an election in Quebec City…
SCJ: I would imagine you aren’t the only one questioning that these days… The Gubernator’s record in office never quite matched that in film…
Mike you mean the 12k that showed up the other day. People in Sac could care less other than the one day they got a huge organized effort together.
In terms of relocation and territorial rights, how is the NBA different from MLB? Did NBA teams essentially bargain away their ability to file a territorial rights claim when they agreed to the relocation majority vote process? Is MLB (with the Nationals and Athletics as recent examples) special because of it’s anti-trust exemption? Are the legal battles in the MLB somehow unique in comparison to the NBA (and while I am at at NHL, NFL)?
I only ask because fans in Sacramento pretty much are hanging on a prayer until April 18th passes and having a hard time figuring this out.
Maybe I’m wrong (again), but it sure seems as though KJ now assumes the Kings are leaving. He just looks more and more resigned to it.
The Maloofs got a better business deal somewhere else. If the people who organized the “sellout” against the Clippers had managed to sell out every remaining game, that might (and I stress “might”) have made a difference.
But, no, push came to shove, and they’re back to 8,000 die-hards in the building. That just shows how much people around here care.
The last home game is against the Lakers.
1) Even that won’t sell out, and
2) 80% in attendance will be bleeding Laker purple.
And no, I’m not a Laker fan.
Someone got on the forums in the Bee today and claimed that the Maloofs, with 239 full-time employees, are Sacramento’s fifth-largest employer. Interesting. I want to see a source for that claim; with 239 employees, I don’t think they’d be the 5th largest employer in Red Bluff.
John, the difference is MLB’s antitrust exemption. As a result of that, the league/commish can veto any move, as that’s part of MLB’s status as a peculiar institution.
As for the NBA, NFL, and NHL, they have limited antitrust exemptions (such as the ability to collectively bargain for a TV contract, the ability to hold a draft for new players, etc.), but a league that seriously tried to prevent a move would get sued a la the NFL in ’82 when they tried to keep the Raiders from moving to LA. Historically they’ve tried to bargain (such as the Clippers’ $6 million fine for moving to LA back in the mid-’80’s) rather than force, for that reason.
Brian – So basically MLB is the only league where the commissioner (because of MLB’s antitrust exemption) can essentially override the rest of the represenstives of the rest of the league and say “No the commissioner’s office will not allow you to relocate.” In essence, if the Lakers and Clippers feel they need to be compensated territorial rights fees at the NBA Board of Governors hearing they have no way of making at least 15 other team representatives go along with them?
Did I interpret that wrong? Anyone else have an opinion on how this works?
Brian/John: Great discussion.
In general, sports leagues like to scoff at the suggestion that a team might just ‘move’, as the Raiders, Colts and others have done. This, they claim, was achievable only because of a loophole that has now been closed.
That may be true. However, it hasn’t been tested in court to the best of my knowledge. And one lawyer’s opinion (even if he is commissioner) carries no more weight than another.
To play devil’s advocate, let’s say the Maloofs do the NBA equivalent of the midnight checkout. Can the Lakers/Clippers legally prevent them from relocating? I doubt it. They may be able to extract money under threat of lawsuit, or be compensated with shared league revenue that would otherwise have been the Maloof’s had they stayed in Sacramento, but if the owner of the business decides to move it, it seems to me the only redress for the league is to fine the owner (or buy him out).
They could hint darkly that the league might refuse to schedule games for the relocated franchise, or revoke the franchise entirely (it’s been done). But league membership works both ways: the Maloofs are part of the NBA, and the NBA – in accepting them as a full partner – gives all rights and privileges normally associated. Once you’ve taken a partner’s money, you can’t just kick them out (at least not without a massively expensive legal battle that would likely dwarf the cost of buying the out of favour partner out), despite what Commissioner X says.
I don’t believe any league has the stomach to utter the words “territorial rights” in a court room. The path to restraint of trade claims for franchise owners from there is quite direct, in my opinion.
I would be a very interested spectator in a full-on Al Davis style lawsuit against a league by a member club. I know leagues have always stated that they believe every franchise location is “theirs”, whether a franchise exists there or not. I respectfully disagree, and suggest a franchise owner is within his rights to relocate his business to ‘vacant’ territories as he sees fit, assuming a reasonable effort is made to do so under league rules.
If leagues want to “own” territories in which they do not currently do active business, they would be wise to issue inactive franchises for every market they claim to own, and hold each in a separate company. As far as I am aware, no league does this.
In the end, if the business is failing (or just failing to flourish), the owner still has the right to protect his investment. The league’s option to block such a move should be limited to buying out the partner, if it feels a relocation is ill advised. In every case in which franchises have moved against the wishes of the league in question, the leagues have either declined to sue or lost. And they have the best lawyers money can buy.
The NHL claimed victory in the Coyotes BK case. However, we would do well to remember that the league did not win on the claim it initially planned to stand on, namely that the league already owned the franchise and it could not legally be put into bankruptcy. Their ‘victory’ required that they buy the franchise out of bankruptcy court for 100 cents on the dollar.
That doesn’t sound like a win to me…
John, I think you are 100% correct. And it all boils down to a single issue: The NBA does not have an antitrust exemption.
I’m prepared to take this even one step further. David Stern has long said that he will not accept a team in Las Vegas, because of the gambling issue. He then changed that to saying a team would be allowed, as long as Nevada disallows betting on NBA games.
I strongly suggest he cannot do that, period.
1) Keeping a team out of Las Vegas would be a restraint of trade.
2) No part of the NBA can dictate Nevada state law.
The casinos there would probably exercise restraint and close its books to any local team, but gambling is very easy now. It’s not far from Las Vegas to highly populated parts of California and Arizona; or from Reno to highly populated parts of California and Utah; or Atlantic City to highly populated parts of Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey. A team being actually IN a city where betting on NBA games is legal makes absolutely no material difference.
The precedent is that NFL teams really can move, and the reasoning behind that is that there’s no antitrust exemption in the NBA. Maybe teams can elect to abide by Board of Governor’s votes, but when it comes to restraint of trade, the NBA cannot enforce its rules that violate those US laws, and the NBA cannot dictate state or federal laws.
I just don’t see where I’m wrong here.
The leagues’ argument, Mike, is that these aren’t independent businesses, they’re *franchises*. And just as McDonald’s can tell you that you can’t open a McDonald’s outlet across the street from an existing one, the NBA can tell you that you can’t put an NBA team where it doesn’t want you to.
Is that legal? It hasn’t really been tested – just the Raiders case, and the settled-out-of-court Clippers case, which isn’t really enough to establish a full precedent. Clearly MLB is in a stronger position because of its antitrust exemption, but I don’t think MLB is 100% sure of winning a relocation suit, nor that the other leagues would be 100% sure of losing one. It all depends on what judge you drew, I expect, and/or what mood the Supreme Court was in when you got there.
The reality is that most owners do not want to go to war with their leagues, because it creates all sorts of bad blood. It’s notable that the two cases where serious challenges were made by Al Davis and Donald Sterling, who are – what’s the word? Oh, right, “crazy.”
Neil
1. What exactly was the Clippers settlement?
2. Back when the Nets joined the NBA what did they have to give up to be in the New York market?
3. Does American Needle establish any precedent at all here? I was under the impression that it was interpretted as possibly meaning that all (not just the NFL)leagues are joint ventures.
1. $5.6 million.
books.google.com/books?id=phgatFiaWbgC&lpg=PA40&dq=lawsuit%20nba%20%20clippers%20move&pg=PA40#v=onepage&q=lawsuit%20nba%20%20clippers%20move&f=false
2. $4.8 million, which they sold Julius Erving to help pay off.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABA%E2%80%93NBA_merger#Merger_terms_for_the_Denver_Nuggets.2C_Indiana_Pacers.2C_New_York_Nets_and_San_Antonio_Spurs
3. I don’t think anyone can say exactly what American Needle’s precedent is. Somebody’s going to have to bring a test case and see what happens.
Thanks Neil. And thanks to everyone else for all the responses.
KJ was quoted yesterday as saying that the Maloofs are one foot and two or three toes out the door now.
blogs.sacbee.com/the_swarm/2011/03/mayor-johnson-resigned-on-king.html
That’s really just his opinion now, but as the NBA’s April 14 deadline approaches, the Maloofs still haven’t given financial details to the Taylor-ICON team. I just haven’t seen a thing to make me think this isn’t happening.
Okay, Neil, now do you believe it?
www.sacbee.com/2011/03/16/3481107/maloof-attorney-files-trademark.html
This isn’t simple “standard operating procedure” now.
They’d be foolish not to, whether there’s a 100% chance of them leaving or a 10% chance. The Tampa Bay Devil Rays only got stuck with that name, the story goes, because somebody else snuck in and trademarked “Tampa Bay Stingrays” and wanted a pile of cash to let the team use it.
Yes, if there was a 5% chance of them moving, they’d be fools to not do this. Heck, it crossed my sick mind in mid-February that I could make a few hundred bucks by registering the domain name www.anaheimroyals.com myself. Really, I’m not kidding.
At the same time, however, if you don’t rate their chances of moving at 75% or higher right now, that just looks like denial.
You still can’t buy 2011-2012 Sacramento Kings season tickets; if they stay, they’ve already torpedoed their own sales for next year. I don’t think the Maloofs are on sound enough financial footing to average 3,500 fans per game next year, which is the direction they’re headed.
I just haven’t seen a sign yet that would indicate they’re staying. The big rally at City Hall on Tuesday? Well, it was raining, but official estimates were 10-20 in attendance. No, not 20 dozen, twenty fans. That’s pretty weak.
It’s gonna happen, Neil. You’ll see. Once Stern made his comments after Convergence (predictably) fell apart, the writing was on the wall. That’s the way the NBA operates now: If you don’t build them something like Amway or Conseco when they tell you to, your team will move.