With VA arena plan dead, Caps/Wizards owner Leonsis grabs first half-billion-dollar check he can find, in DC

D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser and Ted Leonsis, owner of the Wizards and Capitals, said Wednesday they were finalizing a deal that — if approved by the D.C. Council — would keep the teams in downtown D.C. until 2050, ending the owner’s planned move to Virginia.

That’s right: Whether it was the threat of an enforceable lease through 2047 or what, Leonsis has decided to take Bowser’s $500 million offer and run with it. Or rather $515 million, according to the Washington Post, in exchange for a 25-year lease extension, which is really a five-year lease extension if the teams are really already prohibited from moving until 2o47. (More details are supposed to be announced later today.) [See update below.]

This is either a sign of how billionaire sports team owners will give in if you tell them “no” to their initial ask — it was becoming increasingly clear that Virginia state Sen. Louise Lucas was never going to give Leonsis a dime — or a sign that billionaire sports team owners can get half a billion dollars in public money easy-peasy just by threatening to move to a state that doesn’t actually want them. Or then there’s Leonsis’s explanation:

Leonsis said a number of moves made by Bowser and the council, including the formation of a plan to revive downtown and the council’s passage of a new crime bill, gave him greater confidence that he could comfortably grow and expand his business in the District.

Ah yes, the crime bill, that’s what did the trick surely.

Anyway, the Alexandria arena appears to be officially dead, and it’s now up to the D.C. council to decide whether Bowser’s Half-Billion is really a good expense. I’ll try to update this post later tonight or in the morning if any more juicy details drop, or you can do the same in the comments.

UPDATE: At Leonsis’s press conference, he said the new lease would actually run through 2050, which isn’t a 25-year extension no matter how you slice it, and would only be a three-year extension if the teams are already locked in through 2047, as district officials insist. He would also get additional goodies like the right to build a new Wizards practice facility at the neighboring Gallery Place mall or elsewhere if there isn’t enough room there, plus a possible expansion of the six-year-old Entertainment and Sports Arena that is home to the Mystics WNBA team. Clearly there’s going to be a lot of fine print to dig through once the lease language actually lands at the D.C. council.