The Sacramento Kings are constantly being targeted for relocation, and you have to figure the city of Seattle continues to be one of the main pursuers. Seattle billionaire Chris Hansen is doing his job to try and get a team to Seattle, is starting to gather local support, and is ready to spend his money on a SoDo site.
However, the NBA owners are not particularly liking the way the Maloofs are trying to subvert the arena subsidy system they have in place, so they could end up forcing the Kings to stay in Sacramento and call them out on their hopes of winning an anti-trust case.
Aaron Bruski of Pro Basketball Talk has this report of the city's efforts to bring the team here and the opposition they might face in the courts to get the Kings to relocate to Seattle.
Perhaps the league is aware of a solid offer from Seattle billionaire Chris Hansen that nobody out of Sacramento is willing to match, and that is the source of their confidence in saying the Maloofs would have "no support" in moving to Anaheim. Seattle mayor Mike McGinn met with Stern in New York on Monday and Hansen is ready to take on most of the cost of building an NBA-ready arena, assuming of course he can buy a team. That Stern didn’t mention the city in his response to Aldridge is a huge footnote.
Hansen could conceivably justify a higher purchase price than a Sacramento buyer given his land holdings around the proposed Sodo arena site, and the fact Seattle is about 30 percent larger than Sacramento in terms of its TV market. But those advantages are somewhat mitigated by the fact that a Seattle team would have to compete with both the Seahawks and Mariners for local revenues, whereas the Kings are the only show in town in Sacramento.
That said, saying the league decided to open itself up to antitrust exposure because of a bona fide offer it knows about from Seattle assumes a lot – including Seattle’s ability to deliver on an arena while they face local opposition of their own. It’s way more likely that the league has weighed the Maloofs’ ability to impact the league now and into the future, and it has decided that it’s in their best interests to call the family’s bluff.
Talk about the possibility of the Kings getting targeted by Seattle, hit up Sactown Royalty.
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