Sacramento-dwellers will hate Seattlites as much as Seattlites hate Oklahomans. Forever. Do Seattlites really want that?
Based on way too much sports talk radio during my commute and the Sonics fans I know, none of them like this aspect, but they don't see a way to avoid this problem, other than expansion and expansion does not look likely any time soon. If expansion is off the table, no city is going to want to lose a team and Seattle is stuck playing the OKC role if it wants a team back.
Henson should have told the league committee, I'll build a stadium for an expansion team, no other. They'd go for it after a year or two.
I know that Hansen has talked frequently to the NBA and I'd think that he'd have raised it as a preference. As I understand it, the owners all think the new TV deal will be a home run and they don't want to divvy up another piece of the pie until that happens. What's out of whack is the owners strong desire to sell their teams for max dollars (with no regard to relocation) and Stern's desire to keep franchises in place (although Seattle fans would kick me for saying that). Ideally, there'd be a process that involved a selling owner getting bids from local owners before looking for buyers in other cities. Obviously, that would put a crimp in the sales price, so it's unlikely to happen.
Bankruptcy court approved the sale of 7% of the Kings to Hansen/Seattle group today. Pretty crazy that Sac didn't find a way to keep that -- current owners didn't make a bid and the proposed new Sac owners didn't make a bid. The finance/relocation combined committee meets tomorrow to start discussing and the Board of Governors will address it Thursday and Friday. Theoretically, they could announce on Friday. Best guess is that a quick decision favors Seattle and a slow decision favors Sac, because the slow decision will give Sac more time to get their act together. Unless they're keeping it a secret (and I can't imagine why), Sac has not yet made a binding offer to purchase the Kings. That said, KJ has a press conference in a half hour and maybe they're announcing one then. Seems strange that KJ is still running the process - you'd think the proposed ownership group would take the lead.
Sounds like no further announcement/info out of KJ and Sacramento, other than the proposed Sac group plans to build the Kings into an international brand in India and China. Not sure how they accomplish that, other than having a controlling owner from India. No binding offer, no word about matching the increased bid of Hansen, no word about reimbursing Hansen for the nonrefundable $30M. Given that Sac doesn't seem to be matching any of the key deal points, I'd think Seattle is looking to get the team. Only way I see that not happening is if (1) Sac isn't giving full scoop and all those deal points are actually being matched or (2) Stern delays the decision to give Sac time to match the Seattle deal.
I still think the rational solution is 31 teams. First, of course, the league must finish leveraging Seattle against Sacramento to get a firm written contract from Sacramento for a new building. 1/30 minus 1/31 equals a 3.23% reduction in each owner's TV revenue.
Doesn't one of the contraction teams have a share of television revenue too? I remember something about that being a huge revenue stream for some owner dating back to NBA/ABA merger. Not that it really impacts the numbers, but it's pretty interesting. Edit: Ha! Saint Louis was the team. Here it is: http://articles.latimes.com/2006/jul/31/sports/sp-aba31
Sounds like the NBA is pushing the decision back -- they're definitely trying to keep the team in Sacramento. Looks like the 2013-2014 NBA schedule might come out a little later than other years.
Now they're saying the owners can't vote until 7 days after the committee makes a recommendation, which means the earliest the BoG can vote is next Wednesday.
Lol -- does anyone care about this? I'm kind of sort of starting to have a one man conversation, but will keep it up if anyone wants me to.
I think the League will stall until Sacramento's new owners sign inescapable contracts. Then, having leveraged them with Seattle's competition, Seattle will get a 2014-15 expansion team. It might take several months.
Could be true, but the league can't string it out too long -- Stern said they can't set the schedule for next season until it's decided if the team is in Seattle or Sacramento. That said, you could imagine that they could somehow find dates that work for both SEA and SAC and fill in the city name when they've made their decision. To be clear, they supposedly don't want to add a franchise until the new TV deal is signed because they think it might allow them to charge a whole lot more for expansion teams. I don't think it's so much about the 1/31 versus 1/33 issue. Edit: I'd also like to think they'd change divisions so that Portland and Seattle are in the same division...so there are other dominos that would need to fall, if Seattle is selected.
Seattle mayor just said that the BoG must vote no sooner than 7 days and no later than 30 days after receiving the combined committee's recommendation. Guess that's out of the NBA's bylaws or articles.
@daldridgetnt: NBA spokesman confirms that there will be no vote on the Kings taken at Friday's Board of Governors meeting in NYC. Sent from HCPs Baller-Ass iPhone 5...FAMS!
I am not sure how you would do 31 teams and have each team play 82 games and only 82 games. Maybe it can be done, but I think with an odd number of teams that would be hard.
