NBA Controversy With China Deepens

The National Basketball Association, (NBA), has been in the news this past week due to a controversy with China. The rift began over a “tweet” on the Twitter social media platform from the General Manager of the NBA’s Houston Rockets, which was a message siding with the protestors in Hong Kong.

The Chinese government was obviously upset by the message and the publicity that it received, which spiraled into the NBA being in an international situation with China, their biggest international market. The Chinese took immediate action by severing major corporate sponsorships with the NBA.

The timing made matters worse, as the NBA was set to play exhibition games in China, and the Los Angeles Lakers and Brooklyn Nets were in the process of preparing to play those games where other media events were cancelled because of the controversy.

The games themselves were played, but the China showcase had a different feeling to it, the players described a tension to the media outlets from the U.S. which were covering the events. Then, Lakers star and the NBA’s most recognizable player, LeBron James, entered the fray by saying that the Rockets GM, Mr. Morey, was “misinformed” which furthered fueled the fire in the situation.

The relationship between China and the NBA, which has been so strong over the years, frayed in a matter of hours. The league and its franchise player found themselves in the middle of a geopolitical incident, and a debate framing up free speech contrasted to the tightly controlled, state-run Chinese society. American politicians got involved, and James Harden, the league MVP and member of the Rockets, joined the exchange by siding with Mr. Morey and his right to free speech.

LeBron James was squarely in the middle of the fray, with people and American politicians criticizing his comments because of the money he receives from his lucrative lifetime endorsement contract with Nike, and the huge sales that China has contributed over the years.

The Commissioner of the NBA, Adam Silver, commented to Time magazine that the fallout economically from the deepening rift with China is already significant. The sponsorships and other business relationships as far as merchandising and distribution of NBA content in China is extremely valuable to the league.

The President did not get involved, making a statement paraphrased by the belief that the NBA has to decide how to proceed with their relationship with China. The partnership with China is so significant to the NBA that teams are concerned that the revenues are going to shrink so much that the salary cap is going to decrease for next season. The Rockets alone, according to a credible source estimate, could lose $25 million this season alone.

The league has maintained a policy where they encourage their players, coaches, and other employees to be free to express themselves; yet this situation puts them squarely at odds with the two largest economies in the world. The protests in Hong Kong center around having better representation for that region of the country within the Chinese government, more freedoms of expression and access to media/social media, as well as the treatment of religious minorities.

The Chinese media outlet CCTV removed NBA games from their airwaves and they remain off the broadcast schedule, that TV outlet reaches hundreds of millions of people and has been airing NBA games for 30 years. The NBA is being hammered by American politicians and being cast as caring more about money than democracy and human rights. Whether or not they are doing that is now in the court of American public opinion.

The NBA has literally dribbled itself into a corner and finds itself trapped in a situation that will invariably result in damage to their brand. The situation also brings into focus the complicated relationship of doing business in China. The way forward is unclear, and the regular season tips off in one week. What happens next is anyone’s guess, but above and beyond basketball is the situation in Hong Kong and the need for a peaceful resolution to that situation that respects the individual rights of all people.

Follow Up: Chris Bosh Officially Retires From NBA

In a follow up from prior posts on this topic, Chris Bosh officially retired from professional basketball on Tuesday. It was an expected announcement as he has not suited up in an NBA game in three years and is 36 years old now.

However, the news is difficult because of the way he was forced into semi-retirement and then ultimately out of the sport he was so talented in playing. Bosh suffers from a blood clotting disorder that curtailed his sensational basketball career. The doctors had cleared him to play at some point in the last few years, but by that time, no team was going to take on the liability of him playing for their team and potentially dying on the basketball court.

Chris Bosh was one of the first in the modern game to play a “stretch forward” position. He was able to rebound, score from greater range from the basket including from the three-point area, and he could play the post as well. His versatility and dominance paved the way for his selection to the All Star team in 11 of the 13 seasons he played in the NBA.

Bosh began his career with the Toronto Raptors, where he was the star of a team that played largely in obscurity because of the market and the irrelevance it had with the average American fan. The team was also not very good outside of Bosh for many of the years that the Texas native spent north of the border.

He earned his free agency and used that to take less money than he would have earned in the open market going to the highest bidder on a different team in order to join up with LeBron James and Dwayne Wade with the Miami Heat. It was a startling move at the time, and it began a new trend now known as “super teams”, where star players decide together in a pact to join a team and take less money.
The move placed winning ahead of earnings, which was a rare situation especially in the NBA where the salary cap rules allow for “max level contracts” and “Bird rights” as well as being able to circumvent the cap to pay a star currently on your roster more money than any other team could offer.

Bosh was also very humble in his role with the Heat and was willing to play “third chair” behind Wade and James. He figured out how to play with his two fellow superstars and the trio spent four years together in Miami going to the NBA Finals in each of those four years. The trio would lead the Heat to back-to-back NBA championships in 2012 and 2013 respectively.

Bosh started having health issues in 2016 (see earlier posts on this site) and eventually failed a physical and was released by the Miami Heat. The two sides came to an agreement on a buyout of his remaining contract term. He was determined to resume his basketball career, but no call ever came for an opportunity for him to do so.

The NBA also had a role in that by stating that they deemed his clotting disorder to be a “career-ending injury”. The fall from the heights of stardom to being out of the league by age 33, is certainly something Bosh could utilize in his off-court interests in helping youth organizations as a mentor.

He has many interests outside of basketball including a foundation, the CB4 Foundation, that helps youth to understand the importance of both sports and education. Bosh frequently promotes the importance of reading at a variety of events throughout the country.

Chris Bosh will be remembered for the way that he played both offensively and defensively as well as the selfless nature in which he put his team ahead of his own statistics to win games. He will be remembered in Miami always for his role in those two championship teams, where his reluctance to be the main star helped the team to efficiently play together cohesively. It is hard for any competitor to give up what they love doing, and give up something that they have committed their life to doing on the highest level.

Therefore, while this decision was inevitable, it was the way in which Chris Bosh had to retire, not able to go out on his own terms, and not being able to play his last game; it is that way he left the game that is regrettable to basketball fans such as myself.

Bosh will now embark on the next chapter of his life, having fully shut the door on his basketball career. I am excited to see what he will do with this part of his life in the years ahead.

Knicks Trade With Dallas: Brilliant Or A Blunder?

My unfailing loyalty as a fan of the New York Knicks has inevitably led people to ask me about my opinion of the trade the team made last week with the Dallas Mavericks. The interest level of my friends and colleagues from my perspective as a writer, who at one point in my career, published many articles in sports writing.

The move by the Knicks front office was a bold one sending a once beloved rising star, Kristaps Porzingis to Dallas. New York also packaged Tim Hardaway Jr., Courtney Lee, and Trey Burke to the Mavericks in this deal. The Knicks received point guard Dennis Smith Jr., DeAndre Jordan, and Wesley Matthews from Dallas.

The methodology behind the trade was clear: Porzingis requested a trade in a meeting the Knicks had with him the day before the trade, the team also needed to clear salary cap space, and the Knicks had a logjam at the shooting guard position they solved by moving Lee and Hardaway, Jr in this transaction.

Lee was saddled with a big contract and did not have a defined role with the Knicks in Coach David Fizdale’s system. Hardaway Jr took far too many shots and was also very inconsistent this season while carrying a huge salary. Porzingis has not played at all because of the ACL injury to his knee and has been injured often in the early stages of his NBA career.

My opinion of Porzingis is that he was not a team-first player. He was acting like he was an All World player and he has never won anything or taken the Knicks to the playoffs. Porzingis has always been preoccupied with one thing: himself. I am not a proponent of players who act that way and I am not sorry to see him shipped out of New York.

The press conference held yesterday in Dallas officially confirmed that Porzingis will not be playing this season. The rumor mill was buzzing around NBA circles because apparently the Knicks were pushing for him to return this season. The Mavericks decided not to press the issue because their team is not going anywhere this season and Mavericks owner, Mark Cuban, is going to play the “long game” here with Porzingis.

The rumor mill was also speculating that Porzingis did not want to go to Dallas and that the Knicks made the best deal that they could for their franchise regardless of the desires of their former star player. The rumors persisted that Porzingis was planning on not signing long-term with the Mavericks; a topic that Mark Cuban quashed in the press conference by stating that Porzingis would be paired with his other European star player, Luca Doncic, “for the next twenty years”.

The media then asked Porzingis if he was on board with that plan and he replied very softly: “we are on the same page”. So the Knicks basically sent this guy packing into a situation that he was not on board with, and now he is stuck on a Mavericks team in a very similar stage in their rebuilding as the Knicks.

However, I would argue that the Knicks are better positioned to get significantly better in a shorter time frame than the Mavericks will after this trade. New York also received draft picks from Dallas that brings them to eight draft picks under their control that they can use as pieces in a trade for a star player.

The Knicks also have close to $75 million in salary cap space for next season after this trade which will allow them to get two max-level contracts and they can trade for that third star level player. The team already has some good young talent on the roster that they can develop this year, and they will have a very high draft choice based on their finish in the standings this year; potentially the first pick in the draft.
New York could have the best chances for the first overall draft selection if they finish with the worst record (which they are on pace to do so). The consensus top pick for them could be Zion Williamson from Duke. He would fit their roster and their style of play very well.

The free agent class this summer is tremendous and loaded with star players in their prime production years: Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, Klay Thompson, Kemba Walker, Kawhi Leonard, Jimmy Butler, and Al Horford. The Knicks are poised to land two big name free agents and could trade for a star like Anthony Davis, who requested to be traded out of New Orleans two weeks ago.

I have read the accounts that the Knicks have been told by back channels that Durant is coming to The Big Apple in free agency. In my opinion, whether they get Durant or two other big-time star level guys, either way I do not care. The fact is that they can get these guys now that they traded Porzingis.

The past versions of the Knicks would have kept Porzingis and tried to get one or two other mid-level star type players to try to pair with him and be a middle of the road team that might make the bottom half of the playoff tier in the East. The Knicks dumped a lot of salary and any chance of being even remotely competitive this year in order to have a “clean slate” to build a team starting with the 2019 free agency class and the draft.

Some feel that the trade was a blunder and that they did not get enough in return, especially in light of the fact that they are trying to move Wesley Matthews by the Thursday trade deadline or buy him out of his contract. There are fans and media analysts alike that feel that the Knicks made a bad trade, that Durant will not end up with the Knicks, and that the whole thing will be a blunder in typical Knicks fashion.

My view is different as I never thought Matthews would fit or actually play in any games for the Knicks. The acquisition of Matthews allows the team to clear even more salary cap space for next season, which could become a major factor in getting that third star to play at Madison Square Garden.

New York also received a young point guard in Dennis Smith Jr, who could become a more dynamic playmaker than any guard they had on their roster. The center position is upgraded with them gaining DeAndre Jordan, who in my view has always been undervalued by the media and fans of the sport.

The Knicks will emerge from this trade and be rid of a guy in Porzingis who complained more than he did anything meaningful for the team. They will have the opportunity to play all of their young players this year with Hardaway and Lee off the roster. That will be an invaluable period of evaluation of these players to determine how they will shape their roster for next season.

In the end, I believe that this bold move will pay off and that whether the Knicks get Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving or not, they will be in a much better position to win than if they kept Kristaps Porzingis and had less salary cap flexibility. The next seven or eight months will tell whether my position on this trade will be correct or whether the Knicks will swing and miss on remaking the franchise into a championship contender for their long-suffering fans.

Follow Up: NHL Expansion To Seattle Takes Crucial Step

In a follow up to earlier posts on this topic, the bid by Seattle to become the 32nd franchise in the National Hockey League (NHL) took a crucial step forward on Tuesday.

The Seattle ownership group partners and Mayor Durkan met with a nine-member committee of NHL governors (owners) and other top league executives in New York to make a presentation essentially framing why the NHL should expand into the Seattle market.

The news comes as no real surprise because the Seattle group set records for season ticket commitments and blew away the number that Las Vegas did a couple of years ago in their respective season ticket drive. The region in the Pacific Northwest is untapped in the U.S. by the NHL, and the prospective Seattle team would have a built-in rivalry with the Vancouver Canucks about a two hour drive away to the north.

The committee yesterday voted 9-0 in favor of the Seattle bid moving forward in the expansion process. The financing of the team and the arena renovations to Key Arena at Seattle Center (which was the center of my last article on this topic) were not seen as a deterring factor.

The next step is for the NHL to vote on the formal expansion to Seattle in early December at the league meetings in Georgia. The expansion fee is expected to be (and widely reported) around $650 million. It should also be noted, for those who did not read my earlier coverage, that Seattle is the largest metro area in the United States without a major winter pro sports team.

The city is known for their passionate support of their current teams: the Seahawks in the NFL, the Sounders of MLS, the Mariners of MLB, and the Seattle Storm in the WNBA. The Seattle group used that as part of their pitch to the NHL committee on Tuesday and noted the excitement of the city, as evidenced by the season ticket drive results which were outstanding.

The addition of Seattle (it looks like a mere formality at this point) means that Quebec has no realistic prospect of entering the league unless one of the current teams decides to relocate to their city. The league, once it adds Seattle, will be balanced with 16 teams in each conference for the first time in several years. The NHL will not be looking to expand and “cut the pie” of revenue sharing again for quite some time.

The relocation targets for Quebec of the Carolina Hurricanes or Florida Panthers moving north of the border both look more unlikely. The Carolina team changes owners but the lease agreement on the arena is very friendly to the ownership. The Florida club got better, younger, and they saw their attendance improve somewhat. It seems less likely they will move or that the NHL would allow them to exit the South Florida market.

The last remaining hope is the Arizona Coyotes, but they are looking at a new arena site in The Valley and are also linked to Portland, OR if they were to relocate. I think the NHL, which wants desperately to remain in Phoenix, would more likely approve a move to Portland to keep the conferences balanced before it would vote to move the team to Quebec.

Seattle is going to be an intriguing market for the sport and for visiting teams and their respective fans. The Key Arena renovation is very ambitious and is the mitigating factor on whether the new team begins play in 2020 or 2021. That facility is going to combine the old with the new. The iconic roof will remain in place, the green space around the arena will be kept as well. The modern amenities and wider concourses will be added and the design of the new seating will provide hockey fans with great angles to view all of the action.

The talk in Seattle is that now that the NHL looks like a lock to come to the Emerald City, where is the NBA in all of this? When can the Sonics return to the hardwood? That looks rather unlikely from the standpoint and tone of the NBA and their Commissioner, Adam Silver, in recent statements.

Some people do not understand it, but in my earlier coverage of this topic and the NBA expansion bid to Seattle, it makes sense. The NBA preferred the “SoDo arena” proposal as it was known with Chris Hansen investing in all of that land downtown to build a brand-new arena for the Sonics to return. That agreement with the city was for an NBA-first facility. It would be designed with hockey as a secondary tenant.

The Key Arena proposal which the city ended up going forward with, is an NHL-first agreement which means that the NHL team will be the primary tenant and will get the better end of the revenue and gate sharing agreements in the building. The NBA expansion to that market under those conditions would limit the profitability of the Sonics. The NBA also has no imminent plans to expand and has other markets that will promise and are in better position to deliver, better profitability for the NBA in the long term than Seattle at this point.

The fans of hockey in Seattle should be thrilled, it is an exciting time for them and for hockey fans in general; especially given the success of the Golden Knights in their inaugural season last year. The next big decision once the vote comes through in December is to determine a team name. The NHL is coming to Seattle and the excitement has only just begun.

(thanks to The Seattle Times for some background information and to NHL.com as well)

Follow Up: Seattle Arena Renovations Approved

The news that the Seattle City Council voted by a 7-1 count in favor of close to $600 million in funding for the renovation of Key Arena, ends a saga that spanned several years revolving around both politics and sports.

That saga involved a few very different proposals, and two big spending groups of business leaders: one led by Chris Hansen, and the other the Oak View Group which boasts Jerry Bruckheimer, among others. The lack of a suitable arena is what drove the Supersonics basketball team to move out of the city in 2008, and it also cost the city a potential slot in the NHL expansion process a couple of years ago.

The vote to approve these renovations to Key Arena casts a great deal of clarity on a situation that was once very fluid in Seattle. The vote comes one day after the MOU between the city and Hansen expired, effectively ending that bid from ever moving forward. The vote also means that the NHL may have an expansion announcement regarding Seattle shortly.

Hansen, as it was noted in my earlier coverage of this topic, spent millions of his own money to obtain land over a period of several years in an attempt to build an arena in the “stadium district” in the southern part of downtown Seattle. That plan also required the land around a roadway to be sold and the road grid to be changed to be able to have adequate space for the arena concept in the proposal.

The Hansen proposal was not popular among several constituency groups and political groups in Seattle. It was opposed by the Port of Seattle because of the proximity to the port and the impact that game/event traffic could have on trucks and port operations. The city politicians also had no intention of selling him the land on Occidental, which became known as the “road abatement” clause in the proposal, which was an unpopular concept from the start. Hansen had a dream to bring the Supersonics back to Seattle, and it is hard not to feel badly for him that his proposal is dead, and the NBA could still be another 4 to 5 years away from coming back to Seattle.

It appears that with the Key Arena renovations, which is at Seattle Center up by the Space Needle, the city officials are banking on the central location as well as public transportation improvements to guide the way to a world class arena in their city. The renovations could be completed by October 2020, and appears that the NHL would be the anchor tenant initially for the newly renovated facility.

The NHL expanding to Seattle makes a great deal of sense because the city fills a void for the league in a region (Pacific Northwest) that is largely untapped for hockey. The team would have a natural rivalry with the Vancouver Canucks, which the league likes the ability to play up regional rivalry type games. Seattle also has a strong potential ownership group, great potential for corporate sponsorship, and is known for having loyal fans for their other professional teams.

Seattle would represent a large media and TV market for the NHL to tap into heading into their next media rights contract which would improve the value of that deal. It also would balance the NHL which currently has 31 teams: 16 in the East and 15 in the West, the addition of Seattle would even the conferences from an alignment standpoint.

The NHL could also relocate a team from another market to Seattle, as I have covered in the past, with the Arizona Coyotes and Calgary Flames both potentially looking to leave their current market over disputes involving their current respective arena leases.

The NBA, according to reports from NBC among others, is not actively entering into an expansion process. The current CBA agreement between the players union and the league ownership has a clause for potential expansion in 2022. That is where certain people within the Oak View Group involved in the Seattle arena renovations have indicated that the Sonics could return to the NBA.

The process to this point has been a long road, Seattle is one of the few major American cities to not have an updated or newly constructed arena for entertainment and sports. The vote today will provide major enhancements to a nostalgic building in the heart of the downtown area of the city.

The sports fans there could be welcoming NHL hockey to their city and that would become a destination for many hockey fans from outside the region as well. The return of the Sonics may not be far behind. In the end, the Oak View Group was better connected than the Hansen group, it had a proposal that utilized an existing arena rather than constructing something totally new, and the Key Arena proposal kept the historic roof as well as other elements intact which was very smart.

The arena will be renovated and will be incredible when it is completed if it is anywhere near the renderings I saw earlier today. The city will now wait and see if their investment will yield them the sports teams they desire. The addition of one team generates a greatly enhanced amount of revenue for the city and Oak View Group than just having concerts and shows at the venue. The addition of two teams would be a revenue machine and would make for happy residents as well.

Seattle just put the money on the table to become a premiere sports city, a move they were reluctant to make in the past, now it will be interesting to see how the NHL and NBA respond in the months ahead.

The Strategy Behind Building Sports Arenas

The conclusion that I have come to over the past four and a half years of writing pieces centered on the topic of sports arenas, is that a strategy exists in getting these deals done that is far more intricate than many would believe. These strategies involve the team ownership, the league office, as well as political and business leaders.

These strategies could involve a real estate developer if they are not already involved as part of the ownership group, and they can involve civic groups or environmental groups depending on the project.

These arena development agreements for sports can be complex and involve tax payer dollars, or they can be privately financed which inherently leads to other issues in that circumstance.

The strategy behind the building of a sports arena was on full display over the past two days with the situation in Seattle. The lack of an updated venue that met current NBA or NHL standards was the main reason why the Sonics moved out of the city about nine years ago. The city had been working with a developer for a proposed new sports arena in the SoDo neighborhood, which was proving to have too many cumbersome hurdles.

The city shifted their priority to the old Key Arena at Seattle Center and fielded development proposals to renovate, expand, or rebuild a new arena on that site. The Oak View Group had the winning proposal, and on Tuesday, the city government announced the agreement of a newly renovated and expanded world class arena on the Seattle Center site built entirely with private funds.

The residents who pined for the return of the Sonics, and the sports fans that dreamed of an NHL expansion hockey team in the Emerald City, rejoiced because they had finally a light at the end of the tunnel with this news. The last, and most important, major hurdle for the city to gain at least one, if not two, new major league teams was seemingly cleared.

The old adage: “you never know what tomorrow will bring” is certainly true in Seattle; where residents woke up the next morning to learn that the Mayor of Seattle announced his resignation amid an alleged sexual misconduct scandal, and that the arena plans for Seattle Center were put on hold indefinitely.

In addition, in a related story, Wednesday brought the news that the Calgary Flames and their new arena negotiations with municipal officials were broken off with no resolution. This situation has been brewing for several months with proposals and counter-proposals being made by both sides, with no substantive progress being made toward a functional plan.

The surprising element of this situation is that the incumbent mayor, Mayor Neshi, was publicly acting as if the new sports and entertainment arena was part of his vision for the future of the city. The Flames management held a Wednesday press conference to refute that vision by stating that Mayor Neshi has not advocated at all for a new arena, and was insinuating to the public another stance in order to win the votes of hockey fans.

The NHL league office sent a strongly worded message to the Mayor, and the components of these arena deals are riled up north of the border. This news that the Flames had put $200 million on the table toward the development of the new facility and then even changed the site from one end of the city to the other, immediately bowed to speculation that the team would relocate to either Seattle or Quebec City.

The Flames management stated that they will continue to play in the second oldest arena in the NHL, while the other teams enjoy the advantages from better revenue streams achieved by playing in a new facility. However, they also insinuated that they will keep the relocation option on the table. The Mayor does not have to change his stance because polling shows that the people in Calgary do not want to use public money on a new arena.

The relocation to Quebec City is always going to be a hot topic, as they took an entirely different approach and pulled out all the stops to build a new arena a few years ago with no guarantee of an NHL team coming there either through expansion or relocation. The NHL passed them over for expansion in this last cycle, choosing Las Vegas to expand the league into, citing the weak Canadian dollar at that point in time.

A group of NHL players were surveyed recently and the majority of them selected Quebec as the place they would like the league to expand to in the future. This was ahead of Seattle and Houston on the list of choices. Quebec will always be a popular spot because of their history in the league with the Nordiques, and the nostalgia that hockey fans have for that team and for the rivalry with Montreal to be reinstituted.

Quebec took the step of making the most difficult hurdle in gaining a new franchise, the arena, the easiest step by building it. The residents, business leaders, and politicians were all on board with getting an NHL team, now they will wait to see if that maneuver will provide the desired end result.

The New York Islanders are involved in a new arena quest as well. The main issue is that when the team moved from Nassau Coliseum to Brooklyn, they underestimated the significance of the Barclays Center being built for basketball and the impact that would have on the hockey fan experience.

The sight lines for hockey at Barclays are terrible, the scoreboard is off center in the orientation to the rink, and the ice conditions are awful because the arena does not have the right pipes to adequately keep the water temperature low enough. It is a total debacle and the team is looking at two potential sites in Queens: one near Aqueduct Racetrack, and the other next to Citi Field where the New York Mets play baseball.

The league office has completely shut down any potential for the Islanders to return to Nassau Coliseum (which was renovated completely and is now a smaller seating capacity) and pursuing the Queens options. Many people in recent polling believe that the Islanders arena, another new arena in the NY metro area is unnecessary, so it will be interesting to see how this situation works itself out.

The New York metro area is one of key significance for the NHL and with the Rangers and the New Jersey Devils, the league has three franchises in the region and has a vested interest in making sure that all of them are given the best possible opportunity to remain profitable.

The scenario with the Islanders searching for a new home is similar, yet different, to the Arizona Coyotes and their ongoing struggle to find a new arena closer to the population center of the Phoenix market. The Coyotes have had issues for years on the business side, and the dispute with the Glendale municipal government involving the arena lease terms are just the tip of the iceberg.

The ownership group of the team appeared to have a deal in place with Arizona State University for a new arena being built in Tempe, but that deal fell through in February 2017. The focus now is on a few other sites in the East Valley and this boondoggle for a new arena will continue for the foreseeable future, as will the inevitable relocation rumors.

However, relocation seems unlikely as the NHL is unbalanced and needs more teams in the West, they would not move the Coyotes to Quebec, and the situation in Seattle is murky at best. The league remains bullish on keeping a team in the Phoenix area because they are enamored with the media market size.

The Phoenix Suns are also seeking a new arena to replace their current aging home court, and the NBA league office is, of course, willing to back the team up on getting the public funds squeezed out of the government to get that accomplished.

The state and municipal level governments in Arizona are looking at a scenario where the Coyotes, Suns, and the MLB team, the Arizona Diamondbacks; are all seeking taxpayer funding for public/private arrangements to build new sports venues. The resulting idea within the state assembly there is to build a sports arena in downtown Phoenix that would be shared by both the Suns and the Coyotes in order to save the outlay of total public funds.

However, the reports out of Phoenix are that the Suns ownership is not on board with sharing a facility and want their own facility in the downtown area. The Coyotes are in a different situation, they have stayed publicly mum on the shared arena concept, largely because they would probably play anywhere other than in their current arena in Glendale. It is a situation that is complex, has a ton of moving parts with proposed arena sites on Native American tribal lands, and a host of other issues that merit watching in the weeks ahead.

The Carolina Hurricanes are the final situation with arena management and potential relocation that will be explored in this analysis. The team is about to be sold from Peter Karamanos to Chuck Greenberg but the sale is not completely finalized yet.

The arena lease is key to the sale because the team has been the source of relocation rumors for the past four or five years. Carolina does not have the corporate sponsorship opportunities of other, larger markets. The Hurricanes have not had much on-ice success in recent years which has put a subsequent drag on attendance levels.

The current arena lease between the group that controls the arena and the Hurricanes is seen as one of the most favorable lease agreements from the perspective of the team as far as being a tenant in a building. The PNC Arena is in need of some renovations and improvements which many believe will be done once Mr. Greenberg affirms that the team is staying in North Carolina.

The consensus from some within the NHL circles is that the team could relocate to Quebec, but in many ways that may not make sense from a business perspective. The ownership, in this case Greenberg, would have to pay a steep relocation fee to go to Quebec. In this case, the ownership could use that money as their portion of a public/private agreement to construct a new arena in North Carolina.

The case for a sports arena is dependent upon so many variables and involves many shifting priorities and calculated interest groups from politicians, to team owners, to the league office, and local business leaders. The case studies, individually must be taken on balance, I understand all sides of the situation.

The owners feel that the municipal governments stand to make a lot of money on the ratable tax revenue from the arena, the public feels that they should not have tax money go toward the construction of a facility of this type, and the cities that do not have a new sports / entertainment venue miss out on the latest acts or could lose a team over it. All of these variables are valid, and all of the scenarios I laid out will continue to develop from Seattle to Phoenix and beyond in the months ahead.

NBA Expansion Update: Commissioner Silver Puts Seattle On The Short List

The undeterred vision for those in Seattle that have pushed relentlessly for years for an NBA basketball franchise to return to the Emerald City received a huge boost last week. The NBA Commissioner, Adam Silver, gave an interview when he was asked about the expansion of the league in the future.

The response to the question, I am paraphrasing here, that the expansion of the NBA due to the huge growth in revenue and popularity of the sport is inevitable. He added that when the league begins to the expansion process that Seattle is on the short list of cities that they will consider.

This should come as no surprise to many basketball fans because the Sonics had a deep history and still have a loyal fan base that long for a return of the franchise to the city. The NBA would be wise to expand to Seattle because the most difficult component for a new expansion team in a new market is to establish loyal fans.

The expansion to Seattle would put a franchise in a market that has very good demographics for television/new media, has a reputation for supporting their teams, and has the nostalgia factor from the first version of the Sonics.

The second most difficult task for a newly minted expansion team is to move merchandise and corporate sponsorships. The placement of an NBA expansion team in Seattle would clearly be a positive for the league because Seattle retained the rights to the name and colors of the Sonics and will sell a ton of merchandise based on the previous support those products enjoyed. The corporate business community will embrace the return of the wildly popular Sonics to the region.

The community and the government are supportive to bringing basketball back to Seattle. The NBA left because the arena was seen to be outdated and a new arena has remained the biggest hurdle to the city gaining a team to return. That hurdle, at times seemingly insurmountable due to a variety of factors, is moving closer to being cleared.

Seattle recently announced that they have reached agreement with a developer to begin a privately financed renovation of the old Key Arena at Seattle Center. The developer will keep the historic roof of the arena and other architectural elements that the public wanted to remain intact.

The renovation project will completely renovate the interior of the building by constructing a new concourse and other elements underground below street level. It will then reconstruct the entire interior of the existing facility as well. The newly renovated arena would be designed to meet all the specifications for the NBA as well as the National Hockey League (NHL) in the hopes of gaining an expansion hockey team for Seattle.

The city is about to enter negotiations on the actual MOU of the development project, so the city council retained the services of a firm that specializes in negotiating terms of these types of development and construction projects for major entertainment and sports venues.

It should come as no surprise that the NBA is interested in a return to Seattle because that city has a captive audience of fans that are nostalgic for the return of the Sonics. The NBA will gain new fans with younger people who have parents who told them about the Sonics, and they can attend games together as a family.

The NBA has a know entity in the Sonics and that is the key to both sides eventually getting this done. The arena renovation will be the last component in what has been a long saga, and then the path should be cleared for Seattle to finally get their basketball team back again.

The New Hierarchy of The New York Knicks

Many people have asked me over the past week or so what my thoughts are regarding the new regime in the Knicks front office. The team announced changes to their basketball operations leadership following the debacle that was the three-year run of Phil Jackson steering the ship.

My answer has been very honest: I really do not know, it is a mixture of emotions. I do not know much about Steve Mills, I know he is loyal to owner James Dolan and that he has been in the front office for a long time, both before Phil Jackson, and now in the “post-Phil era”.

It is my opinion that Mills overpaid to get Tim Hardaway Jr. back in an offer sheet to pry him from Atlanta. The Knicks paid him about four times more money than the next closest offer, this after initially drafting Hardaway Jr., then trading him away, only to pay him $71 million to come back. That is a player acquisition that is just so typical of the Knicks, what a total mess.

The appointment of Steve Perry as the new General Manager is a move I do find positive, if they give him some authority to make certain personnel related decisions. Perry is smart, politically savvy, and well respected around the NBA. He did great work in a short time with the Sacramento Kings, and the move to bring him in from California made a great deal of sense to me and others within the media that cover the team.

Mills and Perry in their introductory press conference towed the new company line that they want to rebuild the team around a young core, they want to reshape the team into a more athletic club. That sounds nice, but it disregards the fact that they have half the salary cap for the entire roster tied up in three veteran players: Carmelo Anthony, Courtney Lee, and Joakim Noah.
Then, they committed huge dollars to Hardaway Jr. and he is essentially the same type of player as Courtney Lee. I am not sure if they could trade Lee without taking back a “bad contract” in return. The issue with Noah is that he is coming off major offseason surgeries and has a prohibitive contract that Phil Jackson doled out to him. The move to trade Noah would be “selling low” because of the injuries, so the Knicks will most likely have to hold on to him for the time being.

Then, there is the Carmelo Anthony saga, with a contract that pays out a ton of money to a player that Jackson tried to make completely miserable. The Knicks had been attempting to move him to either Houston or Cleveland, according to reputable reports, and then paused that process when they named Perry to the GM post.

The Knicks new regime was said to have been looking to mend the relationship with Anthony to bring him back into the fold. Several sources around the league state that Anthony is done with the dysfunction of the Knicks and wants to be traded to Houston to play with Chris Paul and James Harden.

However, trading Carmelo will be complicated because he has a no trade clause (which he has lifted to move to either Houston or Cleveland) that the Knicks front office has reportedly asked him to expand that list so they have more viable options to trade him. He also has a 15% “trade kicker” in his contract that will increase his salary cap hit to the team that obtains him, and the right amount of money has to be sent back in order to meet the regulations of the NBA for trading players.

All of this when taken together means that the Knicks need a fourth team to be involved in a multi-layered deal that ultimately would get Anthony to Houston, would provide the Knicks with cap relief, and also would provide the other two teams in the deal some other assets or cap space to make the deal worthwhile for them. It seems unlikely that will happen at this point because the Rockets will probably wait until closer to training camp to leverage the Knicks into a deal that is better for Houston’s interests.

The Knicks have some talent on the roster and they do need to start the rebuild because they have been spinning their wheels for the past four or five years. The fan base is getting restless, and rightfully so, but as I wrote in the past, the Knicks will continue to sell tickets because tourists want to see games at the Garden. The Knicks will continue to be a money machine because of the allure of playing in New York, which makes the impetus for actually rebuilding the roster a difficult thing for their front office to actually accomplish.

The new hierarchy of the Knicks brings me mixed emotions, I am not sure how much Mills will interfere with Perry trying to make bold moves to revamp the roster. I am not sure how involved James Dolan will be, and if Perry will have his hands tied in trying to improve the team. I guess only time will tell, they have a great deal of work ahead of them.

In the meantime, Knicks fans will wait and see if this new front office will be able to make the moves necessary or if it will be business as usual in the Garden.

The Politics of Sports: The Seattle Arena

The politics of sports has been on display fully over the past week with the announced plans for the Seattle arena. The city decided that their best option at this point is to move forward with the proposal from Oak View Group (OVG) which involves a complete renovation of the old Key Arena at Seattle Center.

This option was chosen and recommended by the Mayor and other politicians involved over the proposal from Seattle Partners, which also had a plan to renovate “the Key”. However, their plan contained some elements that concerned some key people in the city government. They officially “withdrew” their proposal ahead of not being chosen just before the announcement was made late last week regarding the arena plan for Seattle to gain either an NBA or NHL franchise.

The other option on the table is the SoDo arena concept pushed by Chris Hansen and his group of investors, which he has spent huge sums of his own money obtaining land in that part of the downtown area with the goal of getting the Sonics NBA team back to the city. The plan involves the vacation of a roadway which is very unpopular with the politicians as well as a location that is close to the Port of Seattle and the major outdoor stadiums for their other professional sports teams.

This location coupled with the change to the roadway grid and the potential for traffic congestion near the Port, all are factors that are stacked against the SoDo arena concept. Those factors outweighed the amended proposal from that investment group that stated that they would develop the site and construct the arena completely with private funds.

The renovation of the Key Arena at Seattle Center will be a public/private partnership arrangement for the financing, which is admittedly unpopular with some Seattle residents. The OVG proposal involves keeping the iconic roof structure of the facility intact while essentially gutting and rebuilding the entire existing interior structure. It will reconstruct the entire seating bowl and their plan for the site involves digging below ground to expand the footprint of the building while maintaining structural integrity. It will also be an environmentally friendly building project, with LEED certification processes involved in the various aspects of the construction of the renovated facility.

NHL Response

The NHL was contacted almost immediately after the news that Seattle was moving forward with the OVG renovation project for an arena that would meet NHL standards. The NHL Commissioner, Gary Bettman, issued a statement that essentially stated that the NHL has had no contact with Seattle and has no plans to expand the league at this point.

The politics of sports on the professional stage was in full effect here as well. It is no secret that the NHL has interest in expanding to Seattle. The demographics of that market make so much sense for the league in several metrics, that they would be foolish not to explore the option. The OVG proposal added two partners that are keen on getting professional hockey to Seattle, which was noted in the press release of the announcement.

Bettman is playing his cards here because he does not want to discourage other markets interested in potential expansion from thinking that Seattle has any sort of inside track to what will probably be the last slot available in the NHL for a very long time. The NHL has a conference alignment issue with 16 teams in the East and 14 teams in the West. The league took one step toward correction of that imbalance with the addition of Las Vegas as an expansion franchise beginning next season.

The assumption is that they will add one more team in the West to balance the two conferences and the league for scheduling and other purposes in the somewhat near future. The OVG group stated that the proposal is still pending approval and they will need at least 2 years probably closer to 3 years to get the entire renovation at Key Arena completed.

Design Concerns

Some area residents are not happy because they did not want another major sports team or teams playing in that neighborhood. This is a very political issue and the design of the building and the mass transit plan for light rail access is part of the proposal from the city level to alleviate traffic concerns.

The design of the building was also a point of concern for residents of that neighborhood. Some concerned parties did not want a monstrous new arena going into that Seattle Center site. The trend in sports arenas is for larger footprint buildings packed with amenities for fans and concert attendees.

The OVG plan for Key Arena accomplished providing more amenities without dramatically increasing the overall footprint of the facility by proposing to dig below ground and implementing those amenities in areas below the current street level. The plan for the renovated facility also calls for improvements to the park area around the Seattle Center, which should be viewed favorably by the residents.

NBA: “Cutting the Pie”
The return of the NBA to Seattle is an entirely different situation. The topic of expansion for hockey has been an active one, with Las Vegas set to join the circuit and with the imbalance of teams alluded to earlier. The NBA is in a different stage in their life cycle as a league. The owners and the league office just agreed recently to a new TV and media rights deal that will reap them significant economic revenue which is divided up among each member franchise.

The NBA owners are currently not eager to “cut the pie” into more pieces by adding more franchises. The amount of the expansion fee would be offset by the amount that the new team gets as their portion of basketball related income. The NBA also has no franchises in a situation where relocation is being discussed.

These factors, when all are taken into account, amount to the fact that the Key Arena renovation, if approved, is going to take approximately three years to complete from the point that permission is given for renovation work to begin. The NBA is not planning to expand any time soon. The NHL has other interested cities in expansion, but they may never expand to Seattle for a variety of reasons.

The politics of sports in this situation leaves the SoDo arena proposal in serious jeopardy. The time, effort, and money spent by that group is going to upset some powerful people in that city if that proposal is rejected by the political groups involved.

Up In Flames

The politics involved in the Seattle arena decision also could become a leverage play for another team: the Calgary Flames. The president of that hockey team, Brian Burke, commented to a group of business leaders at a team function recently that the franchise could move out of Calgary if it does not get a new arena.

He continued his comments reportedly by stating that the Flames had relocation cities under consideration if they were to ultimately decide to move the team out of Calgary. In that scenario, once relocation is brought up, Seattle is not very far behind. It is no secret that Seattle wants an NHL team, and the opportunities for relocating an existing franchise are very unique and infrequent.

The Calgary Flames have presented their vision and plan for a new arena and entertainment district with other real estate development around the new facility that has been deemed “unsustainable” by the political powers that be in that city. This is where the friction between the city and the team began.

The Flames play in the SaddleDome which was built when Calgary hosted the Olympics in 1988. It is among the oldest arenas in the league, a fact that supports the team ownership and their contention that it needs to be replaced. The Mayor and other politicians have stated that they do not support using taxpayer money to fund a new arena. This could get very sticky, and the speculation over the future of the team in that city will follow suit.

It is doubtful that Calgary will leave a city that they have an established fan base within and have over 30 plus years of history. It could be that Seattle is a leverage play, as I mentioned before, or it could become seriously considered for their future. The primary issue is that Seattle lacks a suitable arena for at least three years.

Another option to watch is the Flames using Quebec City as either a chip to secure their own new arena deal, or for a real alternative should the political situation with Calgary become untenable. Quebec is a whole different scenario because they have an NHL ready arena built and fully operational, they just lack a team.

It is all part of the politics of sports and it has played out in two places, Seattle and Calgary, in a week. Those two situations are just a drop in the bucket, wait until next week, and the next potential issue with politics and sports will be right around the next bend.

Showtime: Can Magic Johnson Rebuild The LA Lakers?

The Los Angeles Lakers shocking move to reshuffle their front office to put Magic Johnson into the captain’s seat, so to speak, has come at a point where the franchise is truly at a crossroads. This type of shake up of the basketball operations of a team at this time in the season is unusual. The Lakers brought in Johnson as an “adviser” about three weeks ago, and now he is running the show.

The rationale for the decision is pretty clear: the Lakers, who are a storied NBA franchise, have been struggling for the past few seasons. The team has some young players that are talented on their roster, but they need a significant amount of work to get from the bottom of the standings back into a championship contender.

The Lakers are currently 19-39 and are spinning their wheels trying to find their identity in the post-Kobe Bryant period in their franchise history. The 2016-17 Lakers resemble a similar narrative to other teams in NBA history in the years immediately following the transition from a roster dominated by a megastar level player.

The challenging factor in the scenario is developing the right strategy to rebuild the roster and rejuvenate it back to contention. The Lakers are going to make some big, bold moves to improve this team, but they will also do it in a calculated manner.

The more pressing impetus for the move to shake up the front office on the basketball operations side of the house, is to get the core fans excited about the future of this franchise. The change to Magic Johnson certainly will create a sense of hope for the fans that the future in L.A. should improve in the near term.

This decision was a bold one from Jeannie Buss because she had to move her brother, Jim, out of the basketball operations role and back to being a co-owner. She had to separate her family ties to look at the situation as to how it relates to what the best path forward for the team would be at this point.

This decision to move forward with Magic Johnson, who won so many titles with the Lakers during the “Showtime” years, will most certainly be compared with the decision that the New York Knicks made to turn over their basketball operation to Phil Jackson. It is even more ironic that Jackson played a huge role in the success of the Lakers as their head coach and is the former fiancé of Jeannie Buss.

The fans in New York are largely dissatisfied with the tenure of Phil Jackson, and the relative lack of progress shown on reshaping the Knicks to be a successful basketball team. The Lakers fans have to hope that Magic does a lot more to shape the Lakers up than Phil Jackson has done so far with the Knicks in a similar role.

Magic Johnson obviously knows the essential elements in building a successful basketball team from the player personnel side, and he is also a successful business man, so his skill set seems very well suited to his new position within the Lakers organization. Nevertheless, it is a steep challenge taking this roster and reshaping it into a championship contender.

I think the cache that is the Lakers brand and reputation will certainly help Magic in this endeavor. The Lakers may even have some good fortune in attracting free agents because the Knicks have created so many issues for themselves between the Charles Oakley debacle and the Carmelo Anthony botched situation. The situation in New York is so bad that one current player remarked recently to the media that “nobody will go to the Knicks”.

The Lakers have been linked to current Indiana Pacers guard, Paul George, and although they could not get a deal done at the trade deadline, it is largely expected that George will join the Lakers as soon as he is able to within league guidelines.

The expectation throughout the league is that similar situations to those of Paul George will also transpire in the summer months of the offseason. The name of Russell Westbrook has been linked to the Lakers for some time now, and that speculation will probably only ratchet up further with the injection of Magic Johnson into the situation.

Some of the talent on the roster such as Nick Young and D’Angelo Russell could be the building blocks for the next version of the Lakers. The new perspective that Johnson will bring into the job will be fascinating to see as the months move forward.

There is one certainty especially if you ask a Knicks fan: Magic would be hard pressed to do much worse than Phil Jackson has done in the same role in New York. The Lakers need to get back to their championship pedigree, and Magic Johnson is just the right person to take them there.