NBA Franchise movement

Found this at ESPN Insider. Pretty interesting
Portland Trail Blazers
Current home: The Rose Garden.

Lease: Expires in 2025.

Situation: Owner Paul Allen may be a billionaire, but the Blazers and several other of his investments are hemorrhaging money. Stern has stepped in to try to reach resolution on one of the underlying issues -- Allen's fight against the companies that own the Rose Garden.

Blazers owner Paul Allen is seeking a public-private partnership with the city of Portland, a euphemism for a taxpayer subsidy. Allen posted a statement on the team's Web site saying he expects the club to lose $100 million in the next three years, losses he does not wish to endure after his spin-off Oregon Arena Corporation went bankrupt with the "worst arena deal in basketball." Five of Allen's words were particularly foreboding: "Time is obviously very short."

Where could they go? In Vancouver, a group of investors, led by Canucks owners Francesco Aquilini and John McCaw, would like to buy the team and move it to GM Place, the home of the Grizzlies from 1995 to 2001.

Roadblocks: Allen would likely face little opposition if he sold the team to an owner who planned to relocate it, but the price could be prohibitive, since a new owner would also have to pay off the arena debt and settle the lease. The state does not plan to offer a bailout with public money, according to Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski.

Prediction: A solution will be found to keep the Blazers in Portland, which has supported them as strongly as any small market has ever supported a team up until about five years ago, when the team began to turn off its fans with a decline in play and behavior.




Seattle SuperSonicsCurrent home: KeyArena.

Lease: Expires in 2010.

Situation: The Sonics have a poor lease, losing out on revenues from concessions and parking, and they play in a building that's merely mediocre by today's standards. They hold the cards, though, with the lease due to expire in four years.

Developers in Bellevue, Wash., have proposed a $400 million arena to be built with little public funding. Howard Schultz, head of the club's ownership group, failed to get lawmakers to approve a $220 million publicly funded overhaul of KeyArena.

Schultz wants ground broken or work begun on a new or refurbished arena by 2008, and an appearance by Stern before state lawmakers in Olympia failed to produce an agreement, although all sides are expected to give it another try in the next legislative session.

Schultz has said time is running out, and there has been speculation in Seattle newspapers that Allen -- the owner of the Seattle Seahawks -- has his sights set on selling the Blazers and buying the Sonics.

Where could they go? This is another team that has been a fixture on the Pacific Northwest sports scene, but Schultz would still pack it up and move, rather than continue with the status quo. If there's no new building on the horizon, the Sonics could leave. The team has had preliminary discussions with officials from San Jose, Kansas City and Anaheim.

Roadblocks: Not many. With the lease winding down, the franchise could be four years away from relocating.

Talks with officials in Bellevue will not heat up unless officials are convinced the Sonics are intent on leaving Seattle. They don't want to be used as leverage as they felt they were in 1987, the last time KeyArena was refurbished.

The solution being pushed by the Sonics is to extend an expiring tax on hotels, car rentals and restaurants used to pay off debt on Qwest Field, the Kingdome and Safeco Field. Opponents want the legislature to stick to its original promise and let the tax elapse on schedule.

Prediction: The state legislature will sock Seattle's tourists with much of the tax costs for a brand new building.




Sacramento Kings
Current home: Arco Arena

Lease: Conditions for activating an escape clause have already been met.

Situation: The Kings are the ultimate small-market team that has figured out how to win consistently in a bandbox arena that was built on the cheap in the mid-'80s.

A developer recently proposed a new arena as part of a grandiose revitalization project for 240 acres of downtown railyards, and another developer has submitted to the Maloofs a proposal for building a new arena on farmland that would have to be rezoned. But neither plan would result in a new arena being built anytime soon. A new building is expected to cost in the area of $400 million, and polling data has shown Sacramento-area taxpayers are unwilling to use public finances to subsidize an arena for a private enterprise. Two downtown arena plans have already fallen through.

Where could they go? The Maloof family, which owns the team, has been trying for several years to secure public financing for an arena to replace the quaint Arco, which was built with wooden floors to facilitate the foot-stomping tendencies of the local fans. Anaheim and Las Vegas have been mentioned as the two most likely new homes for the Kings, should they leave northern California.

Roadblocks: The Kings can leave whenever they want under terms of an escape clause their previous owner negotiated with the city in 1997, but they won't be heading to Las Vegas unless Stern drops his long-standing insistence that NBA games must be taken off the gambling books in Nevada before he'd allow a team to move there. For now, Anaheim appears to be the most tantalizing option.

Prediction: Vegas, baby. In about six to eight years.




New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets
Current home: Ford Center, Oklahoma City.

Lease: The lease in New Orleans runs through 2012. The lease in Oklahoma City is temporary.

Situation: The Hornets were forced to temporarily relocate by Hurricane Katrina, which displaced more than half the city's population. The team will play 35 games in Oklahoma City and six in New Orleans next season before returning permanently to Louisiana for the 2007-08 season, according to the NBA.

Stern has insisted unequivocally that the team will return to the Crescent City once its two-year stint in Oklahoma City is over. For economic reasons, Shinn would like to move permanently to Oklahoma City, which has embraced the team, and be relieved of his obligations to New Orleans, which did not support the team strongly when it was there. Stern, however, feels a moral obligation to help rebuild the city. Shinn has already exercised an option allowing him to stay in Oklahoma City for a second season.

Roadblocks: Stern has said he expects the $100 billion post-Katrina rebuilding of New Orleans to turn it into a boomtown, and he expects Shinn, who has pandered to people on both sides of the NO-OKC debate, to follow through on his commitment. But a group of Oklahoma City businessmen is trying to buy the club from Shinn, who has said he does not wish to sell his majority stake. The fans in Oklahoma City are developing an allegiance to the Hornets, and no one knows if those feelings would transfer over to a different team if the Hornets left and another franchise moved in.

Prediction: Shinn and Stern butt heads on this for the next year; Shinn loses when he attempts to get the Board of Governors to let him stay in Oklahoma City.




Orlando MagicCurrent home: TD Waterhouse Centre, Orlando

Lease: Team has four one-year options remaining

Situation: The Magic are the only professional sports franchise in this swath of central Florida, and they would like to find a way to make that monopoly work for them the way it did in the 1990s. Local officials are still pushing for a taxpayer-funded renovation of an arena often described as outmoded (all 26 skyboxes are near the ceiling, half are unsold) since the day it opened in 1989. The Magic would prefer an entirely new arena, but their last hard push for a new building was aborted in 2001.

Owner Rich DeVos, who bought the team for $85 million in 1991, is in the process of transferring ownership to his children, and his son-in-law, Bob Vander Weide, will have control. His long-term plans for the franchise are unknown, but the Magic recently acknowledged exploratory talks on a new building at an undeveloped tract near the area's convention center and theme parks, and a team spokesman emphasized that the franchise is committed to central Florida.

Where Could They Go? Pretty much anywhere they wanted.

Roadblocks: It's all about fighting over the money to pay for whatever project gets the go-ahead. But in this case, the money is already there -- a county hotel tax in one of the nation's busiest tourist areas generates more than $110 million annually, and a penny per night increase could provide the needed funding for a new building. The property the Magic are currently looking at was once owned by Universal Orlando, which put heavy restrictions on its future use when it sold the land.

Prediction: A new building is up and ready to go in five years.

 

New Jersey Nets
Current home: The Meadowlands, East Rutherford

Lease: Expires in 2008.

Situation: Owner Bruce Ratner is determined to move the franchise to Brooklyn, N.Y., but he is still trying to acquire all the land he needs.

After originally hoping to have ground broken by now, Ratner has pushed back his target date for building a mammoth commercial-residential development that would be anchored by the Nets' new arena. Ratner now hopes to have the borough's first major league franchise since the Dodgers left for Los Angeles in its new home by the start of the 2009-10 season. Groundbreaking is now slated for summer or fall 2007.

Roadblocks: It takes years and years to get anything done in New York, and Ratner has been stymied by a handful of locals (thus far, Ratner has gained full control of 89 percent of the 22-acre property) whose homes and/or businesses would be demolished to make room for the new construction. In the meantime, the Nets are keeping up their long-standing Jersey tradition of struggling to draw sellout crowds just eight miles from one of the largest cities in the country.

Prediction: The Brooklyn building will continue to fall behind schedule, but it'll eventually get built. Opening night will come in 2011.

 

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