A report out today claims the Sacramento Kings are poised to announce a new plan to relocate in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
Yeah.
Virginia Beach.
The owners of the Sacramento Kings, an NBA franchise, and officials from Philadelphia-based Comcast-Spectacor are expected to be in Virginia Beach Tuesday to propose moving the team to the resort city and for Comcast to help build and lease a new pro sports arena.
A deal between the Maloof family, which owns the Sacramento Kings, and the city of Sacramento for a $391 million entertainment complex fell apart three months ago and it has been reported that the owners are looking for a city for their franchise.
Media giant Comcast will guarantee a 25-year lease on a new arena, supposedly for naming rights and for broadcasting the games, sources said. Comcast owns NBC and Global Spectrum, which operates arenas and stadiums across the country including the Ted Constant Convocation Center at Old Dominion University.
City officials and the Maloof family are expected to announce Wednesday, Aug. 29, that the Kings will land in Virginia Beach, sources said.
The first thing I did when I saw this was make sure it wasn't from a joke site like The Onion. I read the article expecting to find jokey fake quotes from Adam Silver.
But no, it's real. Two reporters from the Hampton Roads Business Journal combined to report that their sources expect to announce a deal to move the Kings to Virginia in a week.
I'd like to get into the myriad of reasons why this doesn't make any sense, but Sactown Royalty's Tom Ziller already did it quite nicely. There are six reasons there. I recommend reading them all, although this is the only one you really need:
The likely costs of relocation would cost more than the city of Sacramento asked from the Maloofs to build a new arena in Sacramento, which they shot down.
So we are expected to believe that next week, the Maloofs are going to announce a move to a smaller market than Sacramento, at a cost that is higher to them than staying where they are.
Tell me why that would actually happen?
Yet, it's a report in a business journal where the reporters are, I would think (and hope), actual journalists who understand their sources, trust their sources, and have more than one that are telling them the exact same thing. And while the story is almost literally unbelievable, it would just be the latest in a string of almost literally unbelievable things in this Kings saga.
Still, I find it ridiculously unlikely that the Hampton Roads Business Journal has scooped the most intrepid NBA reporters who have followed this mess since the beginning. There are very good journalists who have very good sources who are making fun of this whole thing right now too.
So someone is going to come out of this looking silly. My money is on the Business Journal guys, considering the NBA has no clue what they're talking about.
NBA spokesman Mike Bass on Kings: "We have no information from the Kings on this matter and there has been no application for relocation."
— Jeff Zillgitt (@JeffZillgitt) August 23, 2012
I suppose we just have to wait and see how this plays out. But I'll just put it this way, I'm not booking any trips to Virginia Beach any time soon for anything other than to work on my tan and maybe play 18 holes somewhere.
