Virginia Beach mayor Will Sessoms announced last week that he was setting a January 7th deadline to reach an agreement with a professional sports team to move to the city. No announcement was made Monday, but Sessoms and Peter Lukko, the president of Comcast Spectacor, are expected to announce today that negotiations to bring a team to Virginia Beach are at a standstill, reports Bruce Rader of WAVY-TV (hat tip to Tom Ziller of Sactown Royalty). The Sacramento Kings were the team considered to be Virginia Beach's target.
With no agreement in hand, the city of Virginia Beach will not ask the state for $150MM to help finance an arena deal. While the proposal to build a professional sports arena in Virginia Beach isn't entirely dead, it appears it will be shelved for now.
Rader suggests that the Kings and their owners will likely explore other avenues now that Virginia Beach no longer seems to be a realistic option. That could mean simply staying put in Sacramento, or perhaps discussing relocation with another city. Ziller notes that the next big rumor figures to be the possibility of a sale to the Seattle group led by Chris Hansen.