City of Seattle

It's a big day for the future of the Kings, as the Sacramento and Seattle investment groups vying for the team are prepared to make presentations to the NBA, explaining why their respective cities deserve the franchise. In advance of that meeting, let's quickly round up a few of the latest links on the fight for the Kings….

• David Lucchetti, who currently owns just 1% of the Kings, is the minority shareholder matching Chris Hansen's bid for the 7% currently owned by Bob Cook, reports Dale Kasler of the Sacramento Bee (via Twitter).
• According to Aaron Bruski of NBCSports.com (via Twitter), Sacramento's acquisition of Cook's 7% share could give them the right of first refusal on the Maloofs' 65% share.
• Bruski also reports (Twitter links) that environmental challenges could delay Seattle's arena plan, pushing it back to 2017/18, whereas Sacramento's arena proposal has it on track for 2016.
• Jeff Zillgitt of USA Today tweets the 12 owners on the joint committee who will hear today's pitches from the Sacramento and Seattle groups: Peter Holt (Spurs), Glen Taylor (Timberwolves), Micky Arison (Heat), Clay Bennett (Thunder), James Dolan (Knicks), Wyc Grousbeck (Celtics), Greg Miller (Jazz), Robert Sarver (Suns), Herb Simon (Pacers), Larry Tanenbaum (Raptors), and Jeanie Buss (Lakers).
• Tom Ziller of SBNation.com revisits an argument he has made before, writing that giving Seattle an expansion team is the most logical solution for the NBA.

Tomorrow, competing bidders from Sacramento and Seattle will convene in New York to make their pitches for ownership of the Kings in a joint meeting of the NBA's Relocation and Finance committees. Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson has already been in New York for days, since, as luck would have it, he had a wedding to attend there over the weekend. As we get down to the business portion of Johnson's trip, here's the latest on the Kings saga:

• On the eve of Wednesday's critical meeting in New York, there is trouble on the homefront in Sacramento, as a citizens' group filed a "notice of intent" to sue the city in order to block the proposed downtown arena, reports Dale Kasler and Ryan Lillis of the Sacramento Bee.  The "Coalition for Responsible Arena Development" intends to challenge last week's approval to finance the downtown arena on the grounds that it committed to construction and operation without completing environmental reviews.
  
  Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/04/02/5311482/sacramento-arena-opponents-makes.html#mi_rss=Kings/NBA#storylink=cpy
• According to an Associated Press report (via NBA.com), Seattle fans have already requested 44,000 season tickets in the event that the team relocates.  The prospective ownership group urged fans to join a "priority ticket waitlist" to display their desire for a team and the results have been "nothing short of stunning," according to Chris Hansen. 
• State Senator and Sacramento native Darrell Steinberg will head to New York to join the group lobbying to keep the Kings in Sacramento on Wednesday, writes Dale Kasler of the Sacramento Bee.  Steinberg will try to persuade the NBA's committees that the rallying effort of the city's political community is reason enough for Sacramento to keep their team.  "There is political support for streamlining the regulatory process of environmentally sustainable and economically vital projects like the proposed Sacramento downtown arena," said a Steinberg statement released today.

Earlier updates:

• Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/04/02/5311308/city-beat-sacramento-delegation.html#mi_rss=Kings/NBA#storylink=cpy
• Lawyers for the longshoremen's union in Seattle are trying to expedite their appeal in response to a February ruling that rejected their lawsuit against a plan for a new arena in Seattle, reports Jon Humbert of KOMO-TV in Seattle (Twitter link). According to one of the union's lawyers who spoke to Aaron Bruski of ProBasketballTalk.com, there's strong public sentiment in Seattle against the arena plan (Twitter link).
• Johnson spoke to Sam Amick of USA Today about how he'll make his case on Wednesday, and explains how Vivek Ranadive became the primary investor in the group bidding to keep the team in Sacramento. Johnson also said he's not concerned about the notion that the Maloofs may decide to keep the team for a while if the league won't allow them to sell it to the Seattle group.
• Last we heard, a pair of Kings minority owners were considering exercising their right to match the offer for fellow minority owner Bob Cook's 7% stake in the team from Chris Hansen's group of Seattle investors. A source tells Ken Berger of CBSSports.com that other minority owners will indeed match the bid for Cook's share by Wednesday.
• In the same piece, Berger argues that while it may initially seem like a better financial move for the owners to approve a move to Seattle, the NBA should be worried about setting an unwanted precedent should the league ignore Sacramento's willingness to fund a new arena. Other cities may not be so eager to build if there's a chance their team will move away regardless.
• Tom Ziller of Cowbell Kingdom believes the presence of the Maloof family, which owns the Kings and has a deal in place to sell the team to Hansen's group, could be a negative for the Seattle bidders, considering how clumsy the Maloofs have come off in past presentations.
• In response to a source who told TNT's David Aldridge that the Seattle investors would announce an additional $20MM for improvements to Key Arena, Bob Condotta of The Seattle Times reports Hansen and city officials are still negotiating over the arena upgrades, and no one has made an announcement yet. Still, a spokesman for Seattle mayor Mike McGinn says the city officials present at Wednesday's meeting will make it clear that the arena will be ready for an NBA team in time for next season.

Just a few days remain before competing bidders for the Kings go before the NBA's Board of Governors on Wednesday to make their cases, so news regarding the future of the team won't be in short supply. Here's the latest, with any updates added to the top of the page throughout the day: 

• Marc Stein of ESPN.com doesn't agree with Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson's assertion that Sacramento has a 90% chance of keeping the Kings, but a source tells the ESPN scribe that Sacramento is "gaining momentum" in its effort to keep the team. Stein, who was told that the battle between Seattle and Sacramento is too close to call at this point, also hears that the determining factor will come down to simply how much money Sacramento bidders can pony up in their counteroffer to Chris Hansen's Seattle group.
• Minority owner John Kehriotis has ended his bid for the team after a critical financial backer withdrew from the effort, reports Tony Bizjak of the Sacramento Bee. Kehriotis, like the primary Sacramento bidding group led by Vivek Ranadive, aimed to keep the Kings in town.
• Hansen's group has filed court documents confirming their deal to buy minority owner Bob Cook's 7% share of the team, Bizjak reports in the same piece. Four other minority owners have a right to match the offer, and two told Bizjak they're considering doing so.
• Johnson is nearing his goal of having 10,000 Sacramento-area residents pledge to buy Kings season tickets in advance of Wednesday's meeting. More than 9,000 pledges are in at HereWeBuy.org as of Saturday afternoon, up from about 7,500 a couple days ago.

As April approaches, updates on the sale of the Sacramento Kings, and the competing bids put together by investments groups in Sacramento and Seattle, are coming more and more frequently. Yesterday, we heard that Sacramento City Council had agreed to move forward on a $448MM arena proposal, while Chris Hansen's Seattle group reached an agreement to buy Bob Cook's 7% share of the franchise. Here's the fallout from those stories, and the latest on the sale of the Kings:

• Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson has released a list of 24 business that have committed $50MM in team coroporate sponsorships, writes Tony Bizjak of the Sacramento Bee. Johnson also says he plans to have 10,000 season ticket purchase pledges by the time he makes his case in front of the NBA's Board of Governors next week. HereWeBuy.org currently has over 7,500 pledges.
• Meanwhile, Johnson also said he anticipated Hansen's purchase of Cook's stake in the Kings, and will announce a countermove within the next few days. "We are going to respond," Johnson said. "We do have a plan. I'm not going to get into detail about that now. We have been positioned to make a play, and I will announce what that is in the next day or two."
• Cook himself expects another current minority owner to match Hansen's offer for his 7% share. John Kehriotis, who has talked about wanting to put together a separate bid for a majority stake in the club, said he would "maybe" make a counter-offer, according to Bizjak.
• After some uncertainty, Sacramento now has the money, the momentum, and a plan to keep the Kings, says Ailene Voisin of the Sacramento Bee.
• One source suggests to Ric Bucher of 95.7 The Game (Sulia link) that the Sacramento group's level of commitment won't be "certified" until it offers the same $30MM non-refundable deposit that the Seattle group did. Still, the NBA is currently showing no preference for either city, playing the process "straight down the middle," a source tells Bucher.

We already passed along one major update on the Kings sale today, as Sacramento City Council approved an arena proposal put forth by a Sacramento investment group that includes Ron Burkle, Mark Mastrov, Vivek Ranadive, and Paul Jacobs. That means the group's bid to keep the Kings from moving to Seattle can move forward as planned, but that's not today's only piece of news.

According to Nick Monacelli of News10 in Sacramento, Bob Cook's bankruptcy lawyers have reached an agreement with Chris Hansen's Seattle group to sell Cook's 7% stake in the Kings for about $15.1MM (Twitter links). Cook's minority stake in the Kings was expected to be auctioned off in April, but a sale, if completed, would circumvent the auction process, says Monacelli (Twitter link).

Other limited partners who currently have a stake in the Kings will have the right of first refusal, giving them 15 days to match the offer. Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson tells Monacelli that the Sacramento group bidding for the Kings will come up with an offer of its own for Cook's 7% share within a few days (Twitter link). Although the agreement with Hansen prevents the solicitation of further offers, additional bids can still be reviewed, says Monacelli (via Twitter).

The sale of Cook's 7% share to Hansen requires the approval of a judge and the NBA, so my understanding is that it will eventually go through the same process that the majority sale of the team will — this just puts a little more pressure on the Sacramento group to commit some more money in the short-term.

The Sacramento City Council has approved an investment group's proposal to build a new arena in the city, voting 7-2 in favor of the arena plan last night, according to the Associated Press (link via USA Today). The proposal calls for the city to contribute $258MM to a new arena for the Kings, with another $190MM coming from a group that includes Mark Mastrov, Ron Burkle, Vivek Ranadive, and Paul Jacobs.

While the step is an important one in Sacramento's quest to keep the Kings, it wasn't unexpected, since the city approved an arena plan by the same 7-2 margin a year ago before the Maloofs backed out of the agreement. As Bob Condotta of the Seattle Times tweets, the Sacramento and Seattle groups will now receive an opportuntity to make a case for their respective bids to the NBA's Board of Governors on April 3rd. The Board of Governors is then expected to make a decision on the Kings' future later in April.

As for the Kings bid, ESPN.com's Marc Stein and NBA.com's Scott Howard-Cooper share a pair of updates on that front. Stein hears from one league insider that Sacramento is "gaining momentum" toward keeping the Kings (Twitter link), and that the value of the group's offer has kept "climbing and climbing" since commissioner David Stern suggested it wasn't high enough (Twitter link).

Meanwhile, Howard-Cooper reports (via Twitter) that Ranadive is expected to be the general partner and the No. 1 voice of the ownership group, should the Kings remain in Sacramento. As Howard-Cooper points out in a second tweet, that's not a huge surprise, since Ranadive was unlikely to give up his minority stake in the Warriors for a similar role with the Kings.

After recently adding Silicon Valley entrepreneur Vivek Ranadive to a bid led by Ron Burkle and Mark Mastrov, the Sacramento group vying to keep the Kings has added a fourth "whale," as Tony Bizjak, Ryan Lillis, and Dale Kasler of the Sacramento Bee report. Ranadive announced last night that the Jacobs family, founders of Qualcomm, would also be joining the Sacramento group.

The Qualcomm trio is led by company CEO Paul Jacobs, and includes his brothers Jeff and Hal Jacobs. Ranadive and Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson both referred to the new four-headed Sacramento group as a "dream team."

"Each person in this has the capacity to do this on their own," Ranadive said. "This is about building a global brand. It's about putting more wood behind the arrow."

"Some of the most successful leaders in the state are coming together to do something truly transformational for the capital city," Johnson said. "Their belief in Sacramento speaks volumes about a community that's growing stronger by the day."

Things are looking more and more positive for Sacramento's bid for the Kings, which was at one point considered a long shot to challenge Seattle's offer for the franchise. The Sacramento group has finalized its bid and arena proposal, and that arena plan will be put before the City Council tonight. Assuming the council votes to move forward, the Sacramento group will get a chance to make its pitch to the NBA's Board of Governors next month, with a decision to follow shortly thereafter.

Sam Amick of USA Today reports that the prospective ownership-group led by Vivek Ranadive, Mark Mastrov, and Ron Burkle have agreed on a deal with the city of Sacramento for a new bid that will be presented to the Board of Governors meeting on April 3. Among the near billion dollars that will go toward purchasing the team, creating a new arena, and local real estate development, $190MM is expected to go toward the arena, which Amick notes is $58MM more than what the Maloof brothers and the NBA had originally agreed on last year before the deal fell through. 

According to an ESPN report (via the Associated Press), Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson announced that the city of Sacramento and the Ranadive-Mastrov-Burkle investment group have agreed on an arena deal worth $448MM. The City Council is expected to vote on the non-binding term sheet on Tuesday. If passed, the city would contribute $258MM through leasing parking garages and land. Amick adds that Sacramento's general fund would not be affected and no new taxes would be involved. 

Ranadive's involvement bodes very well for the Sacramento investors, especially after David Stern had recently commented that the initial bid presented under the leadership of Mark Mastrov needed to be increased. While the official size of the updated offer is yet to be announced, it is expected to meet Stern's expectations. Amick writes that the addition of Ranadive into the picture and the infusion of cash that accompanied him were exactly what was needed in the 11th hour for those working hard to keep the Kings.