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Ducks owner will finance Kings outstanding bills
By Joe Cronin and Ken Gimblin March 5, 2011 |
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SACRAMENTO--More and more fans in Sacramento are starting to realize that there is a slim hope that the Kings will remain in Sacramento, until those papers are signed that the Kings are headed to Anaheim. In reality unless that deal has a snag the Kings are gone. We knew about this and we have been saying for several years the community better wake up and get an arena or the Kings are gone. The economy played a major part, unfortunately the Kings owners the Maloof family are having big financial trouble. Not to worry the Anaheim Ducks owners Henry and Susan Samueli are coming to the rescue and will pay any balances that the Kings owe for instance the money for the lease on Arco Arena, money owed to naming rights company Power Balance, and anything owed to the City of Sacramento. The Maloof's business wise have made some real dumb mistakes by trying to hold onto their casino hotel in Las Vegas the Palms and that was draining their money. They had a cash cow in their beer distributorship in New Mexico and decided to sell it which wasn't the smartest thing to do. The other stupid move is they brought a guy in by the name of Jim Thomas who was a president. He did a poor job in relating himself to the community as far as bringing in corporate sponsors. Thomas is gone now but he's done a lot of damage. The other stupid move the Maloof's did they should have listened to Kings General Manager Geoff Petrie. The Kings head coach Paul Westphal is a legitimate coach and Petrie played in a major part in getting a coach like Westphal. The last three coaches the Kings had were hired primarily through the family and in reality they were nice guys but not NBA coaching material. They were Eric Musselman, Reggie Theus, and Kenny Natt. If he Kings had a decent coach maybe the team wouldn't have fallen on the hard times that they did. The big reason the Maloofs are moving and we can't blame them for this one is the Kings have been loosing money. They do not have a winning team as everyone knows and then the result they have not been able to fill out Arco Arena. Obviously moving to a better arena brings in more money, the best example would be the old Candlestick Park where the 49ers play and was former home of the Giants where they have a lot of success in AT&T Park. A lot of people just go to AT&T just for the fun of the park. The Giants can do a lot more at AT&T then they could do at Candlestick and the same thing would apply with the arena where the Kings are playing in now compared to the arena which they'll be playing in in Anaheim. When the Kings move into the Honda Center they'll be tenants of the Ducks and that'll work against them. They'll get a cut on their action but that's an old arena built around 1993. Eventually the teams in that area, the Ducks, the Kings of hockey are going to have to look for a new place to locate. Incidentally the Kings more than likely will not retain the name the Kings particularly with the NHL Kings in the Southland. They are rumored to be going back to their old name the Royals and will be called the Anaheim Royals. A name they've had in Cincinnati when the franchise first started out. The Kings are gone and the team are lame ducks but the official last day of the team's last game will be on April 18th all the league games would have concluded by then. So the fact that the Kings were wise enough to hold off until April will allow a few more fans to buy tickets. Ken Gimblin and Joe Cronin cover Kings basketball each week for Sportstalk radio |
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