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Kings to move if no new arena
By Ken Gimblin and Joe Cronin November 2, 2005 |
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SACRAMENTO--Everybody in this community are excited about the Kings, and that's all you read about in the sports section of the Sacramento Bee. It’s nice to know there are other sports going nationally, but if you read the Sacramento Bee, you would think the only sport in Sacramento going is the Sacramento Kings of the NBA. The Bee will tell you what the Kings ate for breakfast and etc. etc., but we guess small town newspapers will tell you that information. The coverage on the Kings is saturated and that's putting it mildly. To the Bee, the Kings are the only team that exists, nobody exists, and there is only one team it’s the Kings. If there are ten sports pages, eight are devoted to the Kings. The Bee just writes about the wives, the kids of the players if they're not writing about the players, the dogs, their pets, the Gorilla if they could dig him out again. This is a small town really mentality and the Kings are the only major sport in town and that's all the Bee features in the paper. Unlike the San Francisco Bay Area, there are several teams in a much more cosmopolitan city so therefore they devote space accordingly but in Sacramento there is one team one major league team and its the Sacramento Kings and that's all they talk about around here. In all fairness, Jim Jenkins in the Bee is one of the better sportswriter on staff, and he does very well. The Bee has some very good writers who do follow the NFL. The Bee is the only paper in Sacramento and that could make a difference, devotes considerable coverage and space to the Kings and you really don't get all the information on the other teams and sports. The majority of the people in Sacramento you got to remember (and we hate to put Sacramento down because its a great city and there are a lot of neat people) Sacramento is not a sophisticated city so therefore its not like San Francisco or L.A. or New York where fans would demand coverage of all the sports. It’s really a small town attitude, the Kings are it, and people live and die by the Kings. It gets old the Bee even talks about the Kings during the summer when they're not playing and the answer is definitely yes. The Kings are looking for a new arena, and if the Kings don’t get one, there is some talk about the team to move out of Sacramento, which wouldn’t happen overnight, but in a couple of seasons from now. The owners of the Kings who are the Malooths who are originally from Las Vegas, have tried very, very hard to be involved with the Kings operations with the local community, and the owners have worked hard at public relations with the local citizens. The Kings have good public relations the opposite would have been the Hornets when they were in Charlotte. The Kings have tried hard to be part of the community; they've also tried to get players who are good citizens, unlike the Portland Trailblazers who have a group of players who haven’t been good citizens in the Northwest. The Kings want good people so that makes a difference in the relationship of the team with the community. No new arena in downtown: The Kings have made it clear that they will not build an arena in downtown because its too costly and they're are some advantages for it. If the Kings build a new arena, look for it to be built outside of downtown and eventually the Kings will have some kind of public transportation going to where ever the new arena is. The Kings owners don’t see the new arena being located in Downtown Sacramento. To many logistics block downtown, such as it’s too expensive, so forth and so on from there. The King do realize the advantages of having an arena in downtown and what it does to the downtown area and all you have to look at Pac Bell Park in San Francisco and what the park did for the Giants and that area. If the Kings do not get a new arena, they will leave Sacramento, it would be a few years down the road but the talk has been targeted to Las Vegas where the owners come from. Meanwhile the NBA already is planning to host the NBA All-Star game there soon which is a huge hint that something could be in the works for Vegas and a growth study is there and the fans would come to see NBA basketball. One advantage is in Vegas there is a lot of money and the NBA is worried about the gambling etc. etc. , whereas you had to worry about players and gambling before but the salaries being what they are now it would be surprising if players would be tempted to go ahead and fix games. Although the NBA salaries are just so huge and the players wont do it and there is a lot of disagreement about Las Vegas being a home for a NBA team. Later there will be an NBA team going to Las Vegas particularly if there is an Arena built there. It’s not a problem yet but in a few years, if Sacramento doesn't have a new arena for the Sacramento Kings then there is going to be talk about then they'll be serious talk about his team going somewhere else. Ken Gimblin and Joe Cronin cover the Kings each week and also co-host Sportstalk on the big flamethrower 1110 KLIB Sacramento. |
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