Maybe the $25m represents the value of the minority share they had wanted to keep. "No stake or decision-making" makes it sound like they would give up the last piece they had wanted to hang on to.
Honestly just wish they'd get it over with already, can't imagine how ****ed up Kings fans feel right now.
WTH so many twists. Mark Mastrov met with the Maloofs recently, and two league sources speaking on condition of anonymity said he has made a formal offer to purchase the Sacramento Kings. Mastrov is the founder of 24-Hour Fitness and finished second in the bidding for the Golden State Warriors. "Definitely, there've been conversations," Mastrov said from his northern California office. "Definitely, there's interest in acquiring the team and keeping it in Sacramento." Mastrov would purchase the Kings to keep them in Sacramento. Via Ken Berger/CBS Sports
Isn't that worse news? If there's a bidding war, someone might give the Maloofs a stake and/or a say in how the organization is run... That's the worst case scenario - aside from whether the team is moved or not, the highest priority of the league should be to get rid of the Maloofs from any involvement whatsoever.
Yar Magoofs -Said that were willing to spend money to bring in a star player, ended up with Chuck Hayes. -Wanted a new arena, got it approved, and then cried about a couple of millions that had to pay out of pocket. -Kept saying they won't sell the Kings for years and then now they are apparently for sale. Seems like no basketball fans likes them either from reading forums.
The NBA is going to be torn by the news of a Sacramento buyer. They all but counted on there not being one.
With it all but done I guess its got me to thinking of how I would like the NBA to look like moving forward following this season. I would like to see the league go back to a 2 divison format per conference with one divison having 8 teams and the other 7. I would have teams play their divison opponents 6 times per year, non divison conference opponents 3 times per year (alternating who has the home court advantage yearly) and the remainder of their games (either 22 or 19 depending on which divison the team plays in) a rotation that sees them play some non conference opponents twice and others only once. The leauge would look like this: Eastern Conference: Atlantic Boston Celtics New York Knicks Brooklyn Nets Philadelphia 76ers Washington Wizards Charlotte Bobcats Orlando Magic Miami Heat Central Toronto Raptors Detroit Pistons Cleveland Cavaliers Atlanta Hawks Indiana Pacers Chicago Bulls Milwaukee Bucks Western Conference : Pacific Seattle Supersoncis Portland Trail Blazers Golden State Warriors Los Angeles Lakers Los Angeles Clippers Phoenix Suns Utah Jazz Denver Nuggets Midwest Minnesota Timberwolves Oklahoma City Thunder Dallas Mavericks San Antonio Spurs Houston Rockets New Orleans Pelicans Memphis Grizzles
The reason why is that it takes away money from the other teams in several ways, including: (1) The National TV revenue (money NBA's contract with ESPN/ABC and Turner Sports) is shared equally among teams. Adding another team is unlikely to increase the revenue, but it will mean one more team to take a cut of the $. (2) There is a "revenue sharing" system among teams, where big market teams are giving up some of their money to the league to be distributed unprofitable smaller market teams (for a team like Lakers, it could mean something like $50M per year while teams like SAC and NOH receive tens of millions). Instead of adding another team in Seattle, for the rest of the league it probably makes more sense money wise to move one of the small market teams (who currently cost the other owners money) over to Seattle and eliminate one of the money holes.
I wouldn't mind a Houston based billionaire buying the Kings and bringing them to Houston. About time Houston gets 2 pro teams in a sport. He clearly traveled.
They need to go the other way and chop 2-3 teams from the weakest markets to level the financial playing field and increase the average quality of players. IMO, they should also trim the schedule 10-12 games and start the season on Christmas day. The NBPA would never allow the first and neither they nor the NBA would consider the second idea. It would also increase the quality of basketball in the NBA and college if they required two years after high school graduation instead of one. That would be a huge boost to college b-ball. But this would unfairly sacrifice the earnings potential of a lot of guys.
