This is getting out of hand. Massive amounts of money, one team opting out of revenue sharing, the other not getting public $ for the arena- Silver's got a big plate in front of him.
Nothing about this has been routine. Hansen agrees to buy the team and puts up a deposit, putting the rest of the money in escrow. King County and the city approve the specific arena plan, land is acquired and environmental is underway. Stern then has several meetings with Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson. All of a sudden, Sarcamento throws together a bid that is much less than the binding agreement with Hansen. Now the league is putting pressure on the Maloofs to break their binding agreement and sell to the lesser offer. All of this sounds routine to you? How delightfully odd. This is not the league allowing Sacramento to make a bid. This bid was pre-approved by Stern. I would LOVE to read Stern's deposition transcript regarding his meetings with Kevin Johnson. It won't get that far though. The league will settle the matter.
Stern really pissed off the wrong guys. Hansen and Ballmer have deeper pockets than almost anybody. At the end of the day, the owners will have to break with Stern, won't they? After the last round of collective bargaining, we've seen the value of franchises go through the roof. If a team in a small market with little room for growth like Sacramento can be valued at $625 million, what are their teams worth? Could Miami or New York go for over $1 billion? Or, do the owners not bite the hand that feeds? They want publicly-funded arenas and Ranadive's group has gone one step further by announcing they wouldn't participate in revenue sharing. That means more money for all of the owners, especially on the revenue sharing front. $625 million is a lot of money and Hansen and Ballmer can put up even more. How is a $100 million difference in offers not enough to allow Hansen to purchase the team? How is a market that could contribute revenue to the league not more appealing than Sacramento?
Yes, the aspects that you are ignoring are routine. When Hansen put down his deposit and made it known that he wanted to relocate the team, did he not know that relocation would have to be approved by the league? Did he not know the league did not allow this same team to relocate to Anaheim just a few years earlier? Did he not know that no matter how much you put down, a sale still has to be approved by the league, all the time? And was he not told that the Kings would be allowed to submit a bid to keep their team? All of that is pretty routine. Is it not? Where is the link for this or something showing the league helped the Kings with their bid?
That franchise isn't worth $625m, it's worth $625m in Seattle (and tbh, it's not even worth that, it's just some stupidly rich guys not really caring about a fair valuation)
It isn't the routine parts of a business transaction that become important legally. It is the non-routine. It is the aspects that set it apart from the routine that give rise to legal action. The non-routine in this instance is notable. As for the NBA, their buddy buddy relationship with Kevin Johnson and his miracle bid after several meetings with Stern and sitting with him during all star weekend...draw your conclusions. I have followed this in both the Sacramento Bee and Seattle Times from the beginning. Many commentators have opined on how this went down. It was, IIRC, Yahoo Sports that published an article asking if it is just that David Stern hates Seattle. The bottom line is, if Hansen wants to fight this, it is gonna get really expensive.
Chris Daniels of King5 in Seattle linked to this interesting article from Sports Press NW: Hansen Answers a Kickback with a Bribe So, the difference here may be one vote? Is $65 million more enough for one owner to change his opinion? It's interesting that the author characterizes Sacramento's foregoing revenue sharing as a "kickback," but that is what it feels like. They are knowingly giving money back to the NBA as a sweetener. From the beginning, I've felt like Seattle's plan was more solid. They have the politicians, the permits and the money to make this happen. Ballmer and Hansen were the wrong guys to piss off and they can spend Sacramento out of the water. Given that Sacramento's arena plan is still in its infancy and is bound to face some public, taxpayer opposition, I just don't understand how Seattle can be denied. It's incredibly hard to build anything in California the size of an arena - Hansen has already done the lobbying and gotten through the red tape in Washington. It sucks for a city to lose its team. But, for a league as internationally-minded as the NBA, Seattle makes more sense. It opens the Northwest back up to professional basketball and would have an owner in Ballmer who is internationally known as one of the most powerful men on earth. It puts a team in a major American city with close proximity to Canada and 41 years of NBA tradition. They would contribute money to the league through revenue sharing, no kickbacks needed. Sacramento has been last in the league in attendance for years, is unattractive to free agents and is too close to the Bay Area and Warriors to develop anything more than a small region of fans.
Ok, so what is the non routine part that can trump the routine part? I don't see it yet. I don't see how them dropping a deposit or wanting to purchase the team for much more or anything else matters if they knew at the end of the day relocation and the sale in general had to be approved. Please help me understand why anything else would trump that? I'm not a lawyer and I know the law can be tricky. I just can't seem to wrap my mind around how you can sue the league for not allowing a team to relocate when you know you have to go before the league to get relocation approved, or your sale approved in general. So in other words, a lot of assuming and nothing tangible (yet). Gotcha. I was just trying to see if I had missed some actual facts somewhere but I guess I haven't.
This is why sports teams are never a bad investment. They just go up in value. I hate when owner complain they are losing money, They always make it up and then some when they sell. I bet drayton is kicking himself. If the freaking kings go for 625mil he could have got a billion for the astros.
Is not right for the NBA to get involve and dictate who should keep the team. Money is money and if someone is willing to buy the team the NBA should leave them alone and let them deal with it. David Stern is a complete ass hole and he should retire now. 2014 can't come soon enough.
Let's say you and agree for me to buy your car for $20,000 subject to the approval of your lender. If your lender then asks you to accept the fallback offer of $15,000, they have arguably interfered with our contract. I don't know Washington law, but some states have contract law that says a third party cannot act in an arbitrary and capricious manner in their dealings surrounding a contract. Has the league acted in such a manner? I don't know. That is why they build courthouses and empanel civil juries.
I like how people consider pro sports franchises a part of regular business. If that were the case the Astros wouldn't have been forced into the American league. Give it up. These leagues can do what they want with whomever they want. Its not free enterprise.
Baseball gets a lot more leeway because Congress gave them an antitrust exemption. Basketball does not have that. Also, the Astros agreed to move to the AL as part of Crane buying the team. If Crane had not agreed to the move and he otherwise fit the financial parameters for team ownership, he could have gotten legal advice about whether he had a cause of action. The last time I checked, there has not been any exception to contract laws for sports enterprises.
Not so fast... From ESPN's Brian Windhorst... "Over the last three months, the NBA has negotiated its own backup plan for the Kings with a group led by Silicon Valley billionaire Vivek Ranadive." http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/9265605/sources-maloof-family-cuts-new-deal-sacramento-kings So, it seems that ESPN's reporter believes that the NBA has brokered the Sacramento deal and did so after Hansen had a binding agreement. Now the league is pressuring the Maloofs to take the backup offer and breach the sale agreement with Hansen. That is tortious interference with contract. BTW...the rest of the article is damned interesting. The Maloofs are playing hardball.
Seattle is getting the Kings......the league now has to choose between two options. Option A) Kings get relocated to Seattle Option B) Hansen buys the Kings, relocation is denied, Hansen purposely forces the Kings to be the worse team while team bleeds money and is an eyesore on the league until relocation is approved. Option C) Relocation & Sale are denied, Maloofs keep team, sell 20% to Hansen. Same situation as option B. NBA has to weigh how much they want to fight this vs. just getting the Maloofs out of the league and awarding expansion to Sacramento group at a fairer market value. Sucks for them, but I love how Hansen & Ballmer are screwing over Stern. He has totally lost control. If he tries to heavy hand this situation (not sure what he could do short of stealing the team out of the Maloofs hands, which sets him 10000% up for litigation) and do something to force the Maloofs out, he risks major, major major anti-trust from Maloofs & Ballmer/Hansen. Wow, Stern's last battle and he's going to lose, absolutely love it.
Stern and the NBA need to do the right thing and let the Maloofs sell to the Hansen/Ballmer group so the team can move to Seattle. It's a stronger market, has a stronger ownership group and there is much better chance of the team being viable in the long term.
What I love about this situation is that Stern set the precedent here, allowing owners to move whoever the hell they want (Hornets & Sonics for starters). Yet now because his agenda is being compromised, ie, wanting to get full public funding from Sacramento, but now because he's allowed owners to run rampant in the past (including supporting Bennett in his efforts to steal the Sonics) its allowed Seattle to play the same game. Hansen is only playing by the same rules set forth by Bennett. League will do right to Sacramento like they did for Charlotte I bet.
