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An agreement has been reached between the City of Seattle and private investors to build a new sports arena, and the deal no longer requires an NHL team. Just the NBA.
The NHL has denied a report that the Phoenix Coyotes are ready to be sold to a group led by Greg Jamison, the former CEO of the San Jose Sharks who's been rumored to be in the ownership mix for the team since August.
Dave Zorn, a reporter for Metro Networks Arizona who's covered the Coyotes for years, shared the initial report Friday evening on Twitter.
Just to clarify..Jamison has been approved to by the NHL as an owner, and his money..still a little work to finish on it. #Coyotes
— Dave Zorn (@dave_zorn) February 18, 2012
Via KING5 in Seattle, where fans are suddenly watching the Coyotes' ownership saga with an interested eye following a new arena proposal there that's contingent on relocation of an NHL and NBA teams, the NHL says that report is false. Zorn expected as much, however, and you'll recall that the league also denied first reports that True North Sports had purchased the Atlanta Thrashers. It's safe to say they shouldn't necessarily be trusted when it comes to this stuff.
A sale of the Coyotes to Jamison would be fantastic news for Coyotes fans, who could realistically lose their team at the end of this NHL season if a new ownership situation isn't figured out. The NHL still operates the club, and that's a situation that's expected to come to a head before next season.
Jamison's group reportedly includes former Coyotes star Jeremy Roenick, who said in his Coyotes' Ring of Honor induction speech last weekend that he'd do his part to keep the hockey team in Arizona.
For Seattle fans, it's not the best news. The new arena proposal requires both an NHL team and an NBA team to be on board -- whether through relocation or expansion -- and the Coyotes certainly seem like the most likely option. If they're sold, Seattle fans will have to look elsewhere, or hope Gary Bettman's interest in the city is real and that expansion is a possibility.
For more on the potential return of hockey to Seattle, check in with SB Nation Seattle. For more on hockey that's currently being played in Phoenix, check in with Coyotes blog Five For Howling.
On Thursday, the City of Seattle officially introduced the proposal it received for a new arena that would house both an NBA and NHL franchise. Here are the highlights:
We'll have more on this story as it develops. For all your Seattle sports news, visit SB Nation Seattle.
Various people involved with the City of Seattle and the proposed new NBA and NHL arena in the city spoke at a press conference today to announce officially that the proposal has been received by the city.
Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn spoke first, kicking things off with the all-important Sonics reference:
Nice to see some Sonics green in the room.
McGinn then confirmed what everyone in the room and in the city of Seattle wanted to hear:
We are pleased today to announce that was have announced a proposal ... that could result in the creation of an NBA and NHL facility in our existing stadium district.
The arena will designed to incorporate the needs of the NHL ... It could mean that the Seattle Supersonics will play in our city once again.
McGinn spoke of hedge fund investor Chris Hansen, who is behind the proposal:
Today we have received a proposal that reflects the work set forward by the city, the county and Chris Hansen.
He has presented us a promising path to bring the NBA back to Seattle, as well as the NHL.
He can tell you the starting lineup of the 1979 championship team without any prompting.
McGinn confirmed the extremely important news about how the arena will be funded. The bulk of the money will come from a $800 million private investment from Hansen and his partners. Other costs up to $200 million will be paid by tax revenue and rent generated by the arena. It does not include any other tax funds from the city of Seattle.
He also noted that the city and county will own the land and the facility. The new teams would play temporarily at KeyArena. A rough timetable for construction of the new building is two years.
It was noted that the proposal requires the securing of both an NBA and NHL team before anything can happen, meaning that all eyes turn back to the Sacramento Kings to see what happens next there.
We'll have more on this story as it develops. For all your Seattle sports news, visit SB Nation Seattle.
Plans are quickly falling into place for the city of Seattle as hedge fund investor Chris Hansen works to secure financing for a new arena. The accelerated talks between Hansen and high-ranking city officials are part of a renewed effort to lure the NBA and NHL to Seattle by building a privately invested arena just south of Safeco Field. According to a report on Wednesday evening, Hansen and the city have finalized the arena plans and will announce them on Thursday.
Chris Egan and Chris Daniels of King 5 TV in Seattle fill in the details.
From @ChrisDaniels5 A Source tells me press conference scheduled at #Seattle City Hall to announce deal on new sports arena complex.
— Chris Egan King-5 TV (@ChrisEgan5) February 16, 2012
Arena News Conference scheduled for tomorrow. I'm told Hedge Fund/Land Owner Chris Hansen is in town. He met with council members. #NBA #NHL
— Chris Daniels (@ChrisDaniels5) February 16, 2012
An arena does not guarantee the NBA's quick return to Seattle, however. For the rest of the pieces to fall into place, Hansen and his investment group would need to purchase an existing team, then get the ball rolling on relocation. Seattle is reportedly eyeing the Sacramento Kings, though the team is in the home stretch of a plan to secure financing and build a new arena of its own.
We'll have more on this story as it develops. For all your Seattle sports news, visit SB Nation Seattle.
The pain of losing the Sonics may not last too much longer for Seattle fans. In an investigative report, The Seattle Times revealed that officials in the Seattle mayor's office and a San Francisco hedge fund manager are engaged in a focused effort to try to lure an NBA or NHL franchise to the city and build a new arena, possibly as early as next fall.
The city released an agenda for a mid-December meeting that listed "Review of Basic Deal Structure," "Financing Issues," including "City Debt Capacity," and "Security for Public Financing," as discussion items. In e-mails to city officials, Christopher Hansen, 44, a Seattle native who made his fortune in finance, Hansen discussed how he was involved in plans to broker deals for an arena that didn't involve tax increases or "direct public funding."
The real news nugget came farther down the page, which you should really consider reading all the way through, when reporters revealed the NBA team Seattle may have its eye on:
Although the documents don't mention how Seattle would obtain a team, they show the city has been following developments in Sacramento, which is under a March 1 deadline to come up with a viable proposal to build an arena for the Sacramento Kings. In September, Carl Hirsh, a New Jersey arena consultant hired by the city in July, emailed a copy of an Associated Press story to Ethan Raup, the mayor's director of policy and operations, that outlined the Sacramento situation.
If Sacramento fails, the Kings could be playing in Seattle next fall if the city and Hansen reach an agreement, according to a Seattle City Hall source who has been briefed on the matter.
What's more, the Phoenix Coyotes may be the target to be the hockey neighbor in the new arena.
In addition, National Hockey League Commissioner Gary Bettman has expressed a strong interest in placing a team in Seattle, leading to widespread speculation that the financially struggling Phoenix Coyotes could be moved here.
We'll have more on this story as it develops. For all your Seattle sports news, visit SB Nation Seattle.
Christopher Hansen, a former Seattle resident and head of San Francisco-based Valiant Capital Management LLC, is said to be the leader in a push to build a sports arena just south of Safeco Field that would be the home to a possible NHL and NBA team.
Via the Seattle Times, WSA LLC, an entity affiliated with Hansen and Valiant, paid $21.6 million for a warehouse on the proposed spot of the new arena. The sale occurred in early December.
The Times notes that, for an arena to be built there, Seattle would have to vacate a sizable stretch of land that bisects the needed land.
Among those reportedly involved in the Sodo plan is Wally Walker, a former Seattle Sonics player and executive.
While Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn is said to be mostly interested in bringing the NBA back to Seattle, this new arena would also include the opportunity for the city's first NHL team. Seattle last had a professional hockey team in 1924, when the Metropolitans of the Pacific Coast Hockey Association folded.
Seattle has been rumored as a potential candidate city for an NHL team for quite some time, but we've never really had much evidence that the league would be interested or that there'd be an ownership group interested in bringing a team there.
That is, until now. Via KING5 in Seattle, NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly says that discussions have taken place with a Seattle group interested in bringing a team there.
We've had discussions with a group in Seattle," said Daly, "Certainly people who are interested in having NHL hockey in Seattle. I would rather not get into specifics to be fair to that group, or the process."
These sorts of discussions seem to happen all the time -- groups in Quebec, Winnipeg, Kansas City and a million other places all want a team too and have talked to the NHL about it, and only one of them could be called successful after decades of trying -- so we don't know how seriously to take this whole thing.
We simply don't know how far along those discussions are. To say a team could play in Seattle this coming season or even in two seasons would be premature, however. For such a thing to come fully to fruition, a new arena would almost certainly have to be built -- and that could take years. And that's before a team could even be purchased.
Key Arena seats only 11,000 for hockey thanks to a horrible configuration in which the center-hung scoreboard dangles over the blueline. The ice sits drastically off-center in the building, renovated with basketball, not hockey, in mind back in 1996 and thousands of seats have poor sightlines.
The situation in Key Arena is so bad that the Western Hockey League's Thunderbirds moved out of the building and into their own gorgeous, 6,500-seat arena 30 minutes south of Seattle proper. The building was home to the Seattle Sonics of the NBA before they moved to Oklahoma City in 2008.
Part of the reason the Sonics left town had to do with the taxpayers lack of desire to build a new arena, among a whole bunch of other sleazy things. The takeaway, though, is that any new owner wishing to move an NHL franchise to Seattle would have to shell out the money for a new building on their own, and considering that private financing for sports arenas isn't exactly how things are done these days, it seems like a long shot.
Daly does indicate that the NHL has interest in the city, though, so there could definitely be some will to get something done here if a group has the necessary money.
All in all, Seattle would likely be a fantastic market for NHL hockey if they can get their ducks in a row, and when Daly says things like "all leagues want stability in ownership and location, and we're no different," it seems like the interest is definitely there. Especially over places like Phoenix, perhaps.
Seattle does have a history of major league hockey. The Metropolitans of the Pacific Coast Hockey Association won the Stanley Cup, defeating the Montreal Canadiens, in 1917. They folded in 1924, and Seattle hasn't seen major pro hockey since.
Seattle Arena: Agreement Reached Between City, Private Investors
The city of Seattle reached an agreement Wednesday with King County and investor Chris Hansen on a new arena that could bring an NBA team back to the city. The latest agreement does away with the provision that an NHL franchise is needed before construction can begin on the proposed 18,500-seat facility.
Fans in Seattle had been keeping a watchful eye on the NHL-owned Phoenix Coyotes. The team is considered a primed candidate for relocation, perhaps to Seattle, if new owners can't be found by the end of the season. Those hoping solely for a SuperSonics revival will breathe a sigh of relief at the new agreement, which takes down a significant barrier standing in the way of construction.
City Council and King County Council still have to approve the new agreement. Seattle would save up to $80 million in investment if allowed to break ground with just an NBA franchise in tow.
For more on the potential return of hockey to Seattle, check in with SB Nation Seattle. For more on hockey that's currently being played in Phoenix, check in with Coyotes blog Five For Howling.
May 16 4:53p by Louis Bien - 2 comments