But I think most people who voted for the tax increase, who voted for the Sprint Center, expect more. We were promised more. We were promised NBA basketball or NHL hockey or, heck, both. We continue to be promised more. Tim Leiweke, Anschutz Entertainment Group president, says it’s inevitable that a team will come to Kansas City and play in the Sprint Center. He has said that a lot. It’s only a matter of time. But that time, he admits, is not next year. And it’s probably not the following year either.
“I hoped things would move more quickly,” he says. “But no teams have moved since we started on the building. It’s very competitive out there. Municipalities don’t want to lose their teams, eh? They fight hard for their teams.”
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They do fight. And the truth is that if Kansas City is going to get one of these NBA or NHL teams, the city will have to fight, too. Kansas City has not shown the stomach for that sort of fight so far.
Oklahoma City outmaneuvered and outspent Kansas City, and it now looks more and more likely that the Seattle SuperSonics will move there, maybe as soon as next year.
I think that pretty much kills Kansas City’s NBA hopes — in part because Seattle will move to the front of the line, and in part because I don’t see how there will be two NBA teams in the Heartland drawing from the same general three- or four-state area. Leiweke disagrees, at least with the last part.
“That move doesn’t hurt Kansas City at all,” Leiweke says. “It is not lost on people in the NBA that, quite frankly, Kansas City is a much better market than Oklahoma City.”
Then there’s the NHL saga. First, there was that time when Kansas City willingly played the role of the fish that saved the Pittsburgh Penguins. The Penguins were in a lot of trouble — they had an ownership group that had lost all patience and the whole thing was a political mess — and Kansas City could have stomped a foot on Pittsburgh’s neck. Instead, we jumped in, played the patsy, offered a no-pressure deal that inspired Pittsburgh to finally get its act together and keep the Penguins.
Now, hey, I thought that was a classy move on the part of Kansas City and the right move — to me, the Penguins belong in Pittsburgh. But I’ll also admit that you don’t win a sports team by being sentimental. Baltimore officials may have felt queasy about taking the Cleveland Browns after the town had felt the sting of losing the Colts. But they did it, and the Super Bowl trophy might have coated that queasiness.
Anyway, it seemed like there would be numerous other chances. Remember when AEG trotted out Boots Del Biaggio, a venture capitalist from California, as the owner of a Kansas City hockey team? That was exciting. Boots was young and enthusiastic; he was going to bring hockey to Kansas City, no doubt about it. AEG even sent along Luc Robitaille, one of the greatest hockey scorers ever, to help build up an excitement level for hockey in Kansas City.
Then it looked like Kansas City would have a real shot at getting the Nashville Predators almost immediately. The Predators did not have anything close to the history of the Penguins, they had numerous problems, the business community there did not seem to care much about the Predators. Yes, it seemed like a good fit. Nashville was scrambling, trying desperately to keep the team in town, and you couldn’t blame them, but it looked to be in vain.
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