SACRAMENTO–With new part owner Shaquille O’Neal sitting at the dais at the Sacramento Kings media day was the big hit on the stage after buying into the Kings partnership. Kings majority owner Vivek Ranadive withheld information about the new design on the Kings new downtown arena. Ranadive wouldn’t discuss certain details of the new arena design that will run in the neighborhood of $448 million.
Sources have said that fans not able to get into the arena will be able to see the game from the outside of the arena from a see through glass located even or above the floor level. Ranadive refused to release that information but it was learned that the Kings will be using public resources in the neighborhood of $62 million that was recently approved the Sacramento City Council for costs of the arena.
The funds from the city will be paid off by charging a five percent sales tax on each ticket sold at the Kings new arena which is expected to be open in 2016. O’Neal and Ranadive joked at the presser and O’Neal said that he intends to make the Kings a global brand name. The Kings recently were voted the worse sports organization overall in a poll that included Major League Baseball, the NFL, the NHL and the NBA which would account for former Kings owners the Maloof family who helped make that distinction.
Ranadive said that he wants to give the Kings a new make over and new brand name. In Ranadive’s native country India and throughout Asia where basketball is the number one sport in many Asian countries marketing there will be huge on the Kings part. O’Neal is very excited about marketing to these countries and part of the plan a source said was to televise live Kings games in different countries with coverage in different languages and promote the sales of jersey, caps, and other Kings souvenirs.
“There’s a billion people in India, there’s going to be a lot of people watching. We want it to be the biggest opening night in the history of the NBA.” O’Neal said that the Kings new arena would put the Kings on the map saying it would be a “first cash less arena where fans would be able to use I phones to buy their tickets, find the concession stands and even the bathrooms with the smallest lines, as long as you got a phone you can get in” said the former Lakers star.
Ranadive said that the arena would be the first outdoor and indoor facility but would not allude to the windows outside the building where fans can see the game in an new arena where every seat will be sold out for every game. Ranadive did mention that fans would be able to watch the game live on big screen TVs outside the arena just like watching a game in a drive in. The Kings are expected to provide cover for rainy nights for those events when screening a game outside for fans. NBA Commissioner David Stern said he was excited about the new ideas for the new arena.
In the meantime the group STOP Sacramento Taxpayers Opposed to Pork are now close to having 22,000 signatures for a ballot measure allowing the voters to tell Sacramento that they will need voter approval on any new sports facility being built in Sacramento. Seattle hedge fund manager Chris Hansen who wanted to buy and move the Kings to Seattle and was voted down by the NBA Board of Governors who voted in favor of Sacramento funded the ballot measure signature campaign in which he now denies he’s a part of although he recently paid a $50,000 fine for missing the voter registration deadline.
Hansen funded some $80,000 for the signature campaign and later apologized and said he had no part in the campaign drive. Hansen also demanded that STOP or the signature gatherers give him back the signatures but the groups have said that the signatures are legitimate and they will be submitted to the voters office in Sacramento for the June 2013 election once they receive the full 22,000 signatures plus.
Ken Gimblin covers Kings basketball for Sportstalk Radio
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