Small Market, Big Heart (Sacramento Documentary)

If you're looking to hear about Sacramento and their struggle to keep the team, I highly suggest you check this out. It's called Small Market, Big Heart

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7n5rk...ature=youtu.be

I watched it last night.

Very enlightening for a NBA fan in New Orleans.

What I'm starting to learn about these sad stories (Seattle as well) is that ultimately, the fate of the team's staying or leaving isn't left in the hands of some evil owner or the wily Stern, but the voters; Sacramento voted down the measure to rebuild their downtown area (which would have featured the new arena) by 80%. A similar measure for a new arena (or new funding perhaps) was voted down in Seattle as well.

I understand both of those teams had passionate fan-bases, but they don't seem to have very passionate cities.

It's not passion, I think, as much as a political will to subsidize some business and making a reduced profit than they can otherwise imagine from investing in sports and related assets. They do not or can not make the case that these ventures are proditavle, and profitable (for the government) to an acceptable degree.

Being such a tourist town, we are taking advantage of interactions between our franchises and various cultural assets. This is possible because we have a government assets to act as middlemen between the big money people, as you note. That we have a sensible system is quite fortunate, and I'm not sure why that is, other than we know we have to put on a killer 'show' to be considered 'equal' to others giveb the size of the economy here.

Arenas are very important, but do not discount the role of the owners here. Shinn was and the Maloofs are in over their heads financially. Schultz was not, but he couldn't stand to break even or lose money, forcing him to sell, perhaps ill-advisedly. Arenas are important, but this Arena focus is also a distraction from a deeper problem that would exist regardless of the Arena situation: many owners are just bad at this or ill-suited for it.

Thank God that there is still some residue of the carnival spirit in the political realm.