if the city owns the franchise, and the city owns the arena, then "profit sharing" is pretty straightforward at that point. Currently team owners (not just the maloofs) want municipalies to pony up for arenas, but want to retain damn fat portions of any revenue jointly generated by their team and the arenas. the maloofs aren't asking for more than other teams have already gotten./.. but still, its a nice gig if you can get it.
Owners of NBA basketball teams make their main money when they sell. The Kings have had red ink for any nuimber of years, including last year (borrowed from the league). The prior owners had to borrow from the city and still had to sell, because the team was bleeding red ink right and left.
I'll guarantee you the citizen's won't want to cover operating losses. And it won't produce much cash flow if you are slowly losing other events due to the inadequacies of the arena.
Not to mention, the city would have to buy the team, they'd have to negotiate a sales price for the land and improvements (all structures, parking landscaping, signs, etc.) with the owners of the team and arena and they would have to inverst millions into deferred maintenance, which would be a waste of money, when you can't actually fix the economic obsolescence issues.
Honestly, just build a damn new arena. Its the cheapest way to go, unless the city doesn't want any arena or the all the other events that couldn't come here anymore. Think there might be something like 5 other events for every Kings game.
The head of the Sacramento Tourist and Convention Bureau (Convention Center operators) said, at the City Council meeting, he gets calls all the time from big convention planners who pass up Sacramento, but have said they'd come if an arena was downtown and could accomodate their space needs. They don't want to go to Arco. So we are losing all that business right now.