Bee: Invisible ... and indispensable (Mark Kreidler)

[Warhawk]

http://www.sacbee.com/content/sports/story/13723769p-14566618c.html


Invisible ... and indispensable

The man is Bob Hernreich. * You might not know it, but he is a co-owner of the Kings. * He also might be the man who finally makes an arena deal happen


You'll never see him. That's the first thing. He'll be the fellow over in the corner of the photograph, at the far end of the dais. When they talk about the new arena that gets built in Sacramento, if one ever gets built, that'll be Joe and Gavin Maloof out in front, doing what they're supposed to do, continuing to brand the Kings franchise as part of their empire.

But if that happens - if, if, if - it will have had just about everything to do with the man you'll never see. When they call out Bob Hernreich's name in the list of thank yous, that is, it'll barely elicit a ripple of applause - and that's the inside joke.

Because most people will never know that Hernreich is a modern version of Woody Allen's fictional Zelig, the character who seemingly appears at key moment after key moment, standing alongside the greats and yet just off to one side, almost as if by hologram.


Hernreich is the man who knows a former U.S. president. He's the man who once owned TV stations, then Winchester rifles, then houses in Vail. He made a fortune in the stock market, and no one ever knew it. He nearly bought the Houston Rockets 15 years ago, at the same time as a family that had once owned that NBA franchise - name of Maloof - was trying to get it back.

Now Hernreich stands not merely as the only non-Maloof family member to be included in their general-partnership control of the Kings but as the man handpicked by league Commissioner David Stern to represent the franchise in its attempts to get a new arena built in Sacramento, or at least near it.

"He's killing himself trying to get a deal made," Joe Maloof said last week.

This just in: Hernreich will survive it. One way or another.

He is 60 years old, twice divorced and rich enough to have paid cash for his share of the Kings in 2000, and if you want to irritate the man - virtually impossible to do, by the way - try to identify him as the go-to person on this deal. "There are so many people who've been working on this thing. I'm just a part of that," said Hernreich, who was reluctant to be interviewed and then fretted for days afterward about the effect on negotiations that an article about him, specifically, might have.

 

[Warhawk]

(continued)

"Let's not make any mistake: Joe and Gavin run the team," Hernreich said. "We have an incredible manager in John Thomas. Between him and (basketball operations guru) Geoff Petrie, they've done a wonderful job of managing the entire investment. John Thomas is a brilliant, brilliant man."

And yet, with the whole arena discussion toxic to the point of choking just about everything it touches, it is to Hernreich that the Maloofs and Stern have turned. The steaming - and perhaps eerily glowing - pile now belongs to him.

Hernreich's gift is getting into a room and being able to stay there, and it is a gift honed by years of experience. With his honey-dipped voice, vaguely athletic appearance and boyish features, the Arkansas native represents the Maloofs' last best chance to strike some sort of partnership - public-private, Hernreich says, "with the heavy emphasis on 'private' " - that would result in a facility that could house the Kings and Monarchs and host a multitude of other events.

It is a challenge beyond just about anything Hernreich has attempted, for the simple reason that it is unlike anything most business people ever do. This isn't like other deals, except in the sense that it falls apart 10 times for every one time it appears to be falling together.

A downtown site? Dead on arrival. Taxpayer money? Not unless at gunpoint, and most likely not even then. A plan to use developer money out of rezoned North Natomas land blew up when some of the principal landowners decided against joining forces.

The latest effort, in which Hernreich has been intimately involved but about which he'll not speak, involves multimillionaire Angelo Tsakopoulos again trying to gain approval to develop land on an accelerated schedule, then skim some of the profits to fund the arena and other artistic and charitable endeavors.

It is a given within the Sacramento business community that Tsakopoulos has the wherewithal to make a new arena happen, but this is a multi-party negotiation often involving city and county officials, other developers and the like. From the Kings' perspective, it falls to Bob Hernreich to pull those parties together and see if something good comes of the result.

"No. 1, he's about the most likable guy in the world," Joe Maloof said. "He's honest - very high integrity. He has a great reputation. I mean, he has always helped us with major decisions."

And, of course, no one really ever knew that, mostly because no one asked, and Hernreich never offered. His approach to the Kings is straightforward: It's the Maloofs' venture, of which he has a percentage. If they want his opinion or consultation, he's there.

Increasingly, they go to him. And whether or not Hernreich wants to acknowledge it, any progress on a new arena in the Sacramento area will be made in significant measure because he is on board.

Hernreich likes to joke about his penchant for mistiming his business decisions. He was in cable television in its infancy, then got out of the business before it really took off. He was in the cellular business for a while, partnering with Craig McCaw, who went on to become one of America's richest individuals by building a cell empire - and got out of that too soon, too.

"I've had experience beat into me," he says with a laugh.

But, of course, the joke's not on him. In truth, Hernreich is the man who bought TV and radio stations in Arkansas towns while in his early 20s (his father had owned a radio station), grabbing channel frequencies that weren't being used. When the Fort Smith native sold off a few years later, he became an instant multimillionaire.

Hernreich is the man who bought the Winchester rifle company, owned it for a while and sold it for another big profit. He's the man who got into real estate in Vail, Colo., in the early 1990s, just in time to make another fortune. He's the man who enjoyed a stupendous runup in his stock holdings in the late '90s, then sold virtually everything he owned in January 2000 so he could buy into the Kings with the Maloofs. (Hernreich won't say what percentage he holds, nor how many millions he paid.)

"Two months later, the stock market crashed. I would have lost 60 or 70 percent of my value," Hernreich said. "Some people believe in serendipity? I depend on it."

And along the way came the other stuff, the odd and the famous. Hernreich was at one of his TV stations one day when a young Arkansas political aspirant came in to discuss buying advertising time. Three decades later, Bill Clinton remains a close family friend.

How close? Check the register for the Lincoln Bedroom from the Clinton presidential years; you'll find Hernreich's name. But more to the point, it was Hernreich's first wife, Nancy, a longtime campaign volunteer who finally became Clinton's scheduler as Arkansas governor, who spent Clinton's two full terms in office as the director of Oval Office operations.

"Aside from Hillary, no one could go into the Oval Office without going through Nancy," said Hernreich, who has remained close with both of his former spouses. "She's the one who threw Monica Lewinsky out of the West Wing. She hired Betty Currie (Clinton's former secretary). She's loyal, intelligent, gracious - I can't say enough good things about her.

"That's why I divorced her. She was too good for me."

 

[Warhawk]

(continued)

Bob Hernreich moved in the other direction, heading West to Colorado, where he still spends his time when he is not traveling or at his midtown residence in Sacramento. Along the way, he morphed into dozens of different business personas - private investment, development, board member for public companies like K2 and private interests like Washington University in St. Louis, his alma mater - and used several variations of his given name. At times Hernreich is "Robin," at times Bob, at times Robert, and in casual conversation Bobby.

He met the Maloofs 15 years ago, introduced to them by his friend John Whisenant. At the time, Hernreich and the Maloofs wanted to buy the Houston Rockets, and Whisenant put them together. The deal failed; the friendship took root.

In the years since: lots of activity, most of it predictably under the radar. The Maloofs and Hernreich, joined by their business acumen and their shared love of sports, pursued various franchises. Several sources say Joe and Gavin were ready to buy the NHL's Tampa Bay Lightning until Hernreich expressed grave doubts about the deal.

Hernreich had a chance to buy the NBA's Denver Nuggets but didn't feel sure about it. At almost the same instant, he got a call from the Maloofs. The Kings were for sale by Jim Thomas. Did Hernreich want to throw in with them?

"It didn't take me but a second to say yes," Hernreich said. "These are good people. You know that if you deal with them, you will be treated fairly. And I said to myself, If I'm going to do this, I need to do it with people I love and trust."

A few years later, John Whisenant was introduced as the head coach of the WNBA's Monarchs. Coincidence? Not exactly, no.

Now Hernreich faces his greatest challenge since coming to Sacramento, trying to forge an arena deal where none exists and, in some quarters, may well be actively opposed. Joe and Gavin Maloof long ago concluded that their presence in the discussion can be deleterious: They're just a little too publicly rich, a little too famous. It's one too many shots of them stepping out of the Palms in Las Vegas with cameras and flashes going.

"It is not an easy market to convince the populace that an arena deal actually works, and to make sense out of what everybody's receiving in the thing," said Mark Bloom, a Nashville business magnate who helped get an arena built there for the NHL's Predators and the Arena Football League's Kats, of which he is part owner.

Why ask Mark Bloom about all this? Maybe only because Bob Hernreich recently turned up in Phoenix long enough to purchase the AFL team there, the Rattlers. That franchise has been losing money. You figure it would fit fairly nicely into a nice new place. Somewhere around Sacramento, say.

 

[loopymitch]

Interesting, I'd never heard of him before. I hope he can get the arena deal done.

 

[Warhawk]

I find it interesting the guy bought the Rattlers - possibly looking for another team to take up dates if a new arena does happen?

 

[6th]

I find it interesting the guy bought the Rattlers - possibly looking for another team to take up dates if a new arena does happen?

Or as a bargaining chip to get the deal done. As in, help me get an Arena for the Kings, and I'll move the Rattlers here to Sacramento. I like it and I like this man.

 

[VF21]

Once again, I think Kreidler has done a really good job of putting the facts out there for us to interpret whatever way we wish.

Sacramento Rattlers? Hmmmmmmmm...well, it's not like there aren't a lot of them around!

 

[Circa_1985_Fan]

We'll just have to see about anything dealing with an arena anywhere in the near/distant future. Been a while since we heard about anything that sounded like it might take off. I'd say that the odds of us actually getting an arena deal, the way it looks now anyways, is about 10-20 percent. Not too optimistic. But who knows what the future holds, right??

 

[VF21]

The latest effort, in which Hernreich has been intimately involved but about which he'll not speak, involves multimillionaire Angelo Tsakopoulos again trying to gain approval to develop land on an accelerated schedule, then skim some of the profits to fund the arena and other artistic and charitable endeavors.

It is a given within the Sacramento business community that Tsakopoulos has the wherewithal to make a new arena happen, but this is a multi-party negotiation often involving city and county officials, other developers and the like. From the Kings' perspective, it falls to Bob Hernreich to pull those parties together and see if something good comes of the result.

I'd say the odds of the Kings getting an arena deal may have just gotten a lot better. Tsakopoulos has the means and the interest. Hernreich just might be the final piece the picture needs to get things going in the right direction, and if it means bringing another professional team to the area, then it could mean more investors.

I'm going to follow this very closely. To me, it definitely looks promising.

 

[Circa_1985_Fan]

I dont know...I'm just not the optimist for this happening, as much as the Maloofs say they love this city, how much do they really? I love them just as much as the next Kings fan in this city for what they have brought, but this arena deal thing has just shown everyone how much of businessmen they truly are, and where ever the best deal lies for them, they will go, lest it be here in Sac, or KC, or somewhere else. Until the Maloofs come out and vocally support an initiative, which has yet to happen...I consider everything to be status quo for us ever getting anything done, and I do think that the sand is flowing through the hourglass quicker than we think. I think it has to be a joint effort and a smart effort by all three, Maloofs, the city and private. Thats the only way a safe and financially sound deal will ever get done, because any deal that is proposed that needs any sort of public money will ALWAYS get shot down in a bad way.

 

[VF21]

I am not going to continue to try and second guess the Maloofs. And I do not agree that this arena deal thing has shown anything other than the idiocy of the county board of supervisors. The Maloofs have said time after time after time that they do not want to move the team. They have put millions and millions of dollars into putting a GOOD product on the court for us. They have gone to public meetings and pretty much been sandbagged and/or ambushed. At this point, I don't expect to see them personally do much more. On the other hand, if they are making it public that their silent partner isn't going to be quite so silent any longer, especially in the area of arena negotiations, I think that's a pretty clear signal that they DO want to get something done.

The Kings organization doesn't want to leave. While their recent "gold standard" campaign might not have accomplished what they intended, I think they are trying to rekindle some of the fan fervor that waned the past couple of years.

Basically, if what I saw is any indication, this year's team has the potential to bring us excitement, electricity AND wins. If it does, you're going to see more people jumping back onto the bandwagon...

I'm going to at least give Hernreich the benefit of the doubt AND a chance before I give up hope.

 

[ovrush]

I dont know...I'm just not the optimist for this happening, as much as the Maloofs say they love this city, how much do they really? I love them just as much as the next Kings fan in this city for what they have brought, but this arena deal thing has just shown everyone how much of businessmen they truly are, and where ever the best deal lies for them, they will go, lest it be here in Sac, or KC, or somewhere else. Until the Maloofs come out and vocally support an initiative, which has yet to happen...I consider everything to be status quo for us ever getting anything done, and I do think that the sand is flowing through the hourglass quicker than we think. I think it has to be a joint effort and a smart effort by all three, Maloofs, the city and private. Thats the only way a safe and financially sound deal will ever get done, because any deal that is proposed that needs any sort of public money will ALWAYS get shot down in a bad way.

I don't know if I agree with that. The maloofs did come in and build a state of the art practice facility for the Kings out of their own pockets and have put the money in to make the Kings winners. The fact that they remain patient with a city that has shown little or no interest in helping to improve the worst arena in the NBA while other citys with bigger corperate sponsorship opportunities, are falling over themselves to get an NBA team at whatever the cost, shows me the guys are loyal to the city of Sacramento. If they were simply out to make a dollar they wouldn't stay in Sacramento all things being equal because the corperate money simply isn't here at the moment. Maybe I misread the situation completely, but to me Sacramento needs the Kings MUCH more than the Kings need Sacramento. Does this mean we pander to their every need? Not necessarily, but it's time to stop acting like we hold all the cards.