Bee: Riches turn area tribes into players (arena talk)

VF21

Super Moderator Emeritus
SME
#1
Excerpts from article that pertain to possible arena funding...

http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/story/13758089p-14600336c.html

Riches turn area tribes into players
By Mary Lynne Vellinga -- Bee Staff Writer

Paula Lorenzo considers herself a big-time Kings fan, and she has the picture to prove it.

During a Kings game three years ago, she seized Bobby Jackson's head and kissed it after he fell back into her second-row seat. A photographer captured the moment, and the Kings reprinted the picture on tickets for an entire season.

Like many sports enthusiasts, Lorenzo worries that the Kings will leave town if the team doesn't get a new arena. Unlike most fans, however, she is in a position to do something about it.

Lorenzo is chairwoman of the Rumsey Band of Wintun Indians in Yolo County, the tribe that runs the lucrative Cache Creek Casino Resort in the Capay Valley. With local arena efforts floundering, the Rumsey Band contacted the Maloof family, who own the Kings, and made it clear the tribe is willing to help.

"I think the whole Sacramento region, all the people who love the Kings, would be remiss if we let them go," Lorenzo said.

Negotiations are shrouded in secrecy, but the tribe is talking to the Maloofs and developer Angelo K. Tsakopoulos about the possibility of using casino profits to provide up-front financing for a new arena. The big sticking point: figuring out how the tribe would be paid back.

The Rumsey Band has been joined at the table by representatives for the United Auburn Indian Community, which in 2003 opened the wildly successful Thunder Valley Casino near Lincoln, said lawyer Howard Dickstein, who represents both tribes.

The tribes' involvement is a mark of how far they've come on their journey from aid recipients to major donors. In a region long short on corporate money to fund ambitious civic projects such as arenas and arts facilities, casino tribes have emerged as potentially powerful new players. The deep pockets the capital region has lacked now can be found in Indian country...

...Not only is the tribe talking about helping to build an arena, it also recently announced it would bankroll Yolo County's controversial purchase of the Conaway Ranch, a 17,300-acre swath of farmland near downtown Sacramento. The price tag could be well over $60 million...

...This ready cash makes the Rumsey Band a likely candidate to help with projects like the Conaway Ranch acquisition and the Kings arena. But the tribe has made clear it doesn't intend to donate money to Yolo County or the Maloofs, who own their own Las Vegas casino and are hardly a charitable enterprise.

"It has to be an investment for us," Lorenzo said. "We would not be good business people if we just gave it away. ... We don't want to get so caught up in the starlight that we forget what our purpose is. We've got a community to protect, our tribal people."

The business rationale for investing in an arena is obvious. Both the Rumsey and Auburn tribes advertise their casinos at Kings games and reward gamblers with tickets to the tribal luxury boxes.

The Kings "give the city a certain presence, and the image of the city is important for the casino," Dickstein said.

In addition, tribal adviser Opper is close to the Maloof family. He already brought the Rumsey tribe and the Maloofs together to help operate a casino in San Pablo for the Lytton Band of Pomo Indians...
 

VF21

Super Moderator Emeritus
SME
#2
Over a year ago, I jokingly commented that the Kings should definitely consider somehow becoming involved with the casinos in the area, going so far as to propose the name: Arco Thunder Valley Casino and Arena.

:D
 

VF21

Super Moderator Emeritus
SME
#4
What better way to break the "Arco curse" than to have the new arena funded by descendants of the tribe whose burial grounds are rumored to be under the current arena?
 
#5
Lol, very true VF.

I think it would be wonderful for something like this to take place. I can only hope it will work out, for the cities sake and the Kings sake.

If it works, we should all send a thank you card of some sort to this group. If it doesn't work, we can just hope they help sponsor us in the future.
 

VF21

Super Moderator Emeritus
SME
#6
Don't get me wrong, BobbyJ. If the tribes agree to do this, it will be because it is financially very attractive... we won't need to send them thank you cards. They're already pretty happy with us for just dropping all our money at their casinos.

;)
 
#8
VF21 said:
If the tribes agree to do this, it will be because it is financially very attractive...
Which is exactly why I just can't come to grips with Yolo County's story that the funds for Conaway Ranch are just a wonderful gift with no strings attached. But that's another story really.
 

VF21

Super Moderator Emeritus
SME
#9
^^There's a lot more to the article, rhuber. I only posted the parts about the arena. Basically, from what I understand and have heard, the whole Conaway Ranch deal is all about water...and who gets to keep it... and who might get to sell it.