Interior: Very nice.
Exterior: Irish Crystal Cereal Bowl. Quick, someone photoshop a giant spoon onto the thing!
My thinking is that KC doesn't have an NHL or an NBA team not because of the venue, but more because of some demographic problem with KC. I have zero idea what that issue could be (median age? median income? number of 18-34 year olds within 40 miles of the arena? I have no idea).
Of all the potential destinations, I still think Anaheim makes most sense, but San Diego is catching up with a vengeance. And Las Vegas will get a team.
How quickly we forget that the first team to move to Vegas will probably get the first 5 years rent-free, and that AEG (which will be ready in 2010, not 2011 as I previously said; in 2010, I figure we'll still be arguing about where to build Sacramento's NBA arena, and at some point, the Maloofs will run out of patience) is about 3 miles from what is a much, much larger business for the Maloofs -- the Palms.
I forgot exactly what the numbers are, but that new development they're talking about in Vegas is worth a total of something like $45 billion. With a B. They were talking about that after the Kings-Lakers debacle. An extremely nice $600 million arena sort of gets lost in a $45 billion development, and an NBA franchise gets even more so. Hard to accept, but $200 million to buy a franchise and let them play in Vegas for 5 years, for free, actually amounts to chump change in this context.
I'm telling you, it's far closer than you all seem to be guessing so far.