Sacramento has a dearth of corporate sponsors, if that's what you are talking about. This is not only a smaller market city, but in California the Bay Area and LA/Orange County is where corporations locate headquarters, not Sacramento.
Sacramento is basically a government town. Its the biggest employer Believe it or not, Maloof Sports and Entertainment is one of the biggest employers in Sacramento.
Unfortunately, that's one of the reasons its been so hard to get financing. That and California's screwy budget laws, local and State, which make getting most things done here infinitely more difficult than in most other States.
However, Cal Expo was selected as a possibility bu the NBA, because they are 1) a State entity, and 2) have bonding authority to raise money and 3) they got that bonding authority from the State legislature so they could rebuild a new Cal Expo and actually a new arena would fit nicely into that rebuild. Also, it would not involve tax increases, nor do they have to get any approvals from the city or county.
They have concept drawings and a proposed financial plan. They solicited responses from several big developers nationwide as to whether they thought the plan was financially feasible. Basically, the response they received was positive. It is a financially feasible plan and financing, just not in the current economy. That's why I was glad to hear the Maloofs say they were committed to Sacramento had if that meant waiting for an economic turn-around, then they'd wait.
Did you hear Gary Gerould salivating over the Thunder's rehabbed arena during the game tonight? It was built in 2001, I think he said, and the voters approved a bond issue to make upgrades to the arena, which was done over the summer. The G Man just kept talking about what a beautiful job they did on the upgrades and what a marvelous facility it was. I wanted to cry. It's less than 10 years old, gets the voters to approve a bond in a snap and the work is done.
Now we know Arco can't be upgraded, because it was built with such a poor design and a foundation that won't support the kind of expansion needed. But, dang, OK had a relatively new arena that's been completely re-done and upgraded. Kansas City just built a brand spanking new arena and they don't have any team. The city built it, by themselves, because they wanted bigtime NCAA tournaments back. Sacto just sits and twiddles their thumbs and is ready to balme it all on the Maloofs, if the team leaves.
