How important are the Kings or an NBA team to Sacramento as a city? To comment on this issue, please use our forum.
The cowbells were back, and Arco was rocking again with chants of "Beat L.A."
OK, the Kings were playing the Clippers, not the Lakers. But for a while during the stirring fourth-quarter comeback win, there were echoes of the glory days.
It was the first home game since the NBA confirmed that the Kings were mulling a move to Anaheim. "It was great to feel the original Arco thunder," said Brion Maciel, 37, a Kings fan ever since they came to town in 1985.
In the post-game buzz, Maciel proudly paraded through the stands with a sign declaring "Our Town, Our Team." He didn't want to contemplate that the Kings' run in Sacramento could end next month: "It's too sad to talk about."
If Sacramento does lose the Kings – as looks increasingly likely – it would join a very sad club and a very select one. In the past 50 years, only one other U.S. city has been jilted by its only major pro sports team: Hartford, Conn.
And I don't want my new hometown to have to go through what Hartford has endured.
Connecticut's capital is an aging Northeast industrial city that has lost thousands of manufacturing jobs and people – down to 125,000 – and is trying to retool itself beyond its roots as the nation's insurance capital. Its crime rate ranks it among America's most dangerous cities, and its poverty rate is a scary 30 percent – both rates are significantly higher than Sacramento's.
When one of the popular new blogs about your city is called Sad City Hartford, it's not a good thing.
When the Whalers of the National Hockey League left for North Carolina in 1997, it symbolically capped Hartford's decline.
Fourteen years later, the effects linger. There's still a void downtown, despite tens of millions of dollars in public and private investment. The city is still making do with an arena that is now 36 years old. And a rabid fan club and some city leaders are still dreaming of landing another NHL team.
Marty Evtushek, president of the Whalers booster club now and when the team left, would have jumped from the rafters onto center ice if they had let him. "That's how devastated I was," he told me by phone. "I'm still devastated."
Hartford, at No. 30, is the largest media market in the country without a team in any of the four major professional sports (NBA, NHL, NFL and major league baseball). Without the Kings, Sacramento, at No. 20, would inherit that dubious distinction.
There's a lesson to be learned from Hartford as well: You have to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and get moving.
Oz Griebel, CEO of the MetroHartford Alliance (its chamber of commerce), says the Whalers' departure "turned out to be a catalyst." A year later, Connecticut's governor and Legislature responded with a redevelopment plan for downtown Hartford. While it didn't bring salvation, the plan eventually totaled $700 million in public money and $275 million in private funding, and led to a new convention center, a science center, a community college, riverfront improvements and more.
The chances of a similar investment in Sacramento by a cash-strapped state government? Slim to none.
So the city's business and political leaders will have to make do on their own. They can't get started soon enough.
Sacramento Metro Chamber leaders point out that a Kings move would be worse than the last NBA relocation. When the Sonics left Seattle for Oklahoma City in 2008, Seattle still had the NFL Seahawks and baseball Mariners to fall back on, and in 2009 added a highly successful Major League Soccer franchise.
Plus, the timing is more challenging now. Sacramento is still clawing its way out of the worst recession in decades. Unemployment is still above 12 percent, the housing market is still depressed, and the city is among Forbes magazine's most "miserable" cities.
Losing the Kings would be another "black eye" for the region's identity and national image – "not to say we would not recover," says Michael Ault, executive director of the Downtown Sacramento Partnership.
The partnership, the Metro Chamber and the Convention and Visitors Bureau came out last week with a united message that their priority is a regional effort to build a new downtown sports and entertainment arena, whatever happens with the Kings. Mayor Kevin Johnson backs that effort, as well.
Smart people disagree how big a blow it would be for California's capital city if the Kings do leave.
The economic impact will be strictly limited, says Roger Noll, a sports economist at Stanford University and author of several studies questioning public subsidies for arenas and stadiums. The Kings don't employ that many people, and most fans will spend their entertainment dollars elsewhere, he says. There's also no quantifiable proof that any damage to Sacramento's image would mean fewer visitors or a tougher time recruiting new business.
"The loss is purely psychological," Noll says.
But that impact shouldn't be discounted, particularly during an economic downturn, says Daniel Rascher, academic director of the sports management program at the University of San Francisco.
"It's a big deal if it's only one (major league) team in a city and it leaves," says Rascher, a consultant on Sacramento's arena efforts in 2001.
I'm in the camp that believes while the wound would be mostly intangible, it would be painful, nonetheless. It would pull away one more thread that helps knit together a diverse region.
There are few experiences that make you feel part of a vibrant city than a winning team. I saw that in 2004 when I arrived in Boston just in time to see the Red Sox win the World Series for the first time in 86 years.
Attending the Clippers game the other night reminded me of how much the Kings mean to this community.
I saw families who depend on the team for their livelihoods working at the concession and souvenir stands and hawking cotton candy and pizza in the seats. You could see the glow on the faces of the high school cheerleaders who took to the court before the game, the glee club that sang the national anthem and the Grant High School drum line who performed at halftime.
The Kings presented an oversized $10,000 check to UC Davis Children's Hospital. Kids attended the game as guests of a police charity. Couples posed for photos on the court before the game, birthday wishes appeared on the big scoreboard, and fathers patiently explained to sons who the players were.
All that is not to be given up lightly.
Tim Hill, 36, of Roseville plans to go to as many of the remaining home games as he can to show his support. But he's not optimistic.
"They're going to move," said Hill, who wore a Tyreke Evans jersey.
For most of Monday night's game, the crowd seemed almost as resigned. Though officially a sellout – only the second this season – empty seats were sprinkled throughout the arena. Only small pockets of fans closely followed the "cheer sheet" sent out on Facebook and Twitter, and handed out by a fans group. Most didn't seem to have their heart in it.
It was only when the game, itself, became exciting that the crowd came to life. The chants of "Beat L.A." were louder than those of "Here We Stay."
In Section 113, Curtis Corona held up a sign depicting Kings legend Chris Webber decking Mickey Mouse and declaring, "We'll Fight For Our Team."
If the Kings leave, Corona, a 28-year-old student and bartender, fears Sacramento would descend from a big-league city to "Stockton."
"I don't think people realize what it would be like without a pro franchise," he said. "They're going to find out when it's gone."
