The quest to build a new sports and entertainment arena in Sacramento will become much more real in a matter of weeks.

There is no choice, given the March 1 deadline imposed by the NBA on Sacramento to put a financing plan in place or risk losing the Kings. Let's not forget that the Kings owners, the Maloof family, would have moved the franchise to Anaheim had the NBA not stopped them.

In order to relocate to Southern California, the Maloofs seemed ready to accept substantial financial concessions.

Chief among them, the Anaheim deal would have required the Maloofs to make lease payments equal to 7.5 percent of all season tickets and single-game tickets sold to their games.

Premium seats, such as luxury suites, would not have been included in this equation. But 7.5 percent of "non-premium" seats would have resulted in the Maloofs paying anywhere between $5 million and $10 million in annual lease payments to their Anaheim landlord, billionaire Henry Samueli.

That's a significant commitment. The onus remains on Sacramento to figure out how to marshal a variety of revenue streams to pay for a $387 million arena in the downtown railyard.

A big piece of the financing puzzle will be getting the Maloofs and the NBA to make an Anaheim-type deal in Sacramento.

The Anaheim venue contract needs to be a template. Along with the sizable lease payment, the Maloofs would have become Samueli's tenants.

The importance of the Maloofs accepting such a role in Sacramento cannot be underestimated. It would allow Sacramento to secure a private operator to run and help finance an arena here. The city is currently in talks with AEG, the company that runs the Staples Center in Los Angeles and other notable facilities.

Frankly, finding a private operator is the whole ballgame in Sacramento.

It's hard to imagine how the necessary funds – the upfront money, debt service money, cost overrun money – could be secured without one.

Presumably, a private operator would make the investment to cover these costs. It also would need to control the Sacramento arena to recoup its investment. This is essentially the arrangement the Maloofs would have accepted in Anaheim.

According to the Anaheim venue contract, the Maloofs would have ceded the terms of any potentially lucrative naming rights deals to Samueli. And if Samueli renegotiated a naming rights deal, the Maloofs' cut would have been roughly 33 percent.

Samueli would have controlled 100 percent of operating income at the Honda Center, and the Maloofs would have received their cut of revenue from him.

Among many deal points, the Anaheim agreement would have called for them to get 33 percent of luxury suite and advertising and sponsorship revenues.

And Samueli would have controlled the calendar of events at the Honda Center, including NBA games.

Could these types of issues make for extremely interesting conversations between the Maloofs and Sacramento?

Uh, is the pope Catholic?

For now, all the parties are making nice, though some members of the Maloof family continue to cozy up to Anaheim while the NBA is preoccupied with its labor stoppage.

Sacramento still must make the massive lift of proving that an arena complex can be financed here.

With so many moving pieces, we'll see if that's possible. But it won't happen unless Sacramento's major tenant plays along.

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Call The Bee's Marcos Breton, (916) 321-1096.

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