Bigger than basketball: The Kings vs. Warriors means far more to Sacramento than hoops | Opinion
Not that long ago, the Kings were going to leave Sacramento. More than once, the city of Sacramento responded by investing in the team to avoid losing a valuable city asset. In 1997, the city loaned the Kings $74 million to help then-Kings owner Jim Thomas pay off high-interest loans he inherited when he bought the Kings in 1992.
In 2015, the city issued $273 million in bonds to keep the Kings in Sacramento. The amount was what the city agreed to contribute to the $558 million it cost to construct Golden 1 Center. As reported by The Bee many times, the principal and interest of the bond payments will pencil out to more than $600 million by the time the bonds are paid off in 2050. (The $74 million loan from 1997 has already been paid off by the current Kings owners.)
This condensed version of a 20-year saga of city financial investments to rescue a distressed city asset doesn’t even begin to capture the controversy, anger and emotion Sacramento residents have expended over the Kings, a perennial loser on the court for 17 years until now.
The Kings finally making the NBA playoffs helps demonstrate the wisdom of the investments to keep them here. Having the Kings’ basketball operation, though, finally, deliver a winner truly was needed by Sacramento.
The amount of money that locals and visitors will pay, beginning Saturday, to see the Kings play in the first round of the NBA playoffs against the Golden State Warriors, the defending NBA champions, will help battered downtown merchants who have taken a financial beating during the pandemic. The infusion of paying customers needing to park their cars in city lots to watch the Kings vs. Warriors will also help the city of Sacramento with the debt service of its bond payments.
Before the pandemic, paying the annual $18 million in bond payments wasn’t an issue for the city. Golden 1 Center opened in the fall of 2016 with Paul McCartney and between the Kings, concerts and other events, G1C was open 200 nights a year for the first several years. That meant city parking lots were full 200 nights a year and the revenue from all that action more than helped pay the city’s annual debt service.
The Kings’ fourth season at G1C ended prematurely in March 2020 because of COVID lockdowns and downtown-based state workers began doing their jobs remotely. So city parking lots were suddenly empty. All that lost revenue meant the city had to take steps it never envisioned. As reported by The Bee in July of 2021, the city had to pull $11.75 million from its general fund to make its G1C bond payment that year.
The city pulled $6 million from the general fund in 2022 and there could be the need for a smaller allocation in 2023 because not enough people are parking in city garages during the day, city officials confirmed.
When the city was first having to cover its Kings investment with general fund dollars, which was galling enough, the Kings were still losing because the basketball operations were dysfunctional under owner Vivek Ranadivé, which was also galling.
Kings GM Monte McNair, hired by Ranadivé in 2020, made the team a winner in this his third season. The emergence comes at the same time the Downtown Sacramento Partnership reported in March that 4.7 million people visited, worked or lived downtown in 2023, a 21% increase from the same time last year.
Even though office space and downtown parking lots are still underused, hotels are filling up again and nightlife has returned. Optimism for a revival in the downtown core has surged while the Kings bring excitement to the city that worked so hard and invested so much to keep them here.
The city of Sacramento has bond payments for another 27 years, but the Kings are covering 60% of the bond service with lease payments. The upkeep of the arena is covered by the Kings. The investments by the Kings lifted the downtown. By keeping the team, the city had a say in the hospital complex, homes and school that will be built at the site of the old Arco Arena, where the Kings used to play in Natomas. The Kings bought Sacramento’s minor league baseball team, the River Cats.
It’s a story of two sides investing in each other in a deal where everyone risked and benefited. The Kings playing the Warriors in the playoffs is the icing on the cake.
