As the Sprint Center gradually loses its new arena smell, the odds of Kansas City landing an NHL or NBA team seem more remote. But one booster is making sure that KC at least looks poised to snatch up the next hockey team willing to relocate.
A weekly newspaper in Columbus, Ohio, The Other Paper, ran a story earlier this month suggesting that Kansas City was "the dame at the end of the bar ... making eyes at" the Columbus Blue Jackets of the NHL. Delighted with the metaphor, the writer of the story went on to compare the Sprint Center to womanly parts in need of satisfaction. Kansas City "hasn't had a man -- let's call him an anchor tenant -- in her Sprint Center since she built it. You don't think she's feeling desperate?"
And just where did The Other Paper get the idea that Kansas City was so horny? Paul McGannon, president of NHL 21, which aspires to make Kansas City a viable site for an NHL franchise.
To read The Other Paper article is to believe that McGannon keeps direct lines of communications with the city's wealthiest and most influential. And they want hockey. The Other Paper quoted McGannon as saying his group includes "100 civic leaders who, if asked, would participate if local ownership (of an NHL franchise) was requested." The Other Paper concluded that all Kansas City is missing is a team willing to move to middle America.
Kansas City's desire and ability to support a hockey team became noteworthy to the people of Columbus after the Blue Jackets announced $80 million in losses. An unfavorable lease with the privately owned Nationwide Arena is mostly to blame.
To be sure, the Sprint Center and its corporate master, AEG, might be able to offer the Blue Jackets a better deal.
But who the hell is McGannon talking about?
Voters approved the plan to build the Sprint Center in 2004. Since then, the city's elite has been conspicuously silent about its interest in securing a hockey or basketball team. In fact, AEG looked to Silicon Valley for a prospective owner. In 2006, AEG reached an agreement with venture capitalist William "Boots" Del Biaggio III, who pledged to own and operate an NHL team if one became available.
(Del Biaggio pleaded guilty to securities fraud in February.)
Reached by the The Pitch, McGannon could shed no light on his list of 100. Sounding less assured than the man with the golden Palm who talked to The Other Paper, McGannon prefers to talk about the Islanders-Kings exhibition game in September at the Sprint Center. "Our focus is to have a civic group who helps buy tickets to the games that we host here and that's about it," he says.
But what about the company founders and CEOs who seemed (in McGannon's telling to an out-of-town newspaper) to be chomping at the bit to capture an NHL franchise?
"I don't know if they're chomping at the bit," McGannon says. "They're waiting for further information on what opportunity would be available at the appropriate time, which we've been told is not now."
There a lot of passion for the NHL in the civic community, McGannon adds. "But they don't want to reveal themselves." It's a moot point anyway, according to McGannon, because "there is no market at the current time for a team to be purchased or relocated."
So for hot and eager Kansas City, the Jonas Brothers will have to do.
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"The Sprint saga is all...
">a conspiracy."
jjskck, you're a complete moron if you actually think that AEG doesn't want a tenant for the Sprint Center! Unlike Jim Basillie, McGannon and company are playing it smart about how to get a team into Kansas City by not going out there and shouting out who they want since that would cause a public backlash, they are playing the game smartly and waiting for the right opportunity to get a team into Kansas City. Look at Clay Bennett and Georgia Fontiere as perfect examples of how to move teams to places you want them in:
1. Don't make your intentions well known until later on.
2. Commit to the city you're team currently plays in for now until you're ready to make your move.
3. It also helps to move to a city that doesn't have a territorial rights clause attached to it.
Jim Basillie didn't do these things and that's why he probably won't get a hockey team for a long, long time.
Kansas City is just playing it cool and waiting patiently (key word) for the right time to go out there and get someone.
In all due time, Kansas City will have somebody playing in the Sprint Center. Until then you just have to be patient.
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