So, the Sacramento Kings are talking about a move to Virginia Beach

[maxrandb]

and the billionaire, in order to move the team, expect the city of Virginia Beach to increase the tax on hotels by $1 to pay for an 18,000 seat arena.

It's local politics, but just let me point out that Governor "Vaginal Probe" McDonald and his ass-hatted Repuke "lizard-lature" have passed massive cuts to public education. In addition, they didn't even discuss a small increase in the gasoline tax to pay for roads, so in order to pay for transportation, they are turning Interstate 95 into a more expensive version of the NJ Turnpike and every passage into and out of Norfolk will be via tolls.

Why, may you ask, doesn't the billionaire owner of an NBA franchise pay for his own "effing" arena if he wishes to move his team? If it's that's much of a great deal, why not finance it himself?

This is money that could be spent on improving our schools, our roads, our infrastructure (bury power lines...anyone...I mean, it's not like we lose power for multiple days everytime a good tropical storm hits or anything).

I'm sure that if this plan goes through, and the citizens of Virginia Beach finance the stadium, 10 years from now, the billionaire owner can attend a "We Did Build This" celebration with the GOP.

[TeamPooka]

1. buh-bye Kings enjoy VAgina

let VA give you tax breaks for your 200 beer vendor jobs.

[Curtland1015]

2. They should change their name to the Virginia Slims.

Has a nice ring to it.

[Panasonic]

3. What? Maloofs moving to Virginia?

I think NBA will not approve the move.

That area is represented by the Washington Bull...Wizards...

[Panasonic]

4. The interesting part are the Maloofs are, in fact, Democrats

I've also met Gavin Maloof in his hotel in Vegas, and he was very nice.

Political contributions here:

http://fundrace.huffingtonpost.com/neighbors.php?type=name&lname=Maloof

(I must ask - is my avatar showing up for you guys?)

[Angry Dragon]

6. yes

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. You just discovered the business model

It's been a long time since sports team owners actually built their own facilities, like generations.

If the team does well, they will drone over jobs and all that. If they do not, well all the costs will be on the rubes, err taxpayers.

[maxrandb]

9. Yep, and in 10-15 years

the "arena" won't be "modern" enough, or the billionaire will be losing money, and he'll come to the city, ask for more of the revenue and threaten to move the team unless he gets a "new" stadium.

Again, this is something that has the potential to make a lot of money for the Maloof's and COMCAST and Live Nation who have joined in to support the proposal.

The owners, and those corporations have more money than God. If it's such a "good deal" why don't they finance the arena?

It's just another example of privatizing profit and publicizing risk.

We'll build a "hundreds of millions of dollars" arena for billionaires, but if we give a homeless guy a bowl of soup...that's socialism!

[ProgressiveProfessor]

7. USA Today has a story saying the owners are denying it

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gameon/post/2012/08/report-sacramento-kings-owners-propose-move-virginia-beach-/1#.UDfdt6OQkis

[taterguy]

8. Fucking Robert Moses