mesamonster
Registered User
No no no no no... this is totally different from "have an announcement in 2 weeks" or whatever about a new arena mega project. Anyone with half a brain knows those kinds of projects can take months, years. However if your hearing such from your hometown teams ownership, planning to move within the market, looking for a suitable site & partners, shoring up the financing youd also expect to hear "were very excited about this but meanwhile, signed an extension for another 3-4 seasons with AEG to play out of GRA while we finalize the details & get shovels in the ground".... These things dont get built overnight. All kinds of things to work through & people know that. Absolutely preposterous to assume that AEG would construct a punitive & onerous Temporary Lease Agreement featuring massive early exit penalties or whatever and in fact quite the opposite. Work with them in the most favorable & flexible of fashions possible. Theres just no damn good reason for the Extension to not have been delivered up last spring, over this past summer at the latest. None. The only excuse for it is that these guys simply cant come up with the coin to make anything happen & that perhaps (and understandably) they are having a lot pf problems in attracting investors based on their own lack of capital & checkered past in Glendale. Maybe the NHL's given them a Hard Deadline, end of season, any appetite at State Level? How are you doing with investors, partners? Site sewn up? No idea. But if their truly honestly committed to the market there is absolutely no excuse for not having signed an Extension. As I said, sign an Extension you stem the losses, everything to gain in doing so. Clearly something else going on, problem, hidden agenda. Though just what exactly?
The arena positioning and partnering is all wonderful and fine to talk about, however, time and again what gets lost in the shuffle of all of the IA blustering about new super progressed sites is the economic model. When have we ever seen or heard IA put forth the economic realities of a new area? if I am the state legislature or the board of regents at ASU wouldn`t the first question asked of IA be show us your numbers. Show us explicitly how you intend to build a franchise that has staying power via either your balance sheet, pro forma income statement or both. We can debate the virtues of a new arena subsidized with state funds or STD`s or ASU alumni funding, but why go there when the elephant in the room is the basic economic viability of this franchise and its ownership? This is akin to erecting a new office building for a tenant whose track record is dubious and furthermore is selling a product that for 20 years has not been received well enough to suggest that anything in their future is going to change. A new building may bring an increase in attendance for a period of time , but the cost of having a look at that period of time may very well not be worth the risk to the partner or the developer?
So why are we ruminating over a new arena when we all know that the tenant has a dubious credit history and a product that the sunbelt has yet to fully endorse?