Andrew Hammond

The News Tribune

Tell me if you’ve heard this before?

Owner of a sports team wants a city to pay for a new arena and if they don’t, the owner will move. Sounds familiar right? Well the latest case in this era of owner vs. city battle is Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver vs. the city of Phoenix.

City officials are telling Laurie Roberts that Suns owner Robert Sarver is threatening to take the team to Las Vegas, Seattle or somewhere else in the valley if funding is not approved for an arena.

Jessica Boehm is reporting that the Phoenix City Council is expected to delay a vote scheduled for 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday whether to push forward on a vote that would see the city of Phoenix spend $150 million on renovations to Talking Stick Arena. In total, the renovations would cost $230 million with Sarver spending $80 million of his own money in the deal.

A return to the Tacoma Dome?

If (a big if) the city of Seattle should get an NBA franchise again we know that Key Arena is currently undergoing renovations any won’t be ready by April of 2021. So if Seattle would have an NBA franchise return, they would need a place to play. Option number one would obviously be the Tacoma Dome, home to the Seattle SuperSonics in 1994 and 1995 while Key Arena was being renovated.

The Tacoma Dome seats 20,722 for basketball, making it the second-largest NBA arena if just for a season or two.

What about Vegas?

The city of Las Vegas already has what may be considered an “NBA-ready” arena, T-Mobile Arena seats 18,000 for basketball and is also the home to various NBA preseason games and college basketball events like the Pac-12 basketball tournament.