Rumors

Ted Leonsis: “My teams aren’t for sale, but I’m rooting for them to get the highest valuation possible. It’s a gem of a property. My organization does more revenues than the Celtics. Now, I own a basketball team, a hockey team, a women’s team, the building, the network. I think that’s the trend. I think you’ll see lots of mergers. You have to get scale. If you’re to be a media company, you have to build the audience. You have to be able to build a way to cross-promote year-round. That’s why all these real estate areas are popping up. Hey, we’re going to bring people in, can they spend a couple hours beforehand or after the game? So we’re running these as really, really big businesses.”

Front Office Sports

“We weren’t tanking. We were developing players. It’s a little different than maybe what some of the other teams’ strategy was,” said Leonsis, CEO of Monumental Sports & Entertainment, which also owns the NHL’s Capitals and WNBA’s Mystics.

Front Office Sports

Better late than never for Ted Leonsis and Muriel Bowser. The owner of the Wizards, Capitals and Mystics, along with the G League’s Go-Go, and Washington’s mayor took their victory lap Thursday morning, in what will, if all goes according to plan, be a centerpiece of an $800 million renovation of Capital One Arena. The renovation will keep the Wizards and Capitals in the building through their 2049-50 seasons and allow for additional future events to be held in the building, which is open approximately 220 to 230 nights a year.

New York Times

“I think the mayor’s being modest,” Leonsis said after a ceremonial groundbreaking, which included NBA commissioner Adam Silver and local officials who helped get the legislation through the city council. “As we were starting to iterate our showings of preliminary plans, she said ‘make it more connected to D.C.,'” Leonsis continued. “‘Make it modern, airy, I want to see a lot of light. I want to see connection with the streets … there will be now, just as there is at the art museum across the street, a roof that will connect this. And this, still, you’ll be able to walk through from 6th Street to 7th Street. We’ve been able to amalgamate, if you will, a sizable footprint. And once you have the space, you can innovate, you can make those investments.”

New York Times

On Tuesday, a little more than a year after Leonsis and Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin announced with great fanfare a deal to build an area in the Potomac Yards neighborhood in Alexandria, Va. — a plan that collapsed under fierce opposition a few months later — the D.C. City Council formally approved $515 million in public funding for Monumental. It will allow the company to transform the arena that has been the home of the NBA and NHL teams since 1997 and bring it in line with new arenas constructed in both leagues over the last three decades. The city will also buy the arena from Monumental for $87.5 million, in line with the city’s ownership of Nationals Park and Audi Field. Monumental would then immediately lease the arena from the city in what is known as a “sale/leaseback” arrangement. For its part, Monumental is pledging $285 million toward the arena renovation. Monumental currently manages the arena venue and will continue to do so in the new arrangement. Bowser said the deal would be a “catalytic” investment in the city’s future.

New York Times

Ted Leonsis: But I understand that some people in the media felt this was a juicy subject to go after. I have to live with it, and I have to live with these people and communicate with these people. And everyone has their problems. I’ll use, as an example, Bradley Beal. He was one of our [Wizards] players. He had a no-trade contract, and he wanted to be traded. He went to Phoenix. When we announced we were moving, he found it necessary to get online and say, ‘You’re making a big mistake. You shouldn’t be moving.’ I thought that was gratuitous, but I didn’t say anything. They made the playoffs and got swept in the first round. And there’s a lot of criticism of Bradley Beal. That’s how life is, right? You can criticize. Can you take the criticism back? It’s the world we live in.

moco360.media

Ted Leonsis: RIP to a legend and sports icon, Jerry West. pic.twitter.com/tSQTL3LqJi

Twitter

One detail stood out to D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser on the December morning that the billionaire owner of the Wizards and Capitals, Ted Leonsis, announced he was moving the Washington teams to Virginia: He hadn’t signed a thing. There was no contract, “no real commitment,” Bowser (D) said — only a handshake with Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) that in Bowser’s eyes meant D.C. still had a shot. From that point, Bowser said in an interview Friday, she decided, “we were going to put our foot on the gas.” Over the next several months, periodically over drinks at the Waldorf Astoria, Bowser would quietly work to bring Leonsis back to the negotiating table, sweetening D.C.’s offer just as Leonsis’s plans were falling apart in Virginia’s General Assembly. She insisted for months publicly that D.C. remained in the game. Few shared her optimism at the onset.

Washington Post

Bowser and Leonsis’s rekindled negotiations started with a chance encounter at the Waldorf Astoria in mid-January, about a month after Youngkin and Leonsis announced the move. Leonsis’s investment company, Revolution Growth, was holding its annual conference at the glitzy hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, blocks from Bowser’s office at the Wilson Building. After remarks from Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), Leonsis stepped out of the ballroom into the lobby — “and I literally walk into the mayor,” Leonsis said. “Ted!” she exclaimed. “I said, ‘Hey, what are you doing here?’” Leonsis recalled. She’d come to the hotel for an unrelated meeting. “I said, ‘Oh, let’s sit down — I haven’t seen you in a while,’” Leonsis said — not since he told her he was moving to Virginia. As Bowser tells it, the two embraced before sitting down to talk.

Washington Post

Leonsis called Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and the mayor of Alexandria, Va., Justin M. Wilson, early Wednesday afternoon to inform them he had reached an agreement with Bowser, ending Monumental’s attempt to move the Wizards and Capitals to a large, undeveloped site in Alexandria’s Potomac Yard. The proposed move to Alexandria, which was announced in mid-December, met a significant roadblock in the Virginia Senate, where key lawmaker L. Louise Lucas, the chairwoman of the Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee, opposed the deal. “We made tons of mistakes,” Leonsis said Wednesday night when asked whether Monumental had made errors since the December announcement about Potomac Yard. “But we manage to outcomes, and the outcome is exactly the right one.” Bowser said: “We are the current home, and the future home, of the Washington Capitals and Washington Wizards.”

The Athletic

The agreement between Leonsis and Bowser includes provisions for: * Monumental to receive $500 million in cash from the city to renovate Capital One Arena, which opened in 1997. * $15 million more to improve the alley that connects the arena to the Gallery Place building next door. * The addition of 200,000 square feet of space in the arena and the Gallery Place building. * Safety improvements, including the presence of 17 Washington police officers to patrol the arena area from two hours before game time to two hours after game time. * Monumental gaining full control of the Entertainment & Sports Arena in Southeast Washington, enabling Monumental to enlarge player spaces and make changes to the arena’s schedule. The WNBA’s Washington Mystics and G League’s Capital City Go-Go will continue to play at the arena, but Monumental will have the ability to move four games per regular season and all playoff games to Capital One Arena. * New restrictions on noise, loitering and vending around Capital One Arena.

The Athletic

D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser and Ted Leonsis, owner of the Wizards and Capitals, said Wednesday they were finalizing a deal that — if approved by the D.C. Council — would keep the teams in downtown D.C. until 2050, ending the owner’s planned move to Virginia.

Washington Post

Under the terms of the deal, D.C. would spend $515 million over three years to help Leonsis modernize the arena and the owner would sign a new lease keeping the teams in D.C. for 25 more years.

Washington Post

Among the provisions to which the two sides have tentatively agreed, D.C. would allow Leonsis to take over management of the Mystics home facility in Southeast D.C., utilize parking at some District-owned buildings for Monumental employees, keep a minimum number of police officers downtown and plan for a new future downtown practice facility for the Wizards.

Washington Post