Monday Musings #35: Other Cities are Itching for the Spurs

Let me say what San Antonio Spurs Chairman and Managing Partner Peter J. Holt is too pro-San Antonio to say: If Bexar County voters fail to pass Propositions A & B on Nov. 4, other big city mayors and billionaires will be falling all over each other with morning-after invitations to the team to move to more affluent markets where financing for a new arena will not be an issue.

This isn’t meant as a scare tactic. It’s an informed assessment of how the big business of professional sports intersects with the willingness or ability of big U.S. cities to support public-private partnerships that keep home teams competitive and profitable.

Cities that want world-class sports teams and cultural institutions have to invest. Regional cities, in particular, have to bring public support to the table to compete with the major metros. San Antonio is one of the fastest growing cities by population in the country, but its status outside the Top 20 media markets and metropolitan statistical areas, and its dearth of corporate headquarters, define it as a distinctly regional entity. 

There is no such thing as free entertainment. San Antonio has always been a city united behind the Spurs, a city willing to invest in that identity. In return, it’s a city that has benefited enormously from the Spurs’ presence. Voters are now being asked to renew that support. If they do, the franchise that first played at Hemisfair will be coming home. If the vote fails, all certainty will be lost.

Here is the reality: There are probably 12 cities with serious NBA aspirations, many hoping for an eventual NBA expansion plan. Some cities will pay just about any price to score a relocation. Las Vegas, Seattle, and, yes, Austin are at the front of that line.

The Holt family, which is now the lead minority shareholder with a reported 40% interest in the team, won’t be the only ones getting the out-of-town calls. Other Spurs investors will see their cell phones blow up. Michael Dell, one of the wealthiest people on the planet, joined by fellow Austin resident and Airbnb co-founder Joe Gabbia, will likely suggest the Spurs expand their Austin play dates from two games to all home games.

The Holts are committed to keeping the Spurs in San Antonio, and they and the other shareholders have pledged to invest $2.1 billion in a new arena and other Hemisfair improvements. That is central to reviving a long-neglected park that measures nearly 100 acres and has attracted few locals since HemisFair ‘68. Without the certainty of a new arena at Hemisfair, there is no realistic path forward.

San Antonio has one big opportunity next month to keep the Spurs home here. For Mayor Gina Jones, whose support of the project has been lukewarm at best, there will be no start-overs.

Deep-pocketed individuals in other cities will not flinch at paying the book value of the Spurs plus a premium. The Buss family, owner of the Los Angeles Lakers, just sold an 85% interest in the team for $10 billion. It’s not unreasonable to predict the Spurs, valued at $3.85 billion by Forbes, could go for as much as $5 billion in a multi-city bidding war.

COPS/Metro is busy inside and outside inner city churches and neighborhoods, urging voters to vote No on Nov. 4, and suggesting many other uses of the county’s venue tax would benefit their communities more directly. Those opposing the county propositions are doing little to dispel widely held misconceptions in communities that elected officials would be free to use venue taxes and TIRZ tax collections to invest in community-based anti-poverty programs.

The Texas Legislature has enabled big cities to invest in limited ways, so if voters fail to support Propositions A & B, they should know two things: One, they risk losing the city’s only major league sports franchise. Two, there will not be any Plan B spending initiatives addressing other non-qualifying needs.

Bexar County Judge Peter Sakai and the County Commissioners have devised a plan to participate financially in the Spurs arena and a new entertainment zone and to make major Eastside investments in the Frost Bank Center property to grow an already robust San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo. They have done so without any cost to local taxpayers.

The city has negotiated with the Spurs in good faith to reach a non-binding term sheet. The stage is set for a successful vote and the greatest public-private investment in the city’s history.

This would be a good time for Mayor Jones to demonstrate that she can support the future of the Spurs in San Antonio by campaigning for voters to go to the polls, starting with the Oct. 20 early voting period, or on Nov. 4, and voting Yes on both propositions. The mayor needs to associate herself with a winning vote after a series of disastrous missteps at City Council that have led to a string of unnecessary losses, including multiple 1-10 votes, the only time in the city's contemporary history a mayor has suffered such unanimous rejection.

San Antonio has been good to the Spurs over their 52 years here, and the Spurs have been very good for San Antonio over that same time period. Five NBA Championships. Coach Greg Popovich, 29 seasons, 1,422 wins, the winningest coach in league history. Those extraordinary accomplishments are, indeed, amazing, yet I am thinking more about what Spurs legend Sean Elliott had to say at a recent council meeting. Click here to watch and listen if you missed it the first time.

I am thinking more of the Spurs as a significant community asset, a team that gives back with year-round programming in our schools and on our playgrounds, and a front office that has contributed tens of millions of dollars in philanthropic outreach through Spurs Give.

Can you imagine San Antonio without the Spurs? I cannot. There would be no seasonal rituals of flags lying from vehicle antennas or posters appearing in inner city home windows during playoffs. No honking late-night traffic jams as celebrating fans flood the downtown to mark another winning milestone. San Antonio would find itself in a big hole with no way out. Momentum would be lost in ways hard to fully comprehend now.

Around the country and beyond, San Antonio is known for three things: the Alamo, the River Walk, and the Spurs. We should build on that by voting Yes on Nov. 4, or in the early voting period between Oct. 20-31. Let’s send Seattle, Las Vegas and Austin a clear message: The Spurs are not for sale and the team isn’t going anywhere, except back into the playoffs and a few years from now, into their new home at Hemisfair.