(08-15-2017 04:13 AM)_C2_ Wrote:  http://www.latimes.com/sports/sportsnow/...portsREDEF

So sad, just tear down the Forum and build new. Or stay at Staples Center.

MSG just put $50 mil into the Forum a few years ago. It ain't going anywhere anytime soon.

I don't know if they could do a modern scale renovation to it but they should. Better than building new and evicting innocent people.

I posted a link, pretty sure in this thread, that has a picture gallery of the renovated Forum. It's a concert venue through and through. They'd have to gut the place to make it a modern NBA arena.

That isn't going to happen. And they aren't going to tear it down, either.


Not saying I support eminent domain and essentially evictions of people off their own property, just to get a new arena built.

(08-15-2017 10:13 AM)MplsBison Wrote:  I posted a link, pretty sure in this thread, that has a picture gallery of the renovated Forum. It's a concert venue through and through. They'd have to gut the place to make it a modern NBA arena.

That isn't going to happen. And they aren't going to tear it down, either.


Not saying I support eminent domain and essentially evictions of people off their own property, just to get a new arena built.

I can't imagine what MSG would charge Ballmer for the property - it might be an order of magnitude greater than he'll have to pay for the site he's looking at now.

And yeah, using eminent domain to help out a billionaire is some seriously terrible policy. Public benefit my a$$.

Looks like the opposition to the Clippers-Inglewood deal is ... no surprise ... MSG.

This is the biggest problem Ballmer would have at that site. MSG can fund enough lawsuits to stall an arena project for, probably, 5-10 years. And that will probably be effective for MSG and eventually lead Ballmer to choose another arena site. It's the "bicycle lock" strategy: You just need a lock good enough to make a bike thief move on to another bike because it will take too much time to break your lock.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/sportsnow/...story.html

Quote:Some project supporters faulted the Madison Square Garden Co., which owns the nearby Forum, for the opposition and called it “fake news.” The Forum has vigorously opposed the project, including a statement saying “no owner of private property in the area is safe” even with the new deal.

Quote:Butts interrupted when Douglas Carstens, a land use attorney who sued Inglewood in July on behalf of a group called Inglewood Residents Against Taking and Eviction, started to address the council.

“Who is the leader of the group?” Butts asked.

Carstens declined to provide a name.

“I didn’t think you’d be able to,” Butts said.

Predictable. The only way Inglewood works now is if Ballmer makes a deal with MSG, because you're right - MSG has the money to essentially kill the project.

If I'm Ballmer, I go in with Long Beach State and build a joint arena on the site of the Pyramid. Maybe some tarping or retractable seating for Long Beach's teams could be worked into the design.

Ballmer won't do that. IMO, Inglewood is as far as he'd go from downtown LA. He spent all that money to buy a Los Angeles franchise, not a Long Beach/Orange County franchise. The distance from downtown LA to the Pyramid in Long Beach (27 miles) is about the same as the distance to the Anaheim arena (30 miles).

(08-16-2017 05:36 PM)_C2_ Wrote:  If I'm Ballmer, I go in with Long Beach State and build a joint arena on the site of the Pyramid. Maybe some tarping or retractable seating for Long Beach's teams could be worked into the design.

Everybody's so in love with LA - he'll stay up there I bet. Don't rule out Carson (where the Raiders/Chargers wanted to build). There are lots of landfills to build on.

Oh my town. Love that town. They'll probably build next to the Home Depot Center or whatever it's called these days.

(08-16-2017 05:43 PM)Wedge Wrote:  Ballmer won't do that. IMO, Inglewood is as far as he'd go from downtown LA. He spent all that money to buy a Los Angeles franchise, not a Long Beach/Orange County franchise. The distance from downtown LA to the Pyramid in Long Beach (27 miles) is about the same as the distance to the Anaheim arena (30 miles).

Well he has to build somewhere. Inglewood is likely to be blocked.

Plus, it's not as if the team can't still be based in and branded as Los Angeles, just like the Angels. And unlike the Anaheim, Long Beach borders LA, in the same county, so it's not as if it's a major stretch to call them "LA."

(08-16-2017 06:47 PM)_C2_ Wrote:  

(08-16-2017 05:43 PM)Wedge Wrote:  Ballmer won't do that. IMO, Inglewood is as far as he'd go from downtown LA. He spent all that money to buy a Los Angeles franchise, not a Long Beach/Orange County franchise. The distance from downtown LA to the Pyramid in Long Beach (27 miles) is about the same as the distance to the Anaheim arena (30 miles).

Well he has to build somewhere. Inglewood is likely to be blocked.

He doesn't have to build anywhere. Many people suspect that his end game is to get a more favorable deal with Staples Center, especially with respect to the game dates available to the Clippers. They get third priority for game dates after the Kings and Lakers. They want fewer Monday-Wednesday home games, fewer weekend day games, more Thursday-Saturday night games.

He needs to move away to get out of the Lakers shadow. Even with them good and the Lakers terrible, they are still by far the JV franchise. They need to move by the beach or OC. Or Carson would work.

(08-16-2017 09:49 PM)_C2_ Wrote:  Even with them good and the Lakers terrible, they are still by far the JV franchise.

That will be true as long as the Clippers are in the LA area, no matter where in that area they are, just as it's true for the Jets, Mets, Nets, White Sox, etc., etc. Best they can hope for is to have a strong niche as the second-banana team. Or move to Seattle, I suppose.

Move to Las Vegas, I hear they have an arena

That may actually work. Vegas is a colony on SoCal.

(08-17-2017 11:43 AM)MplsBison Wrote:  Move to Las Vegas, I hear they have an arena

I think that move sounds great in theory, but having a portion of LA is probably worth more than all of Vegas or Seattle

Yep, although it wouldn't hurt to play a few games there every season. The Clippers do have some San Diego fans still, so they could reconnect there. Picking up the scraps in LA seems shortsighted. They missed their chance to pick up the Lakers slack.

Ballmer made it very clear that he paid the price he did because the team was in LA - that the value of the team was absolutely due to the team's home city. There is NO WAY he's going to purposefully diminish the value of his team by moving outside of the LA Metro area, and probably not even out of LA County.