One of the biggest stories of the year so far in the business of sports is the dramatic reversal by Monumental Sports & Entertainment chair Ted Leonsis (above, right), who’s abandoning his planned $2 billion arena and mixed-used development in Virginia to remain in D.C. and at Capital One Arena.

Leonsis joined the Front Office Sports Today podcast and broke down not only how the venue turnabout happened, but also what he sees happening across regional sports media, his own baseball ownership aspirations, and the advance of sovereign wealth funds in pro sports. 

Among the highlights of the interview with Leonsis:

• Washington persistence: He called D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser (above, left) “the hero of the story” in MSE and credited her continued efforts to strike an arena deal, even after the announced plans to move to Virginia. “She could have been mad at us and not talked to us. … She overcame, in an integrated way, all of our objections, and so it just felt natural to get there” on a deal. 
• A change in Virginia: A material event in the pursuit of the Alexandria project, of course, was the firm resistance mounted by influential state Sen. L. Louise Lucas. But Leonsis said the problem was even broader, as the discussion surrounding the proposal there quickly veered away from team operations. “As soon as this pivoted from business and started to become all about politics, it started to scare us. We’re not politicians.”
• Big plans for the arena: Leonsis plans dramatic changes to Capital One Arena in the forthcoming renovation, with regard to both back-of-house components and fan-facing ones. But some elements will be even more straightforward, such as an improvement in bathrooms. “[Clippers owner] Steve Ballmer has made an arms race in plumbing, and it’s serious. I asked people, ‘What did they want?’ and they wanted [shelves over] urinals, better toilets, and we have to make investments in that.”

• Surviving RSN disruption: MSE purchased the former NBC Sports Washington and rebranded it the Monumental Sports Network. And following a series of improvements to that operation and the creation of a direct-to-consumer offering, Leonsis believes the regional sports network will be an outlier in a broader decline of that part of sports media. “The growth in media sales and sponsorships is offsetting somewhat the meltdown in the deals with the cable guys.”
• Plans in baseball: Leonsis has previously been linked to a potential purchase of the Nationals. That team is no longer on the market, but he maintains close ties with the Lerner family that owns the MLB club and is a minority partner in MSE. “They know our intentions, and at some point, we’ll reengage.”
• New ownership trends: MSE’s much-debated deal to introduce a Qatari state fund in its ownership group is emblematic of a rising need, Leonsis says, to access additional capital to keep up with rising team valuations but have that additional investment remain passive and oriented to the long term, and he predicts many more such deals to come across the industry. “Pension funds and sovereign wealth funds are the best source of capital for investments of that kind.”

🎧 Listen to the full episode here and subscribe on Apple, Google, and Spotify. 

One of the most momentous times of the year thus far in the business of sports is now beginning, with three critical votes scheduled for this week that will carry significant impacts on pro sport venues in two major markets, as well as the future state of ESPN.

The events scheduled for this week include:

• Missouri: a Tuesday ballot measure in Jackson County to provide stadium funding for the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals. The pair of teams are seeking to implement a ⅜-cent sales tax for 40 years, with that money targeted toward a planned new Royals ballpark and renovations to Arrowhead Stadium. Despite the Chiefs’ current standing as two-time defending Super Bowl champion and the Royals a fixture in town for more than five decades, this issue has grown tense, with both teams saying they “will explore all options for where we will play come 2031” should a “no” vote prevail. Chiefs president Mark Donovan (above, right) said he is “cautiously optimistic” about a successful vote. But early voting has already been active, and the ballot measure ties directly into a long-running and often-emotional debate about the use of taxpayer funds for privately held pro sports teams.
• Washington: a Tuesday vote by the D.C. council to approve $515 million in funding to renovate Capital One Arena and improve Washington’s Gallery Place neighborhood. This vote is far less in question, with council members, including chair Phil Mendelson, participating in the formal announcement of the deal and approval strongly expected. But the pact ties the Capitals and Wizards to the city until at least 2050, which formally reverses a prior plan to build a $2 billion arena and mixed-use development in Alexandria, Va., and is aimed at reinvigorating an arena area that had become beset with issues such as rising crime and open-air drug use. The renovation plan will also aim to upgrade the 27-year-old Capital One Arena and likely take some influences from large-scale projects at other middle-age venues such as Philadelphia’s Wells Fargo Center.
• Disney: a Wednesday virtual annual meeting by ESPN’s parent company that will include an election of company directors. Activist investor Nelson Peltz is seeking two board seats and is running on a platform of implementing a more aggressive course of action in the company’s transformation efforts. Despite opposition from Disney itself and numerous other key stakeholders such as Star Wars creator George Lucas and former CEO Michael Eisner, Peltz last week gained support from a second proxy advisory firm.  

The stakes across these votes are enormous, and will go a long way to settling such pressing matters as where the Chiefs and Royals will play their future home games, whether there is truly a limit to public-sector support for pro sports facilities, how sports and entertainment will happen long-term in the nation’s capital, how ESPN will go to market in a period of unprecedented media disruption, and who will succeed current Disney CEO Bob Iger. 

LSU is set for a 2023 national championship game rematch with Caitlin Clark and Iowa on Monday night, but just before the Tigers advanced to the Elite 8 with a victory over UCLA on Saturday, The Washington Post’s much-hyped story on coach Kim Mulkey finally published. After LSU’s first game of the women’s NCAA tournament on March 23, Mulkey created a stir when she said she would sue the paper if it published a defamatory article about her.

The piece by reporter Ken Babb is nearly 7,000 words in length but doesn’t include any information that would seem to put Mulkey’s job in any jeopardy. On Sunday, Mulkey said, “I haven’t read that trash. I’m not going to read it.” She added that she will have her lawyers review it to see if there is anything to be concerned about and any necessary next steps.

And There’s More

While Mulkey didn’t give much attention to The Washington Post piece after LSU’s win Saturday, she did take issue with a commentary article in The Los Angeles Times by UCLA beat writer Ben Bolch. After Mulkey called the article sexist, the newspaper ended up changing the story online, noting, “A previous version of this commentary did not meet Times editorial standards. It has been updated.” 

Mulkey was particularly upset with a line calling LSU “dirty debutants,” among others. That phrase, along with references to LSU as “villains,” and references to UCLA as “milk and cookies” and “America’s sweethearts” were also removed, according to USA Today. “I’m not going to let you attack young people, and there were some things in this commentary, guys, that you should be offended by as women,” Mulkey said. “It was so sexist.”