HeyKurtz
Well-known member
Yep. This is why Mark Cuban is selling his majority stake in the Mavericks. Sports franchises are going from businesses on their own to centerpieces of larger real estate plays, usually with the advent of entertainment districts that often include casinos, hotels, retail, housing, etc. Cuban has no expertise in that area, so he sold to buyers who do--the Adelson family, best known as the owners of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation--while ensuring that he can stay in charge of basketball operations and see his now-minority stake in the team grow in value thanks to the Adelson's expertise.I'm sure the team knows their fan demographics better than we ever could from the outside. Leonsis is no dummy. If this didn't make sense, he wouldn't be doing it. Plenty of pro sports owners just don't have any kind of market savvy, but not this one.
For Leonsis and the Caps and Wizards, the move to Alexandria is tied to the $2 billion development of an "innovation district" that includes--among other elements--Amazon's HQ2. It will be similar (but likely bigger) than what the Braves did when they moved to suburban Atlanta--which is the model for this strategy--and to what Tom Dundon is hoping to do (likely on a smaller scale) around PNC Arena.
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