[HitsterParticipant]

New Jersey have apparently offered the Philly 76ers over $40o million in tax breaks to move to a new arena in NJ in 2031. The 76ers have said they will leave the Wells Fargo Arena by 2031 and are negotiating a new Arena with Philly authorities. This is still some years off but the commitment to move would have to be made before then.

The 76ers have been in Philly for over 60 years so to lose them would be a huge blow to the city and might they try to then lure another team to there.

The 76ers owners also own the Prudential Centre in NJ where the Nets used to play so could the 7gers decamp to NJ sooner whilst the new arena is being built I wonder?

[NorrinRaddParticipant]

That’s a burner if they go to Jersey.

[BothTeamsPlayedHard-Participant]

The 76ers owners are just shaking down the local government in Philadelphia. I don’t think they want to move to Camden, NJ. The fact that they practice there, and likely means many of the people in the organization live on the NJ side of the river, means it makes for a convenient pawn. On the off chance the 76ers do decide the move to Camden, they will not spend any time playing in Newark. They can probably survive with their fan base if they move to a suburb, but putting games 80-90 miles away would create a wrath that would be tough to overcome. The NJ Turnpike isn’t exactly the fastest stretch of I-95.

Also, the idea that arenas cannot function past 25 years is absurd. It is just an incredible waste of money.

[HitsterParticipant]

Owners use the leverage of moving to try and get a new arena as BTPH rightly states. But the likes of the Crypto.Com Arena formerly the Staples Center is nearly 25 years old and the Lakers seem happy there. The United Center is 30 years old, MSG is 56 years old but has had a major refurbishment.

I don’t know how long NFL stadiums tend to last. Here in England some major sports grounds are pretty old but the bigger teams are often redeveloping parts of their ground. Teams are location based here and not franchises so can only really move within their City/Town so threat to move several hundred miles doesn’t happen.

[BothTeamsPlayedHard-Participant]

The stadiums themselves are perfectly functional. What many owners of MLB/NBA/NHL teams have seen is that there is great value in the land around the stadiums that the owners do not capture unless they own all the land around it. This means they want to not only have all the rights to the revenue from the stadium, but also own the land around it. In Philadelphia, the 76ers, Eagles, Phillies, and Flyers all have their stadiums on the same complex. It allows for parking lots to be used more often, utilize the same public transit stops, but does not afford much space for other development. The Rams/Nuggets/Avalanche/Rapids/Arsenal owners built SoFi Stadium outside LAX at a cost of $5.5 billion and rising. If they want to build a stadium that is used 35 out of 365 days a year with their own money, fine by me. Their perceived value to doing it comes from the hotels, retail, and other businesses around the stadium that will be used year-round in service of the airport that is less than 5 miles away. When lobbying the local politicians to get approval past objecting local groups to get it done, the flashy sports team helps move the process in a way that a simple hotel development would not. Strangely enough, Steve Ballmer doesn’t seem to be doing that up the road with the Intuit Dome, but when a guy is worth $120 billion I guess spending a few billion to get from out of the shadow of the Lakers is just a flex. The Sixers owner seems to have found an old struggling mall that can be redeveloped close to the city center, and is trying to use his team to get it. Other developers want that same land the old mall sits on for their purposes. The most prominent is a biomedical research facility that also has high-rise residential and commercial proposals on the site. The team owners are lobbying for real estate, and pretending that they need a new stadium to get it.

[HitsterParticipant]

The Kroenke’s have always been careful with their money and when they bought Arsenal the club were already in a brand new stadium which generates huge matchday revenue. So there would have to be a great commercial reason for building SoFi Stadium which you rightly identified.

Steve Balmer is so rich he probably wanted his team in the most plush Arena in the NBA and probably in the US.

Manchester City the best football club in England are expanding their ground and building a huge hotel behind it. They already have two smaller stadiums and a 23K indoor arena on the site so are raking the money in from that.

Real Madrid have been refurbishing their football stadium to make it one of the very best in the world and have a retractable pitch so they can host US Sports games and huge concerts too.

[Author]

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