Tickets & premium seating
Separate existing receipts from the renovation’s incremental demand and margin.
The arena business
What the arena
earns.
Price the commercial rights using actual accounts, rather than an assumed return on construction cost.
The short version. Premium seating, naming, concessions, parking and events are valuable rights. Their net value is unverified; the former $2.5 billion headline is withdrawn.
The rights to value
Naming & sponsorship
Trace bundled agreements, prepaid rights and surviving license periods.
Parking & concessions
Use the defined fee bases and deduct real costs and contractual offsets.
Events & other uses
Reconcile event-level settlements, calendars and affiliate allocations.
The records needed to price the bargain
- Venue-specific historic revenue and expense statements reconciled to audited records.
- Event-level ticket, premium, concession, parking and sponsorship settlements.
- Affiliate allocation rules, concessions/ticketing contracts and vendor-funded assets.
- Current naming agreements, bundled rights, prepaid cash and surviving license periods.
- Incremental demand and margin forecasts with closure, price and attendance sensitivity.
- A reconciliation preventing overlap with franchise-wide media income and valuation.
How these numbers fit together
$573MProposed public renovation portion: State $365M, City $120M, County $88M. The adopted negotiating documents still need a reconciled funding plan and complete project budget. Proposal verified
Up to $288.6MContinuing contribution ceilings: City $275M plus County $13.6M. Annual limits and actual-receipt conditions matter; these are not unconditional cash commitments. Proposal verified
$861.6M$573M + $288.6M: combined nominal framework ceilings before financing costs. This is neither a present value nor a binding all-in expenditure. Do not add repayment of the same borrowed principal twice. Calculated
$3.17M + $3MProposed initial annual rent and tax-offset payment. Rent begins at the specified post-renovation commencement and escalates by the lesser of CPI-W or 3%; the tax offset grows 5%. Start dates, recipients and credits still matter. These are not the public’s only receipts. Proposal verified
UnvaluedThe maintenance claim, new commercial rights and operating alternatives require legal, engineering and financial valuation. A lifecycle cost estimate is not a damages award; gross venue revenue is not profit.
Verified describes what a source says, not that a proposed obligation is signed or funded. The reconciled ledger and sources →
Corrections to the earlier estimates
We retire the combined $1.1–1.2 billion “market-standard return” floor, the $2.5 billion arena-value headline and the claim that security is free to a compliant owner. Comparables show feasible mechanisms; they do not prove every favorable provision can be combined at the same price. PFM includes fully publicly funded renovations and notes limits to what its capital comparisons capture.
An assumed yield on construction cost does not establish demand, new revenue or profit. Gross receipts are not net income. Franchise appreciation may capitalize earnings already counted. Avoided repairs, future maintenance, guarantees, principal and debt service can overlap. A tax deduction’s value depends on the actual taxpayer and timing; a generic cents-on-the-dollar claim is inadequate.
Relocation has obstacles and requires NBA action, but its probability is not established as zero. Expansion exploration is not a completed award of two markets. Conversely, neither a forced franchise sale nor a tenant-controlled option is an alternative the City can simply elect. Price the actual choices, including delay and tenant disruption.
Sources: State PFM comparables review · NBA expansion announcement · Exclusive Site Agreement approval exhibit