Stockton Thunder hockey, Tickets (and now the team) still available!

So the big story of the day is that Thunder owner Michael Reinsdorf wants to sell the team. It has nothing to do with money or attendance or anything like that. He just claims that he's tired of making trips to Stockton all the way from back east. And really we can't blame him. Of course whenever a team owner even hints at possibly selling the team some casual fans (also known as idiots) immediately think they're trying to move the team.

I call these fans idiots because even a cursory glance at the usual factors surrounding moving rumors (which, being Kings fans, we're sort of experts in) aren't anywhere close to being in play here. Any move would have to be approved by the ECHL. The factors most leagues look at are the economic viability of the venue (for the team, not the city) and fan support/attendance. The Stockton Arena is brand spanking new by ECHL standards and the Thunder's sweetheart deal with the city gives them an added boost in this category. And considering we're about to lead the league in attendance for the 4th straight year I'd say we're doing fine in regards to fan support. So the only reason an owner could justify moving the Thunder is for shits and giggles, and you need more than that to uproot a franchise. Unless of course you're Clay Bennett (who ironically owns another team called the Thunder). Of course this is all ignoring the fact that moving a franchise would also require another city getting some sort of better, state-of-the-art arena to entice the franchise to move. And in this economy it'll be a while before we see a publicly funded arena again.

The other story within the story is how this affects the aforementioned sweetheart deal with IFG and the Thunder. Reinsdorf, in addition to owning the Thunder and Lightening, is the managing director of IFG (the company that manages the city's various venues for those of you living under a rock for the past decade). We've always thought that was kind of a conflict of interests since we can't imagine Reinsdorf/IFG would renegotiate contract terms that would hurt the revenue of the franchises he owns.

We're pretty sure that's exactly why Ann Johnston thinks the sale could help in negotiations with IFG. Once Reindsdorf sells the team(s), he has no real vested interest in the money that goes to the tenants since he'd no longer be one of them. It's like if someone were to sublet out their apartment before the lease is up. If the landlord comes while you're still there and suggests raising rent you'd probably fight it to the death. But once you pawned off the place one someone else you probably wouldn't give two shits about what rent was after you left. Let that sucker who took the place off your hands deal with it.

So in short, Reinsdorf selling off his teams is probably the best thing that could happen to the Arena short of IFG deciding to get off it's lazy ass and actually trying at their job for once.

Update: I didn't see Fitzy's take on this so I figured I'd pass it along. Mostly because it confuses us as to what we're actually talking about renegotiating. The article we linked to seemed to infer (and by infer I mean outright stated) that after Reinsdorf sold the team, it'd help with the contract we have with IFG. Fitzy seems to think the contract we need to focus on is the one with the actual team.

We're by no means experts on the city's contracts so some clarification may be needed. There's the of the lease with the actual franchise (which the city would have to approve the transfer of upon sale of the team), then there's the contract with IFG. As the article states they're two separate entities. Fitzy seems to be confusing them as one.

So is Fitzy confused, are we confused, or is everybody confused? Please let us know.

Free relationship advice from Reclaiming the Title

When Steve Pinkerton broke up with Stockton in favor of our methed out cousin Manteca (using the same pickup lines no less. You said downtown revitalization was our song!), there were mixed emotions. The city decided to get wasted. The Record was wistful. Mike Fitzgerald was presumably holed up in his bedroom clutching a pint of Americone Dream in one hand and a copy of "He's Just Not That Into You" in the other with an empty bottle of Jack at the foot of his bed. We saw his departure for what it was, a guy who realized that the market was headed for a downturn and that he was going to be totally fucked if he didn't get the hell out with the quickness. How would we ever recover from being tossed aside so callously by this visionary? (We still can't believe Fitzy called him that.)

After a couple of months it appears that we're finally ready to go see what's out there and start dating again. That's right, Fitzy's on the rebound. So who is this new guy? Stephan Grossman is the new booking consultant for IFG. (Hooray consultants!) He's the new guy responsible for drawing concerts to Stockton. Sounds dreamy doesn't he? What's his credentials?

- Over course of 25+ year career, have booked, created and promoted over 2,000 events, attended by over 10million people, grossing $400million. Managed media campaigns with overall value of $100million

Damn, that's fairly impressive.

-Extensive experience opening new sports/entertainment arenas, including NHL Phoenix Coyotes' Jobing.com Arena (Phoenix) and NBA San Antonio Spurs' AT&T Center (San Antonio) as well as Rosemont Theater (Chicago)

Oh, fuck. Umm, so all those successful arenas had successful tenants already?

Great, we're skeptical already. Come on Fitzy, you're smarter than this. You don't want to rush into a new relationship so soon. We know you love the silver foxes, but you can't give it up right away. Sure he has experience booking around sporting events, but those sports teams were already profitable. Plus he hasn't given us any details as to how he plans to get acts that play in the Bay Area to consider us over Sac, Bakersfield, and Fresno. He just says we're in that pool. Until he shows us real commitment (he's left us before apparently) with real ideas, he should only get boob. Deal? Hey, why is your shirt on inside out? Fuck.

I need to post this now before my head explodes with smug satisfaction

Earlier today I was going to do a post about the colossal fuck up that is the rodeo coming to Stockton. God it was glorious. For those who aren't up to speed, the city got duped by a fucking cowboy into putting up $75,000 of public money that we totally didn't need to bring the rodeo to Stockton. The promoter Bryan Bjork didn't put the prize money in escrow to guarantee it's existence. He also lied to us about the involvement of big time rodeo organizations. (Well, big time for rodeo.) For a day, the Record tried to talk us into the minor league rodeo show that we would have to deal with. Well, we'd have to put the irony of the Arena not being able to get yet another professional sport to come to Stockton aside. (Minor League RODEO!?)

The rodeo's not coming.

(Note: Have to link to 209Vibe's Twitter because they actually had the story. The Record just tells you read about it in the paper. No really, the byline says it's by the actual newspaper.)

(Update: Recordnet.com posted the full story today. Which is more than likely a hilarious example of them not knowing that the Internet can be used as a tool to counteract that whole "yesterday's news today" knock print journalism always gets. due dilligence.)

Ignoring the fact that Recordnet.com sucks my ballsack, this hilarious revelation of the rodeo's "rescheduling" is another classic example of our city government's ineptness. Which may have come up here a time or two.

Guess I'm not visiting the Arena any time soon.

When I went to the EliteXC fights a couple weeks ago, I noted that the Arena concession staff didn't exactly look or act like the sharpest penises (peni?) in the vagina. Well, today it came out in the Record that they in fact aren't. But neither is the ABC.

Yesterday the Dept. Of Alcoholic Beverage Control suspended the Stockton Arena's ability to sell alcoholic beverages for the next 15 days. Which would be a harsh punishment if the Arena was used more than twice a month. (Of course that hopefully will change now that IFG's GM has been canned.) (Fantastic move by the way, just 8000 years too late.)

When did the alcoholic indiscretion happen? At the Gwen Stefani concert. You don't remember when Gwen Stefani came to the Arena? Yeah, I almost forgot about it too because it was almost a fucking year ago.

Why did it take so long? Because the Arena and the ABC were discussing a settlement that included negotiating when the suspension would start.

So on the day before Thanksgiving in Lodi, the ABC and Lodi Police will have officers posted up in front of every downtown bar to make sure people are getting carded and that the bars stay at least 10 people below capacity, and not hesitate to shut them down as soon as one person drunkenly shoves another person (*cough*MOJO'S*cough*). And the Stockton Arena gets to negotiate when it's suspension dates are so as not to affect their alcohol sales AT ALL?

Fucking bullshit.