Sacramento isn't a top ten market- it's not even in the top 20. If the NBA wants a team there, the reasoning is quite elusive.
That is, unless it's because the Maloofs want to go to Vegas, but it seems to me that the league could say- if you move to Vegas, you're out of the league!
But how is this desirable for the NBA, to subsidize the financing of an Arena? Should every city with an owner with a yen for a new stadium get the same deal? Could the NBA afford that? What about all the teams that recently made their own deals and built new stadiums, like the Sixers?
How will Stern sell this to the other owners, and how will they react. Does this mean that any City that stonewalls will now be able to get cheap financing from the NBA, or just a select few.
The way the Kings are these days, it's not like they're such a hot commodity either.
While it might be true that SacTown is not in the top twenty metropolitan areas, it is in the top twenty-five, and since the League has thirty franchises, there has to be some smaller-then-Sacramento areas supporting teams, as they currently are in Charlotte, Indianapolis, Memphis, Milwaukie, New Orleans, (potentially Oklahoma City), Orlando, Salt Lake City, and San Antonio, while larger areas, most notably Cincinatti, Pittsburg, St. Louis, San Diego, (potentially Seattle), and Tampa Bay do not, or soon won't, even have NBA teams to support. Two others, Kansas City and Las Vegas, are smaller then Sacramento, but one once had the Kings and the other would like to have them. And you also might note that one of the larger areas that no longer has an NBA team - Cincinatti - once had the Kings as well.
The difference is that the fan support in SacTown shakes the rafters. It is something other arenas all envy and with good reason. The same franchise was ignored in Cincinatti and Kansas City, and now is desired by Las Vegas, but the thing is, you need that fan support to really be palatable for it to work out as it has here.
But you can't even begin to view the Sacramento Kings by limiting their fanbase to just the metropolitan area around Arco. Like the Utah Jazz, and I imagine the Spurs, the Kings are supported by a much larger area of people, stretching hundreds of miles to the north and east, and all up and down the northern part of the Central Valley, adding millions of people to this fan support.
That is a very large market to consider, and though not in LA's or NY's size category, or even Philadelphia's, this market, unlike the Sixers, is booming upwards, meaning it certainly has an impact.
In other words, rick, while the Kings are in for some down years, the unyielding potential for growth in the Sacramento area certainly makes having a franchise in this region a much more prized possession to the League then watching the dying throes of Philadelphia as the rust belt bleeds away its population.
Apparently, Stern feels it is worth making the effort to do so. But there is clearly more to it then just keeping the Kings where they are. I would view this as an experiment, where it might lead the League to step in at other times to save a franchise if everyone in the area (certainly true in Sacramento) really wants the team to stay, but can not manage the finances.
BTW, do not compare what has happened in Sacramento to how things get done in your city or how they were done in Memphis. California does not have the same laws that allow easier financing to occur without a huge corporate base, and Sacramento's biggest company is the State of California, so it is very unlikely they will get any money from them.
