When Washington Commanders owner Josh Harris heard the news that Ted Leonsis was going to leave the District and move his basketball and hockey teams to Northern Virginia, do you think he popped champagne in his Miami Beach offices to celebrate?
Transparent Ted’s decision to tell Washington to keep its money because the Capitals and Wizards are trading D.C. grime for Potomac Yard glitz dramatically raises the stakes for District Mayor Muriel Bowser and her efforts to woo the Commanders back into her city.
“It’s Sharon Pratt Kelly all over again,” one District political insider said, referring to the former Washington mayor whose negotiations with owner Jack Kent Cooke to keep the football team in Washington failed more than 30 years ago.
Now the mayor who appears to have lost the Wizards and the Capitals will have to do all she can to bring the Commanders to the District with a new stadium. The Capitals and Wizards move, ironically, changes the entire landscape of where the football team may wind up.
Support for funding the construction of a new football palace at the old RFK Stadium site has been lukewarm at best on the D.C Council, despite Bowser’s backing. That may change with the political fallout of losing two sports franchises on their watch.
There will still be real opposition from the Capitol Hill neighborhoods. But as far as a substantial financial commitment from the city for a new football stadium, odds went up Wednesday morning when Transparent Ted joined his good friend, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (friends from Youngkin’s days running the powerful private equity firm, the Carlyle Group), to announce plans for the new arena.
“This would relocate the NHL’s Washington Capitals and the NBA’s Washington Wizards’ home arena to Virginia beginning in 2028, should the proposal become finalized,” Monumental Sports said in a press release, announcing they would be leaving Capital One Arena in downtown D.C.
Mr. Transparency — whose negotiations with the city for improvements to Capital One Arena were not to his liking — did not take questions from reporters Wednesday morning.
Wednesday’s announcement of the nonbinding agreement should seriously diminish the notion of Virginia financially supporting any piece of a football stadium for the Commanders.
The land next to the Commanders’ current stadium, FedEx Field in Landover, always seemed like the path of least resistance and the favorite in the new stadium sweepstakes.
But Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, has bungled the negotiations with the Baltimore Orioles for a new lease at Camden Yards, and trying to keep the Commanders in Maryland appeared to be beyond his abilities.
That leaves the District and Josh Harris with newfound leverage over desperate city officials.
Of course, this depends on the phrase “should the proposal become finalized.”
Cooke and the then-governor of Virginia, Douglas Wilder, stood in the same neighborhood 31 years ago and declared it the site for a new football stadium for the Washington football team in Potomac Yard. Everyone knows where he wound up.
That neighborhood is not the same as it was in 1992. There is development and a new Metro station and the nearby Amazon headquarters project. But it’s still Virginia, a political minefield and NIMBY (not in my backyard) heaven — or hell. Protestors against the proposed arena were already outside the press conference Wednesday morning making their voices heard.
The mayor of Alexandria has declared his support for the new arena, but it still needs approval from both the Alexandria Planning Commission and the City Council, and any state funding must be approved by the state General Assembly. Also, a big part of the political volatility in the state is that governors only serve one four-year term. The next governor elected two years from now may not be Transparent Ted’s good buddy.
“The Commonwealth will now be home to two professional sports teams, a new corporate headquarters, and over 30,000 new jobs — this is monumental,” Youngkin said in a statement.
In July, Youngkin, along with other Virginia politicians, wrote a letter to the FBI supporting Springfield, Virginia, as the new site for FBI headquarters. “Choosing Springfield as the new home for the FBI headquarters will help close the gap and provide economic opportunity to historically disadvantaged and underserved communities,” Youngkin wrote.
They are holding hearings now on Capitol Hill about why Greenbelt, Maryland, was chosen for the new headquarters.
Some skeptics predict Maryland and District fans won’t travel south to see the Capitals and Wizards — the Potomac River, they contend, is like the Great Wall of China, even if the new Metro stop promises easier passage through the wall.
And what good is that Metro stop if trains aren’t running?
The day before the new arena announcement, Metro officials announced a plan for thousands of layoffs and reduced service due to a $750 million budget deficit.
Meanwhile, in the District, Bowser is not only trying to pick up the pieces of a possibly empty Capital One Arena downtown and the economic disaster that it would be, she also has what may be a $69 million white elephant in the Entertainment and Sports Arena that the city built in 2018 on the campus of St. Elizabeths Hospital. Transparent Ted kicked in 5% for that project.
Leonsis said Wednesday his WNBA team, the Mystics, will move from the Entertainment and Sports Arena to the vacant Capital One Arena when the Wizards and Capitals leave. It’s hard to believe the Wizards would continue to practice there as well.
A desperate Bowser touted the city’s Hail Mary — a $500 million financing proposal for improvements to Capital One Arena. “This proposal represents our best and final offer and is the next step in partnering with Monumental Sports to breathe new life and vibrancy into the neighborhood and to keep the Washington Wizards and Washington Capitals where they belong — in Washington, D.C..” she said in a statement released Tuesday evening.
Harris and his Commanders may be her life preserver — at a cost.
You can hear Thom Loverro on The Kevin Sheehan Show podcast.
• Thom Loverro can be reached at tloverro@washingtontimes.com.
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