Optimism Over Pro Basketball Franchise at Santa Ana Tempered by NBA Officials

City officials and the developers of a proposed Santa Ana sports arena have great expectations about landing a National Basketball Assn. team in Orange County, but David Stern, NBA commissioner, is taking a wait-and-see attitude.

“If the arena is built and Santa Ana applies for expansion, the Board of Governors would decide what was best for the league,” Stern said Tuesday. “They decide if a market is adequate for more than one or more than two teams.

“If the question of franchise movement arises, we’ll analyze the situation with all the business tools at our disposal. There would be a complete investigation, and then it would come down to a majority vote of the board.”

An informed source said that an expansion franchise would have to pay the NBA at least $20 million up front to get in the league, this before player salaries and overhead. Also, an expansion team would have to consider the competition at the box office with the Lakers and the Clippers in Los Angeles.

The proposed 18,500-seat domed arena, to be called Westdome, is a long way from reality, however. The developers--businessmen Allan Durkovic, Robert Osbrink, Ronald McMahon and Don Oliphant--and the city have reached a memorandum of understanding, but the start of construction on the proposed facility is at least six months away.

Still, enthusiasm ran rampant at a Tuesday press conference as Santa Ana Mayor Daniel Griset, City Manager Robert Bobb and the four developers spoke in the City Hall courtyard backed by a placard cluttered with NBA team pennants.

“We have a larger market than 10 of the current NBA cities,” Bobb said. “Orange County, more specifically Santa Ana, is a perfect place for an NBA franchise.”

The developers said they were currently negotiating with a number of existing NBA teams and also are considering applying for an expansion franchise for the 1987-88 season. They also hope to attract a Major Indoor Soccer League team as a tenant.

Durkovic said the sensitivity involved with relocating teams required secrecy, but that didn’t stop Bobb from proclaiming: “I can’t understand why the (Los Angeles) Clippers aren’t in Orange County right now. We want the Clippers to know we welcome them to the Westdome.”

Carl Scheer, Clipper general manager, said the Clippers, whose guaranteed lease with the Coliseum Commission for the Los Angeles Sports Arena ends after next season, would be willing to consider moving to the new arena.

“No one from Santa Ana has contacted me,” Scheer said, “but it would be imprudent for me not to look at all the facilities in this area. This doesn’t mean we’re displeased with the Sports Arena, either. But we’re not so deeply entrenched in this area that we couldn’t move a few miles down the freeway.

“We wouldn’t consider a move to Santa Ana as a relocation, anyway. It’s still part of the greater-Los Angeles area.”

At last week’s annual league meetings, Stern listed Santa Ana as one of the cities expressing interest in expansion. The NBA Board of Governors have begun accepting applications for expansion in 1987-88 (requiring a $100,000 filing fee), but haven’t received any applications yet. Durkovic said his group is considering filing even before they have an owner.

Durkovic, who views the Orange County market differently than Scheer, said an expansion team in Santa Ana would be like “starting one team in an area that has none, not like starting a third in an area that already has two.”

“I think L.A. is separate from Orange County,” he said, “They are close geographically, but it’s a separate marketplace. The biggest thing here is to realize the potential of the area. The NBA realizes it. And we have interested parties that realize it, too.”

Those interested parties are potential owners who Durkovic won’t name. He did say his group has been in contact with a number of people who have attempted to gain ownership of an NBA franchise in the past and are still interested.

Scheer said he couldn’t project what impact a third NBA team might have on the area, but said the Clippers wouldn’t object to another team coming in.

“After all,” he said, “when we came into L.A., (Laker owner) Jerry Buss probably felt the area could support just one team.”

Durkovic says both options--expansion and relocation--were being pursued on an equal basis, but, despite the fact that expansion would require finding an owner with close-to-unlimited funding, he seems to be leaning toward expansion.