Anaheim to Make ‘Final Offer’

The Vancouver Grizzlies will receive today what Anaheim City Manager James Ruth calls the “last, best and final offer” for the NBA team to move to the Arrowhead Pond.

Grizzly owner Michael Heisley agreed Tuesday to entertain a revised bid from Anaheim, to be presented today in New York, one day before Heisley is scheduled to meet there with NBA Commissioner David Stern to discuss where to move his financially troubled franchise.

Heisley faces a Monday deadline to apply for NBA permission to move, with New Orleans, Louisville, Ky. and Memphis, Tenn., joining Anaheim as finalists.

“I think we’ll make a decision this weekend,” Heisley told the Vancouver Sun Tuesday.

Heisley publicly reiterated Tuesday what he told Ruth and Pond General Manager Tim Ryan on a conference call Monday. He would love to move the Grizzlies to the Pond, he said, but he isn’t sure he can make enough money while sharing the arena--and revenue from NBA games--with Disney’s Mighty Ducks.

“There’s no question Anaheim has the most attractive market of all the places we’re talking to,” Heisley said. “Quite frankly, that’s one of their tremendous assets.

“One of their disadvantages is they already have a prime tenant in the arena. It’s going to be difficult to get to the numbers we have to get to.”

Ryan hung up the phone with Heisley Monday and flew to New York, meeting Tuesday with executives at the headquarters of Ogden Corp., operators of the Pond. Ryan and Tom Etter, Ogden senior vice president, prepared the revised bid they will submit to Heisley today.

“We’re trying to bridge what Mr. Heisley perceives as a gap between the competitors and the Anaheim proposal,” Ruth said. “We had three days to prepare the initial proposal. It was a very conservative proposal, probably rightfully so. We think some of our estimates were low. We think they can be enhanced to make us more competitive.”

That burden rests entirely on Ogden, eager to attract an NBA team to help stem financial bleeding. In seven years operating the Pond, Ogden has lost money each year.

State funding, which could be used to help finance new arenas in Louisville and Memphis, is not available for the Anaheim bid. The city remains willing to provide $8 million in land and construction costs for a Grizzlies’ practice facility, and Disney remains willing to share an undisclosed share of the $5 million to $7 million it controls in advertising and naming rights, but further payments and concessions are not expected from either the city or Disney.

“The financial aspects are primarily Ogden’s at this point,” Anaheim Mayor Tom Daly said.

In addition to sweetening revenue projections, Ogden could attract Heisley by offering to pay most or all of the $16 million that could be needed to buy out the Grizzlies’ arena lease in Vancouver and making some revenue guarantees.

“I think he’s looking for some guarantees from Ogden,” Daly said.

In Louisville, the parent company of Kentucky Fried Chicken has offered $100 million over 20 years for naming rights to a new arena (the KFC Bucket), naming rights to the team (the Kentucky Colonels) and advertising inside the arena and on media outlets. The $5 million per year, in one deal, would come close to matching all of what the Grizzlies could make annually in Anaheim from naming rights and arena advertising.

FedEx has offered corporate support, including naming rights, for a proposed arena in Memphis.

But the promises of cash flowing from a new arena cannot be realized until the arena opens, and the Grizzlies are known to be wary of playing several years in Freedom Hall in Louisville or the Pyramid in Memphis while enduring possible delays in the construction of a new arena. Before the Pond could be built, Ruth said, the city had to resolve four lawsuits.

Said Doug Thornton, general manager of the New Orleans Arena: “The uncertainty of the new buildings in Memphis and Louisville and the problem of those revenue streams represents potential economic suicide for Michael Heisley.”