Players Skeptical of Kings’ Money Woes

King players dismissed as rhetoric Thursday club President Tim Leiweke’s contention that the franchise is on thin ice financially and Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz may be forced to sell if he continues to lose money.

Leiweke, refuting a Forbes magazine report that pegged the club’s operating income for last season at a $7-million profit, said this week that the Kings haven’t made money since Anschutz assumed ownership in October 1995 and, in fact, have taken a $103-million bath.

They will continue hemorrhaging money, he said, unless the NHL and the players’ union dramatically revamp their collective bargaining agreement, which expires in 2004. Anschutz will sell, he added, if significant changes are not made.

“The closer we get to 2004, the more of these kinds of articles you’re going to see,” team captain Mattias Norstrom said. “It’s pretty much saying it’s in the players’ hands, that if they want to kill the sport, go ahead and do it.

“My only comment to that is, we’re in a marketplace that the teams themselves created -- paying the salaries at this level, what they’re paying for free agents. You only pay as much as the market tolerates.”

Said defenseman Mathieu Schneider of Leiweke’s comments: “It’s just negotiations. Obviously, they’re setting themselves up. They want a salary cap; it’s no secret. And we don’t; that’s no secret. Those things aren’t going to change, and after that everything becomes negotiable.”

According to documents shown The Times by Leiweke and Dan Beckerman, chief financial officer of Anschutz Entertainment Group, which owns the Kings and Staples Center, the Kings have enjoyed strong revenue growth since Anschutz took over, built Staples Center and moved the club into the $400-million building.

At the same time, however, payroll and other expenses have soared. The average NHL player salary, for example, has nearly doubled from $984,000 in the 1996-97 season, Anschutz’s first full season as owner, to $1.7 million this season. Leiweke said the Kings are spending 86% of every new dollar on salaries.

Counter the skeptical players: Something doesn’t add up.

“I have a hard time personally seeing that smart businessmen like [Anschutz and Leiweke] would go into a situation like Staples Center, like the Kings, without seeing an upside,” Norstrom said. “I have a hard time seeing them going into hockey and not having a vision that, ‘This is something that’s going to be a good business for us,’ building Staples Center and doing everything they’ve done for us in this beautiful practice facility [in El Segundo]....

“So I would be surprised if they were losing money.”

Added Schneider: “We’ve seen it before. It’s posturing.”