WASHINGTON — The Prince of Potomac Yard spoke of water.
“After I first got here to this website,” Ted Leonsis mentioned Wednesday, “and stood on prime of the roof of the constructing subsequent door, and appeared over, we overlook the ability of getting two rivers stream proper into this neighborhood. And, iconic actual property is extremely vital. We’ve got entry — you’ll be able to see the Washington Monument from right here, Washington, D.C., the border’s one-and-a-half miles from right here.”
That have to be cool! So good that the billionaire proprietor of the Wizards and Capitals can have a swank view of the Potomac and Anacostia confluence from his soon-to-be floor-wide places of work in Alexandria, the place he’ll middle his leisure and sports activities empire. It could be unfair to say he actually will probably be wanting down upon the people who find themselves financing his JerryWorld, his BallmerVille, in Crystal Metropolis, or Nationwide Touchdown, or no matter title they like for his or her neighborhood throughout the river. However will probably be a swell view.
It’s, nonetheless, a view for one, for an viewers of 1. Which, in the long run, is how anybody who cares about and loves the District of Columbia ought to view this seemingly imminent departure of the Wizards and Capitals for Virginia.
A few of us are sufficiently old to recollect the “accomplished deal” between Jack Kent Cooke and Virginia state representatives from a era in the past on that exact same property for a brand new soccer stadium that got here aside like cotton sweet. So, possibly, the Virginia Common Meeting will elevate objections to this new venture that will probably be too nice to beat. Possibly NIMBYs in Alexandria will make their voices loud and annoying sufficient to drive reconsideration.
However, I doubt it.
“Maintain me accountable,” Leonsis mentioned Wednesday. OK.
That is about one man’s grandiosity, and readiness to depart when the town that has offered him a lot during the last a long time wanted somebody along with his voice and affect to say, post-COVID, and post-Jan. 6, and which is grappling with crime outbursts all through the town which have so many ailing comfy, “You already know what? Some issues could also be dangerous right here proper now. However I’m blessed sufficient to be financially safe sufficient to journey it out with you. I wish to be a part of the answer. So, I’ll be barely much less wealthy. I’m staying.”
Don’t inform me wealthy males don’t do that. That’s exactly what Abe Pollin did, when he constructed what’s now referred to as Capital One Area downtown, remodeling the town, in 1997 — largely along with his personal cash.
In contrast, Leonsis went for the bucks. Which, as I’ve mentioned and written dozens of occasions over time, homeowners of professional sports activities groups are completely inside their rights to do. They’ll play wherever they need their groups to play. They’ll make no matter offers line their pockets, and permit them to create the form of multi-use “leisure districts” that may deliver the well-heeled and well-connected to their new playgrounds. Nobody doubts that Virginia will construct Leonsis a state-ahead-of-the-art enviornment to be envied and admired.
However, will probably be onerous to take at face worth any future speak from Leonsis about his love of the District.
As a result of he is aware of how the Wizards, regardless of their present lot, imply to generations of basketball followers in D.C. I’m nicely conscious that the Wizards have been as soon as the Bullets, who as soon as performed in Baltimore — and, earlier than that, Chicago. I’m nicely conscious of the historical past of franchise roulette, in lots of cities, with many groups. That doesn’t imply it doesn’t harm, deeply, when your staff leaves city. When the Senators left, first, for Minnesota — after which, when the staff that changed them left for Texas, it harm this metropolis, badly. A few of us then adopted the Orioles, as a result of they have been the closest staff. We didn’t love them.
And when the then-Redskins left for Landover, Md. despite the fact that it was only a few miles from the D.C. line, it felt terrible. It nonetheless does.
Add this to the ledger.
As a result of Leonsis is aware of, greater than anybody, that the crowds who come to Wizards video games, and have come to them for the final 25 years, are among the many most various within the NBA – racially, economically, socially. Possibly Atlanta has related sorts of crowds for Hawks video games. Many of the league’s buildings, lately, are once more full, post-COVID. However, in the principle, their fan bases are very White and really wealthy. That hasn’t been the case right here since I began overlaying the staff, then enjoying at Capital Centre in Landover, within the late ’80s. Wizards crowds appear like the District — at the least the way it used to look. They won’t accomplish that when the staff strikes throughout the river.
(I’m not mentioning the Capitals’ crowds as a result of the Caps often bought out Capital One. Caps followers have represented for practically twenty years. I can’t then think about they received’t proceed to take action in Virginia.)
Each proprietor swears that his or her fanbase will observe the staff “simply down the highway” to the brand new place. The Warriors swore that gentle rail and categorical transportation would imply most of their middle-class followers would come from Oakland, throughout San Francisco Bay, and observe the staff to the brand new Chase Heart in downtown San Francisco.
They didn’t.
To make sure, Chase is full — however not with the individuals who stuffed what’s now referred to as Oakland Area for 3 a long time. It’s a must to pay for a $2 billion enviornment; you don’t accomplish that with $15 tickets. You do it with six-figure suites and five-figure courtside seats. As John Salley, who received 4 championships again within the day enjoying for the Pistons, Bulls and Lakers, famous when the Pistons moved from downtown Detroit 31 miles north to the Palace of Auburn Hills within the late ’80s: “We used to play in entrance of the auto staff. Now we play in entrance of the executives.”
It will likely be inconceivable to overlook what now seems like appropriation of the town’s tradition, by nicknaming Washington’s G-League staff the Capital Metropolis Go-Go, and centering D.C. at each alternative – plastering “For the District” and “The District of Columbia” in your Twitter feeds and the jerseys of Wizards gamers, or hawking this yr’s alternate jerseys with breathless historical past concerning the metropolis’s Boundary Stones, or slapping “D.C.” on caps and clothes — solely to stroll away from all of that, for the lover deal throughout the river, your Braves New World.
And if there may be any fact to the reporting that Leonsis was irritated by teenage youngsters performing … Go-Go music, exterior of Capital One? Properly, it’s onerous to know learn how to course of that. Buskers? That’s a problem?? Good Lord.
(After this was initially revealed, I used to be knowledgeable that Leonsis’ subject shouldn’t be with the road musicians who carry out in entrance of Capital One on occasion nights, however there’s a priority about one individual specifically who has been aggressive with passersby, each in entrance of the world and different companies close by.)
If you happen to’re not from right here, you could not perceive why a Wizards/Capitals transfer to Virginia is very troublesome for D.C. residents to simply accept. It’s simply 4 miles away from Capital One, Leonsis mentioned Wednesday.
It feels just like the Grand Canyon, psychically.
First, visitors. The dance of placing a 20,000-seat enviornment, apply facility, and new eating places/leisure venues into an space surrounded by Reagan Nationwide Airport, Amazon II and a big, busy mall, with many incoming and surrounding roads which can be at present one- or two-laners, is daunting. Sources concerned with the discussions mentioned Wednesday that important enhancements to the roads surrounding the proposed website, together with elevated light- and heavy-rail providers, are a part of the deal. It will likely be, nonetheless, a for much longer commute for a lot of — in the event that they choose to come back.
Will followers who’ve taken a 30-45-minute Metro journey from the Maryland suburbs to Gallery Place downtown be prepared so as to add one other 20-Half-hour of driving time spherical journey to get to and from Alexandria? For 7 p.m. begins for Wizards or Caps video games?
Second … nicely, put it like this. The best way that many Virginia residents really feel about coming into the District for an evening out, after they have One Loudoun or Reston City Heart obtainable, closer-in? District residents really feel the identical method about going out to Alexandria for an evening out, when we’ve got Penn Quarter or Columbia Heights or NoMa to patronize. You don’t really feel protected arising right here? Many people don’t really feel protected going on the market. You could have your causes. We’ve got ours.
It simply seems like, once more, the District’s been kicked within the abdomen – blamed, as a result of COVID reduce the variety of places of work working downtown down like a scythe, leaving eating places and bars with fewer patrons for lunch or dinner. Make no mistake, although: Mayor Muriel Bowser takes a Massive L right here. Her job was to stop one thing like this from taking place, as a result of you’ll be able to’t exchange the Caps and Wizards, and the power they’ve delivered to downtown. I do know it was troublesome to seek out the form of cash wanted to maintain Leonsis from wanderlust. That, nonetheless, is the job. They can’t depart in your watch. They’re leaving on hers.
I don’t doubt that the choice was troublesome, possibly even painful, for Leonsis. It could have been thus useful to him to precise what he was feeling Wednesday to reporters who requested to talk with him after the press convention, slightly than rebuff them. And he and his staff have concepts for learn how to remodel Capital One, now free of having to cross off dozens of potential days on the calendar yearly for Wizards and Capitals video games, to maintain the constructing busy as a rule. Ice reveals. Live shows. Actions in tandem with the D.C. Conference Heart, and/or Occasions D.C. The return of the Mystics to Capital One, after enjoying on the Leisure and Sports activities Area in Southeast. (Talking of which: what precisely does Leonsis plan to do, now, with ESA, about which he spoke so grandly, only a few years in the past?)
However, nothing replaces a sports activities staff in a metropolis’s soul. Nothing.
You already know one of many huge causes I got here to The Athletic in 2018? I used to be in San Francisco within the spring of that yr, watching the Capitals play the Penguins within the Japanese Convention semifinals, in my resort room, whereas overlaying the Warriors and Rockets. If you happen to’re from D.C., you knew, whether or not you Rocked the Pink on the common or not, how huge a ache within the butt the Penguins have been to the Caps for a decade, how desperately Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Bäckström needed, wanted, to beat Sidney Crosby and the Pens. It was City Enterprise.
So when Evgeny Kuznetsov scored on that breakaway time beyond regulation objective to seal the sequence over the Penguins, and the printed reduce to the cheering crowds exterior of Capital One, in Penn Quarter, deliriously joyful, and younger, and various, having lastly slain the beast, it did one thing to me. I mentioned to myself, in that resort room, “take a look at how joyful the town is. That’s superior. I’d prefer to be part of chronicling that.”
And I used to be, as I witnessed first-hand the Nationals profitable the World Sequence, and the Mystics profitable the WNBA title behind “Playoff Emma,” inside weeks of each other in 2019. And the enjoyment that these franchises delivered to my hometown was immeasurable, and ceaselessly.
I like this metropolis, my metropolis. And my metropolis was wounded, grievously so, Wednesday morning, when women and men on the opposite aspect of the river toasted their success, their deal nicely accomplished, and didn’t appear to offer a rattling concerning the ache left behind.
(Photograph of Ted Leonsis and Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin: Win McNamee / Getty Pictures)