Arena Woes: Why Ilitch should not buy the Pistons in order to build a stadium

All of the talk about the Pistons potential new purchaser has peaked the interests of the paper writers. All of the talk flying around seems to do nothing more than hurt my head. Drew Sharp has written that no owner could own three teams without one of those teams hurting. First off, he fails to recognize that the Pistons previous owner accomplished just that in the last decade! Davison owned the Detroit Shock, Tampa Bay Lightning, and of course the Pistons. Each of these teams has won a championship in the 2000s, so in what way can an owner not successfully manage three teams? If Ilitch has the passion, which he does for two of his teams already, and the money then he can do a good job.

Secondly, Drew then complained that it would clearly be the Pistons and not the Red Wings that would suffer, while leaving the Tigers completely out of the mix. Personally I believe that in terms of management, the only thing Ilitch will do is hire the person he believes can best put things together and then sign checks. This is why the Wings are so good and the Tigers can be up and down, it is because of the people he put in place. In terms of running the team, I still put that more in the hands of the front office then in the owner.

However the three teams could suffer in other ways, and I find that the pistons are the least likely to suffer from these ways. The Tigers could end up seeing their budget drop off in a way the other two sports teams would not. The highly structured cap of the NBA makes the contracts default to set maximums within a hard cap. If Ilitch owned the Pistons this off season, the money spent on the Tigers and Wings would make no impact on the size of contract he could have offered LeBron, Wade, Bosh or Darko for that matter. With the soft cap and the way the team is built currently they would still be spending the same amount of cash.

The Wings have always played up to the cap and have little wiggle room, so it is possible they would suffer, but not as likely given our history. The Tigers however have moved players because they did not want to pay a lot of salary, and they have gone into the luxury tax, meaning if they do again it will cost them even more money. If there is anywhere to cut salary it would be the sport with the highest cap, highest costs, and highest repercussions to going over. Sure it is Mike’s greatest love, but perhaps not as much as his love of money. If salary is going to come into play I would bet on it affecting the Tigers.

The Wings are the only ones this seems to really impact negatively in a realistic manner. A shared arena between basketball teams and hockey teams really equates to squeezing a hockey rink in to a basketball arena whenever there isn’t the more popular sport of basketball being played. This means the Wings would have to schedule their games around the Pistons, which could lead to tighter schedules where our superstars would be more exhausted or rusty depending on the nature of the schedule, both of which could lead to injuries.

The Wings would also have to play on much inferior ice, ask any player when they keep switching back and forth between hardwood and ice, the ice surface suffers while the court remains the same. This would highly affect the Red Wings puck possession-crisp passing style of play. It makes the game slower and leads to bad bounces, both things have hurt the Wings in the playoffs before and neither are things I want to see more of. The boards would be drastically different from night to night if they were rushed to be reassembled constantly which would take another home-ice advantage out of their pockets.

Not only would the Wings suffer, but the fans would too. Have you ever been to a hockey game in a basketball arena? I have not only seen NHL games in other arenas, where you are so far away from the action it feels as bad as when they put hockey games into Ford Field, but I have seen the Vipers play at the Palace and shutter at the prospect that this is our future. That doesn’t even bring into account that ticket prices will skyrocket to pay for this new arena so a ticket in the back row could be 3 times higher while being 50% farther away from the action. All of this without brining into account of midlevel suites. Often first row seats in the corners would be at awkward angles several feet above the ice like at Madison Square Garden, leaving fans in the corners incapable of seeing the action in the corners. Good thing nothing ever happens in the corners at a hockey game!

I have read several times how this could be such a game changer for Detroit. How a new dual stadium would make our town more of a destination, and revitalize the city. I just wonder where that logic comes from. If the Pistons and the Wings get a stadium together, all that would mean is that we have three arenas downtown. Let me think a second so I do not make a mistake while counting. Ford Field… Comerica Park… Joe Louis Arena… three. Yep, we already have three arenas, so how would this be any different?

Maybe they mean a new arena would make people come downtown. Wait a minute though, they already come downtown for the Wings, Lions, and Tigers games anyways, even in this poor economy. I guess if it was built next to the Fox… but then you would just have a higher concentration in one spot and we would be revitalizing an area of downtown that is already been revitalized… I just do not see how that would help. Maybe it would create revenue for the city of Detroit… no Rosenberg correctly points out that this could cost the city of Detroit over $400 million when the city is already beyond broke.

The only benefits I could see are for the Ilitch bottom line. The city builds him a new arena that would make his land skyrocket in value, allow him to hog all the profits, and have a building that could be booked every night. I do not like the prospects of doing all of this to make the richest amongst us better off. I would rather see ticket prices stay low, the quality of all games remain high, and the city be less centralized and more vibrant.

The Pistons deserve to be downtown as well, but I don’t think it wise to force the issue. I surely am a Wings fan first and believe that the sports franchise that is amongst the oldest in the sport and most successful in Detroit should have the honor and right to have its own building. The Phoenix Suns and Coyotes do not share a stadium and they pale in comparison of the Pistons and Wings in history and success. The Joe needs a facelift for sure or maybe even to be rebuilt, but not to the point that the Pistons should be sold to get this accomplished. If the Wings were to move away from that spot it NEEDS to be to a spot of their own. The Pistons could always get more out of the Palace which is in good shape, or find a place of their own downtown.

Best case scenario is that there are two separate new buildings both east and west of the Renaissance building so the city can grow again in every spot. Or maybe Wayne State deserves some revitalization, or perhaps around eight mile. Macomb County just had suffered a massive loss in economic terms according to another Free Press article based on census data, maybe the Wings would fit in there better? The point of all of this is that this issue is not a magic bullet that will solve everyone’s problems and if we treat it like that we are going to as a city, sports teams, and fans suffer because of it. Ford Field and Comerica worked because they are dedicated complexes with dedicated owners for dedicated fans. The Pistons and Wings deserve no less, if Ilitch isn’t that owner willing to have dedicated complexes, then I say the Pistons owe it to the city to sell to someone else who is in it to win it. “It” not being money from the downtrodden people of Detroit.