Investor Chris Hansen says he remains committed to getting the NBA back to Seattle even though he just lost one of his biggest partners in the process.
That investor was Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who just bought the Clippers for $2 billion.
But Ballmer’s deal in Los Angeles leaves him out of Hansen’s investment group that has attempted to get a team back to Seattle.
Hansen says environmental reviews on a proposed arena are nearing completion and “we will soon be in a strong position to attract a franchise” to Seattle.
There were rumors that Milwaukee could be that franchise, but now it would cost an investment group a billion dollars or more to purchase a team and move it to the Pacific Northwest. And Seattle just lost its billionaire.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver demanded a new stadium in Milwaukee by 2017 – the same year the lease expires at the Bradley Center – or the league could buy the team back … though now, it’s uncertain what the price would be.
There have been no specific financing plan for the arena, yet.
Wesley Edens, one of the Bucks’ new owners, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Thursday, “We haven’t cracked the book yet on the whole arena part. We have talked to a number of developers and designers to make pitches to us in the next month or two.”