Tuesday night when we mentioned that AEG was for sale — that would be the entertainment and sports subsidiary of The Anschutz Co., run by Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz — the focus was on Los Angeles basketball. And with reason — AEG owns 40 percent of the Los Angeles Lakers plus the Staples Center where both the Lakers and Clippers play. Really, AEG is the driving force behind every major sport in Los Angeles except USC football.
But the impact of an AEG sale on the NBA is much, much bigger than just in Los Angeles. And if the units are not sold as one but are broken up into parts, things could get very interesting.
Henry Abbott at TrueHoop put together a partial list of teams that play in AEG buildings — the Spurs, Timberwolves, Nets (the new Barclays Center is part them), Grizzlies, Warriors, Blazers, Lakers, Clippers, Heat and Bobcats. AEG runs the Sprint Center in Kansas City, which is NBA team ready, all they need is a billionaire ready to buy and move a team there. AEG runs the arena in Louisville where they want to draw an NBA team. AEG owns and operates the O2 arena in London where NBA preseason games are a regular occurrence.
And that is a partial, condensed list.
AEG’s holdings go well beyond just the NBA and its buildings. They own Major League Soccer teams and buildings, they own movie theaters and shopping/entertainment centers (such as the LA Live facility across the street from Staples Center in Los Angeles). They own convention centers all over the globe.
AEG’s stated goal is to find one buyer to take over the entire company, a multi-billion dollar transaction. It is entirely possible that no one company wants all of it, instead the thing could be split up into a variety of smaller sales.
For example, the Los Angeles Times suggests the Madison Square Garden company would have interest in owning the Staples Center, the 40 percent of the Los Angeles Lakers, the NHL’s Kings (also owned by AEG) and maybe other stadiums. Which would be awesome, then James Dolan could let Isiah Thomas run the Kings.
The point is we’ll be following this, because a whole lot of NBA teams could be impacted by what happens with this sale.