On Wednesday morning, Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN and Shams Charania of The Athletic released several details regarding Adam Silver’s plan to bring the NBA back at the end of July. If the proposal clears the NBA Players Association on Thursday afternoon, which is expected to happen at this point in time, the league will bring back 22 teams to compete in a combination of eight regular season games, a play-in tournament, and the playoffs, with the Sacramento Kings included in that mix. While the eight games at the start of the tournament may appear to be nothing more than cannon fodder for the team’s to get back in playing shape prior to the playoffs, those handful of contests will actually save the Kings millions of dollars, as it will allow them to fulfill the obligations of their Regional Sports Network contract with Comcast SportsNet California.
In the summer of 2014, former Kings President Chris Granger was able to negotiate a 20-year television rights extension with Comcast, increasing the average annual income from $11 million to over $35 million per season, including a starting fee of $26 million with 4% raises each year, according to the Sports Business Daily. Those increases work out to be just a hair over $31 million for the 2019-2020 season, but there’s a catch in almost every RSN contract. If a team fails to play at least 70 regular season games, the network is only obligated to pay out the portion of the season that was actually completed, rather than the entirety of the contract. If the contract has already been paid in full, the franchise would be obligated to refund the network for the portion of the season that wasn’t completed. From the Kings perspective, they were sitting at 28-36 at the start of the hiatus, a measly six games shy of the minimum mark. If they had been left out of the tournament, Comcast would have only been obligated to compensate the organization for about 78% of the season, a figure coming out to around $24 million. If the Kings had already been paid the full amount, they would have been looking at a $7 million refund owed to their television provider, in addition to the millions of dollars in lost income due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Thankfully, the Kings played well enough after the All-Star break to be included in the tournament and make up those last few games. With the organization furloughing over 100 full-time workers for four months just a couple of weeks ago, a windfall of $7 million will certainly help the team’s bottom line. That said, this return still won’t offset losses from lost attendance, concessions, or other events at Golden 1 Center. But hopefully this might help to end the furloughs earlier than expected.
They got financial benefit, but they have to pay lots of BONUS to Buddy Hield !!
The GIF game in you is quite strong, youngin.
Obiwan!
I don’t do Star Wars.
But you do Gremlins, which is way better! Back in the olde days, b’fore thee furlough, I spent way, way too much money on a lifesized, latex Stripe to join the lifesized, latex Flasher Gremlin that was already in my home office. Now they just sit and stare at me (as I type this, or anything else involving sitting at my PC), and judge my past frivolity and current employment status. Bastards.
I’ve never seen Gremlins, is that weird?
I think it depends on your age bracket. I was four when it was released, but by a year or two later it was a VHS staple in my household, and is probably just as important to me as Back To The Future or The Goonies in regards to childhood movies of the era. My wife and I showed it to our eleven year-old nephew several months ago, and his reaction couldn’t have been any more lukewarm.
Gremlins ain’t never seen YOU!
I’ve only seen the original Gremlins once, I think. Twice, maybe. In fact, I’m actually a Goonies guy through and through. That was definitely my jam back in the 80’s.
I just was looking for an amusing profile pic and I couldn’t quite find something that captured the know it all Gremlin shooting another Gremlin with a .45 in Gremlins 2. That was one of the greatest comedic moments ever.
Also, Gizmo > all. But I digress.
I guess Brand got disillusioned with the Goondocks and made a quiet life in Texas when he grew up. Too bad that Chigurh fella crossed his path.
I wonder if they would have had the money to pay those furloughed employees if they didn’t fire a coach every other year and wouldn’t have given Vlade that extension.
Good point!
They could’ve paid 200 employees $120,000/year with the money they gave Z-Bo.
Imagine how much breakfast they could’ve fed George Karl!
Or me! I like breakfast, too, you know!
Waffles!
And Sunny Side up eggs! And sausage.
You speak my language.
speaking of sausage..have you ever had an ampm hot dog with nacho chili cheese, onions, jalapenos, shredded cheese, mayo and Tabasco? If so, then you get the RORDOG seal of approval Pookie!
…I’ll take ‘Only In Sacramento’ for $400, Alex.”
Finally!
No one ever expects the George Karl… OK yes we do. 😉
Ahahahahahahahahaha. Your biggest error Rik is to actually expect the Sacramento Kings being a well run organization. All they really are is high comedy.
Oh, I expect nothing but the worst. But I feel obligated to point it out.
This is good. Comcast certainly doesn’t need it. Now Kings please pay your employees, including Giles and Bogie.
Going to be tough to pay H Gizzy for the Kings this summer (or whatever this weird ass Covid equivalent turns out to be)…..but I guess the good news is there is plenty of reason to be skeptical on just what exactly Harry Giles will get on the open market unless this 8 game showcase shows him to be a true game changer than the talented young player still trying to gain consistency. 8 great games would be a huge turning point for H Gizzy to say the least.
I am not sure if he will even play that much in these 8 games. I would think Holmes is starting. Bagley will be back right? Len was playing some great bench minutes before the lockdown. It would not be surprising to see Giles out of the rotation.
I think we will have a much better idea in 5 weeks or so. There’s still so much to be done.
Agree. I don’t think there’s any chance Giles is in the rotation.
Looking forward to “rust” as an excuse for Bagley’s play, and then the “He needs a full training camp to get up to speed” excuse.
Without Grant, will the shilling diminish?
Why in the world would Harry Giles risk playing at all?
What exactly is the benefit to him not playing?
Protecting your body for upcoming free agency.
In most cases, I’d agree. But I think the pull for Giles is to show he’s not damaged goods. Playing tangible minutes in important games should only help him in free agency.
Really, now is his chance to showcase his game to the Kings and to other teams.
I agree KG. But what proof is there that H Gizzy is more than a 4th big man at this point? That’s the part that keeps getting missed IMO.
If hes healthy and the Kings were holding him out, as I suspect they were, the rest of the league front offices will know about it. Whether its from his agent or other sources.
And if that is the case I doubt we see Harry play much in this “Training Camp Lite” exhibition.
Photo choice, savage.
Oh, yeah. That’s a great pic.
and Vivek be like:
That’s a duo that really knows how to build an NBA franchise!
This is going to be an interesting July, for sure. Especially if MLB ever gets their head out of their ass.
Speaking of money, Grant not suing.
Grant f’d up so bad, he doesn’t even have a shred of a case.
I’m sure he’ll sue KHTK. Of course, what could they give him??
“Hello, KHTK? It’s me, Grant.”
KHTK:
Someone had the gall to set up a GoFundMe for his legal defenses? Even if there weren’t MANY other causes to pour spare resources into amidst the current climate of the world, asking the public to fund a millionaire bigot’s Get Out Of Jail Free card is preposterous.
Edit: It appears to have already raised over $10K. That means that, to the people that donated (including one for $5K alone), Peaches losing his job was a greater threat than a global pandemic and/or systematic racism, helping rebuild communities, feeding families who have had their neighborhoods demolished by rioters, or myriad other causes to donate to. This says a lot about the people defending him, too.
The 5k was Peaches priming the pump…
If Grant is truly as sorry as he says he was, maybe he could donate that money to a worthy charity.
He says he’s asking for it to be shut down and the money refunded.
Good for Grant Napear. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go wash the taste of those words out of my mouth.
Voice of the Las Vegas Raiders? “4TH AND 15 RAIDERS…. IF YOU DON’T LIKE THAT YOU DON’T LIKE CHUCKIES FOOTBALL!”
Please no.
So the Kings have played 64 games but need to reach 70 to reach the minimum games. They have 8 to do it. The question I have is who broadcasts the games. Do they need 70 games televised on Comcast to reach their deal or just 70 games total? What I mean by this is what if half of their 8 scheduled games are aired on TNT or ESPN? Do they still fulfill the deal?
I have all kinds of questions on how this works. Let’s just pretend the Kings were really good this year and ended up having 20 nationally televised games on ESPN, TNT, ABC, etc. Does that mean they don’t fulfill their 70 games need to be aired by Comcast?
I guess I need more clarification on this.
I have the same question actually. What is the NBA’s strategy to televise these games? A summer league style set up with everything broadcast on ESPN or TNT makes a lot of sense and I assume the league has an obligation to them, to cover for a ton of missed broadcast time.
I’m curious to see if all games might be broadcast nationally (ESPN/TNT) with a couple of rotating crews and just simulcast on each team’s local regional network.
Well, you’re the journalist around here.
Please go and ask.
kfipp is indispensable in his current role with TKH. He could end up being the Snackramento MVP!
I highly doubt each of the 22 teams are bringing their own broadcasting crews and staff. I think the only logical choice would be to have a handful of national folks call the games. On a similar tangent, how are they going to do radio?
So has Carmichael Dave just completely disappeared from Twitter?
Raise your hand if your employer allowed you to take a week off of work after a coworker got fired? That guy should be treading very lightly right now, can’t imagine the station is happy that he’s decided to go AWOL for Grant.
This is a tough issue to ride the fence on, and I suspect he’s still trying to figure out how to both support Grant and the decision to fire him.
Better be good, he’s had a week off to figure it out.
I don’t know man. We had a big all-staff zoom yesterday to reinforce our social media restrictions. We have people who are public representatives of the company, myself included. We can’t even toe the line regarding political posts, can’t even get close. Nothing is allowed, for good reason.
As an example, management talked about Grant’s episode.
Jason hasn’t tweeted since the 29th. Dave and Jason’s silence probably isn’t their call. A shitty situation all around.
Yeah, that makes sense, I suppose.
Is that policy strictly for your public facing employees, or are there restrictions on what any employee can post?
In my company, it’s pretty generic – they obviously won’t dictate how we handle our social media accounts, but they do make clear that publicly embarrassing the company is likely to get you shitcanned.
Feeling pretty good about that one – although I offer pretty strong political/social opinions on Twitter (imagine that), I haven’t gone viral doing something like, say…getting caught on camera manhandling small children who are trying to put up pro-BLM posters.
Our policy is that we can’t post anything political. The point of the meeting was to remind employees that social issues often become political, and when they do, you then cannot go there.
Kaepernick would be an excellent example of an issue that quickly becomes off limits, as it became political.
That’s interesting. Our company really shies away from dictating what anyone can chat about, they just make it clear that you aren’t shielded from the repercussions of the things you post on social media.
Well, we can safely cross Otis off of the suspects list now!
(Seriously though, that biker needs to get caught soon. What a menace to children.)
Fortunately, he was arrested not that long ago.
Oh wow. I see it’s a different guy than many people were pointing to on twitter. And it’s adults, not kids, who were attacked.
This makes sense.
Is your employer setting restrictions on your personal social media use, up to and including your comments here?
“I can’t comment on that.”
~ Marty, probably
I have no idea what you’re asking.
I’m getting caught in the trailing post threads. They update pretty fast. Is this the current one? I posted some really cool stuff about 5 back .. I think only Safety Cat is keeping up … wheeze
Ashamed to say I hadn’t registered til today. Adore the new site. So happy to see the die-hards from the other side still around. Reading all of the thoughtful talk about Grant the past few days made me feel a whole lot better about my neighbors. Thanks for TKH, and thanks for being yourselves, community. If missed you.
Signed,
An infrequent poster
This doesn’t really belong here, but my heart is full and grateful. Wanted to post the sentiment somewhere.
Gratitude and joy always belong everywhere. Glad you’re here.
Yeah, that is refreshing!
Badge Legend