Sam Mellinger

The Kansas City Star

So AEG, the company that essentially tricked Kansas City into believing it would attract an NBA or NHL team with the Sprint Center and its massive super awesome professional connections, is up for sale.

I have a few messages into folks trying to figure out what this means for us, for Kansas City, but my suspicion is this: bupkis.

AEG got everything it wanted, and now AEG wants out. More specifically Phil Anschutz, who has local-ish roots, wants out. It’s the right business play for him and his company, and there’s nothing more heart-warming than an uber-rich company setting out to get even uber-richer while essentially continuing to ignore or forget what it said it could do back in Kansas City.

I’ll pass along the information as it comes in, but my suspicion is Kansas City is still in the position it was in last week: an NBA or NHL team coming here is a ginormous longshot depending on a daunting series of factors all leaning our way, most significantly an owner (presumably with Kansas City roots) to make it happen.

Which is another way of saying: it’s not happening.

I suppose the Cerner guys have the money to do it, but they also have a lot going on and — at least to my knowledge — haven’t expressed an interest in NBA or NHL ownership.

This is the part where some misguided souls say silly things like an NBA or NHL team would take away prime concert dates, as if the Sprint Center would be the only arena in either league hosting other events or that Eric Church or college hockey or Madonna on a Tuesday night is the last obstacle to bringing a team here.

It would be nice if sometime between now and the sale, someone for AEG admitted the company mislead Kansas City and expressed some sort of regret.

But the chances of that happening are even less than the chances of them landing a team here.

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