With Golden 1 Center, Sacramento City Leaders Have Eyes On 2019 NBA All-Star Game
SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — The location of Super Bowl 50 has many Sacramento city leaders pitching the city for another big sporting event—the 2019 NBA All-Star Game.
"I think there's some opportunity in Sacramento once the Golden 1 Center is completed and open," said Mike Testa with the Sacramento Convention and Visitors Bureau.
The Golden 1 Center will be opening its doors this fall as the new home of the Sacramento Kings.
"When you have a new facility for any sports league, the league wants to show off that facility," he said.
The NFL has frequently used the Super Bowl as a carrot to get teams and cities to build new stadiums. Levi's Stadium is the most recent example.
But when it comes to the NBA, a new arena has only scored an all star game five times since 2000. The MCI Center, later renamed the Verizon Center opened in 1997 and hosted it in 2001; the Phillips Arena opened in 1999 and hosted the 2003 game; the Toyota Center hosted the game in 2006 after opening in Houston in 2003, and the Amway Center in Orlando opened in 2010 and hosted in 2012.
"We've never had an all-star game here; it's about time," said Sacramento resident Gary Provencher. "And from everything I've seen this area is going to be completely transformed and it'd be really exciting to show it off to the country."
"Given the demographics of the region and the amount of availability within the region of Sacramento, they should be able to cover it," said resident Ben Monroe. "You have a new hotel going right here."
"Certainly, there's a chance," Testa said. "There are parameters set by the NBA that cities have to meet in order to qualify for that game."
One of the requirements is having 5,000 hotel rooms in the area around the arena. It's a number city leaders say they're actively trying to meet to help market the capital city on an international stage.
"In the cities that have hosted it previously, the economic impact is about $60 million dollars," Testa said.
Sacramento will host the first and second rounds of the NCAA tournament in March 2017.
