The thing is, you can interpret this announcement any way you want. Only over time can we really say which way this is going. I doubt the Spurs have decided anything at this point.
One thing I’m curious about is the balance of team income from home games (tickets and concessions et cetera) vs television. Now, I think teams ridiculously make money from the arena year round for whatever events are there. Publicly subsidized for private profit, but need clarification. Austin is a better city to have an arena in general but probably more compe ion for events, because I think UT has its own new arena that Matthew McConaughey was an investor in; I don’t keep up withis though, I’ll admit.
Finally, most importantly in my opinion, the Brooklyn Nets eminent domain boondoggle should open our eyes that building an arena is really just the legal excuse to take over a neighborhood for a larger real estate deal that only includes an arena but isn’t limited to it; for Brooklyn it was condos and retail space I believe.
If I was a developer looking to pull this type of move, honestly, between the cost of Austin real estate fair market value and east side SA, I would push to tear down the Alamo Dome, start over, build a load of condos and retail space right on the edge of downtown SA. It’s definitely growing quickly there.
So anyway, that’s one of many possible predictions based on dubious real estate practices that would actually keep the team in SA. It’s still a lot of bull , but would keep the team here and probably the best of all real world scenarios.