Pistons may be moving downtown in 2017-18

Submitted by ypsituckyboy on

Per Crain's Detroit, it looks like the Pistons may be moving downtown in 2017-18 if final details can be worked out with Olympia Entertainment (owner of Little Caesars Arena).

I don't know about the rest of the MGoBlogeratti, but I would love that move. For folks closer to Ann Arbor, it's just too hard to trek up to Auburn Hills on most nights, especially if there's any kind of snow on the roads. A quick ride on 14/96 would be much faster and I'd probably go to a lot more games.

jmblue

October 28th, 2016 at 9:03 AM ^

When Bill Davidson bought the Pistons in the '70s, they were playing at Cobo Arena downtown.  Apparently, one night someone went after his family at a game and their bodyguard was badly beaten up.  Davidson was shaken by this and vowed to move the team to the suburbs.  (This was also at the height of white flight out of Detroit.)  He went to the Silverdome, set up his business headquarters in the area, and then built the Palace nearby.

MB989

October 28th, 2016 at 10:33 AM ^

Davidson chose the Silverdome over Joe Louis Arena because he got a sweet lease deal from the city of Pontiac. After that, Davidson had talks with Ilitch about merging the Pistons operations with Olympia and pooling their resources to build a joint facility, the end result being a situation like the Bulls and Blackhawks with the United Center. These talks failed (city would not budge on financing and arena revenues plus the Wings were stuck with an ironclad 30 year lease at the Joe), so Davidson decided to build his own arena in Auburn Hills. He agreed to privately fund The Palace if Oakland County agreed to fund the infrastructure. This worked for him financially because he got to keep all the profits from parking and concession, which he would have had to share in Detroit. That is how we ended up with the Pistons and Wings playing in different arenas. That's also the reason for the fued between Ilitch and Davidson. Davidson knew Ilitch could not build a new arena in the city of Detroit until his lease at the Joe was up (1979-2009) and had two decades to book all the premier concerts and shows at the Palace. He basically had zero competition because the Joe was obsolete the minute it opened. If Detroit had a state-of-the-art arena at the time, I'm pretty sure Davidson would have kept the Pistons in Detroit. Anyways, Gores knows the LCA will be the new leading concert venue in the region and with all the ancillary development nearby, he probably wants a piece of the action before it's too late. 

yossarians tree

October 28th, 2016 at 1:17 PM ^

The move to Oakland County was absolutely the smartest thing Davidson could have done at that time in Detroit's history. The city was at its ultimate lowest in the 1970s and 80s. The Palace became the model for every arena built in America since, and they made bundles of money on that place. Also at one point the Pistons sold out more than 200 dates. Fast-forward to 2016 and it now makes absolute sense for the Pistons to move back to Detroit, which is more central to the entire metro area and also obviously closer to a large African American population that loves the Pistons and the NBA. And anyone who has not been in the city lately will not recognize it. It is absolutely booming with new building and renovation of old buildings that have been vacant for decades. From downtown to midtown there is actually a shortage of available housing for all the people who want to live there. It's taken my entire adult life but Detroit is finally coming back for real.

MaizeAndBlueWahoo

October 28th, 2016 at 9:21 AM ^

The subsidies helped, but I saw a heat map of sorts that the organization put together that showed their season ticket holders mostly all lived north of the city.  A whole lot of them were complaining that making their way downtown and dealing with Atlanta downtown rush hour traffic was a huge pain.

Not to mention they'll now be able to control most of the parking and build a huge commercial development around the ballpark not unlike what's going up at the new Joe.  Almost certainly this is the next big trend in stadium design.  And having been to Turner Field once upon a time, the parking situation and general location was not unlike the old Tiger Stadium.  Dudes flagging you down into a large vacant lot.  It's still a really nice ballpark but it's surrounded by nothing.

jmblue

October 28th, 2016 at 9:00 AM ^

I think it's nice for them to be downtown, but I don't like the idea of the Palace, a perfectly functional arena, becoming a white elephant.

LSAClassOf2000

October 28th, 2016 at 9:04 AM ^

What I heard is that Gores tried to sell The Palace to Oakland County for a cool $380 million or so and the county basically told Gores to pound sand, so it seems like in that action alone that the intent was to move the Pistons to the city. I also heard he would prefer to be a partner, not a tenant, and that right now, the construction could still easily be modified to accommodate the Pistons, so there's that on timing perhaps. 

ypsituckyboy

October 28th, 2016 at 9:05 AM ^

I don't think that'll happen. They can keep it as a concert/event venue for now. When that outlives its usefulness, they can just tear it down and put a few automotive supplier HQs there. Auburn Hills is still growing as a popular area for suppliers to set up shop and think that's a pretty prime area for another set of office buildings.

MaizeAndBlueWahoo

October 28th, 2016 at 11:38 AM ^

Headliners fill the Palace now, so they might as well stay there.  They might prefer the downtown venue, but concert booking in the winter is such an absurdly complex venture that I suspect a lot of managers won't want to bother with nitpicking over whether the venue is downtown or not.  If they can get a more flexible selection of dates at the Palace, they'll take it, especially since they're much more likely to find multiple dates in a row.  They already play loads of suburban venues anyway.

jmblue

October 28th, 2016 at 9:09 AM ^

Whether it was a good idea to build it or not is moot; it's there.  The question is what to do with it.  

On the plus side, Davidson used entirely private funds to construct it, so the city isn't on the hook like Pontiac was for the Silverdome.

 

 

jmblue

October 28th, 2016 at 9:40 AM ^

That's a concern - that it's going to be unloaded on the taxpayers.  It would be nice if he could find someone else to buy it,.  At any rate, he's got to accept a greatly reduced price if he sells it without the Pistons as a tenant.

MB989

October 28th, 2016 at 10:50 AM ^

I think it was a smart move by Gores. He knew Patterson would not buy the Palace but what it did was make Oakland County an unofficial real estate broker to get the Palace and grounds sold. Gores and the Pistons are good as gone and he could leave the Palace empty which would be no different than Pontiac leaving the Silverdome empty. People will say what about the money he has invested? Chump change... he's a billionaire. He is not going to miss it and with the opportunity to make more due south (will have plenty of real estate options to choose from in the District Detroit) I don't think he's gonna break a sweat. The dude just spent  $100 mil on a new home

MB989

October 28th, 2016 at 10:46 AM ^

Is the Palace still a nice viable building? Sure. Would a contender for a championship every year help attendance? Duh. None of that changes the fact that the Palace sitting at a freeway exit in suburbia with 72 acres of parking around it that you must get your car into and out of in order to do anything other than attend the event just plain sucks and couldn't be anymore 1980s lame.

MAccLA

October 28th, 2016 at 9:11 AM ^

My sense -- full disclosure both are clients of mine but I have no inside info -- is that Gores has wanted to move the team to Detroit since he purchased the team, he just didn't want to build his own arena. Gores has a vested interest in moving the team to downtown Detroit, not just because it would help with ticket sales and attendance, but also because he is working to establish a business relationship with Gilbert on a new MLS team in Detroit.

The Mad Hatter

October 28th, 2016 at 9:25 AM ^

better not buy the Palace for anything more than a dollar.  I'd rather see it sit empty or be burned to the ground than have my tax $ spent on buying it.

I get why Gores wants to move the Pistons downtown, and it would be closer for me to attend games there, but the Palace is still a perfectly fine arena.

They need to start building stadiums to last.  This "need a new one every 20 years using public money" bullshit has to stop.

MB989

October 28th, 2016 at 10:57 AM ^

When it comes to financial and revenue discussions, I think it's worth pointing out that not only is the NBA growing here and globally, they also have a massive new TV deal and could make even more money from expansion to Seattle/Vegas. There is a ton of money flowing into the franchises and owners right now. Gores bought the team for only $315 million, which was pretty cheap in relative terms. I've seen them valued as high as $800 million. I'm not sure he's going to sweat too much about parking revenues and money spent on upgrading the Palace. 

nerv

October 28th, 2016 at 11:39 AM ^

While Im also in Royal Oak Ill take that trip to Auburn Hills over downtown any day. Im going to spend that extra 15 minutes, and usually more, trying to find somewhere to park then walking from wherever the heck I found to the actual stadium.

Seems Im in the minority here but I really would prefer the Pistons stay where they are. Im dragged downtown for most concerts and all other sports.. was nice having something I could go to and avoid the congestion of Detroit altogether. Not to mention the Palace is a nice venue in fine shape; also isn't named after a colon cleansing pizza.

The Mad Hatter

October 28th, 2016 at 11:57 AM ^

on how you feel about downtown / Detroit in general.  I spend a fair amount of time down there and it has been totally transformed in just the past few years.  Usually when I'm going to a show or a game I like to do something before and/or afterwards and downtown is great for that now.  

Plenty of nice bars and good restaurants.  And if you know your way around you can get parking at a pretty reasonable price and use the People Mover to get reasonably close to the stadiums.

RHammer - SNRE 98

October 28th, 2016 at 1:18 PM ^

area around the arena and "the District", plus the M-1 light rail line going in, parking congestion at the venue itself for special events will be markedly reduced; plus, if/when Patterson gets his head out of his ass and stops poo-pooing the extension of the M-1 to Ferndale/Royal Oak, people in OakCo will have even better options for getting to and around the venue...