Orlando Magic owner Rich DeVos owes a very big thank you to Kansas City Mayor Kay Barnes. So do the Maloof Brothers, owners of the Sacramento Kings, and you might as well throw Sam Fingold into the mix.

A Canadian who lives in Hartford, Fingold wants to buy the Pittsburgh Penguins and move the franchise to Kansas City. After Barnes used all of her political capital to get an indoor arena approved in a 2004 referendum, DeVos found himself with additional leverage in his bid to get Orlando to build his Magic a new arena because he could threaten to move the team to Kansas City.

Orlando currently has a vague arena proposal floating around, but there’s a long way to go before serious talks between DeVos and the city can take place. Meanwhile, the Maloofs, who saw talks with the city of Sacramento break off on June 29, find themselves with the same leverage.

Who knew Kansas City was such an attractive city? It became that attractive after city voters approved putting an additional tax on hotel and motel rooms and rental cars to help fund a state-of-the-art arena scheduled to open in 2007. DeVos’s lease to use the city’s arena is on a year-to-year basis. Pittsburgh’s lease agreement with Penguins ownership for the use of their city-owned arena expires next spring. Both franchises can move without any problems in time for the 2007–08 season.

The Kansas City mandate is a real threat to Orlando, Sacramento, and Pittsburgh because all of the respective owners of the Magic, Kings, and Penguins are serious about the prospect of uprooting their teams. In the past, DeVos has flirted with Louisville officials about moving the Magic there. Louisville, which has recently revived plans for an arena to be funded by the public with Kentucky Fried Chicken naming rights, has lost out in bids to land an NBA team three separate times. In 2000, Kentucky officials could not convince Houston Rockets owner Leslie Alexander to move his NBA, WNBA, and Arena League Football teams to the city after Houston voters approved a referendum that called for imposing the usual hotel/motel and car rental taxes to fund a new facility.

The following year, Vancouver Grizzlies owner Michael Heisley snubbed Louisville to accept an offer from Memphis city officials to relocate his Vancouver Grizzlies. Two years later,Charlotte Hornets owner George Shinn was persuaded to move his team to New Orleans with the promise of cash payments going directly into his pocket.

With an arena on the way, Kansas City will more than likely go after some team, be it an NBA or an NHL franchise, very soon. That’s where DeVos and the Maloofs gain the upper hand in talks with their respective cities.DeVos owns a scare commodity, an NBA franchise. Only 30 exist , and for some reason, politicians and business leaders have a history of chasing after teams despite a total lack of proof that sports franchises are economic engines.

In fact, one-time Nashville Mayor and current Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesan defended his decision back in January 1997 to spend hundreds of millions of taxpayers dollars to lure the NFL and Oilers owner Bud Adams to the banks of the Cumberland River after 37 seasons in Houston.

Bredesan admitted that Nashville might have seen more immediate rewards by spending the municipal money on building a supermarket or a factory instead of getting a football team, he conceded that the rewards of having a team extend beyond the nickel and dime aspects of financing a stadium.

“You cannot find new tax revenues immediately that totally support the cost of building a stadium and bringing a team there,” Bredesan said. “But I don’t think that’s what it’s about. There are many other reasons you want a team. There are the intangible benefits of being seen in another way than country music around the country and around the world. I think that’s a positive.”

At some point, DeVos will sit down again with Orlando officials and try to explain that it will be to the city’s benefit to build him a new arena, and that if Orlando doesn’t agree with him, he may decide he should indulge a Kansas City offer. Orlando officials are then going to have to decide whether having an NBA team in town is an economic engine or if it’s just a good thing to have a “Major League” aura to go along with the area’s theme parks. For the first time since negotiations began, DeVos is now in the driver’s seat because he has a Kansas City option as a fallback. His only problem is that he may have to compete with the Maloof Brothers and Fingold or one-time Hartford Whalers and Pittsburgh Penguins owner Howard Baldwin (who plans to put together a group to bring the NHL to Kansas City).

Inaction in the city council chambers of Orlando, Sacramento, and Pittsburgh’s may be Kansas City’s gain, but keep this in mind, too: In the early 1970s, Kansas City built a new arena and attracted an NBA team (in 1972) and an NHL expansion team (in 1974). The NHL team lasted two years, spent six years in Denver, and was brought to New Jersey in 1982 by John Mc Mullen.The NBA team moved to Sacramento in 1985. DeVos and the Maloofs or even Fingold may be looking for greener pastures, but there is certainly no guarantee that they will find it in Kansas City.