Loose Lips can remember rolling his eyes so hard he nearly popped a blood vessel when the preliminary terms of the District’s deal to keep the Capitals and Wizards in the city became public in early April.
Monumental Sports owner Ted Leonsis asked to not pay taxes that benefit other pro sports teams in D.C., in a very funny bit of sniping at his colleagues with the Nats and Commanders, and he had a whole host of demands about how the city would to reshape the Chinatown neighborhood to his liking to keep him at Capital One Arena. No detail was too small in the billionaire sports owner’s wish list—even one specific restaurant’s streetery was targeted for removal simply because Leonsis didn’t like it.
So LL was relieved, if largely unsurprised, that the city has refused (or convinced Leonsis to abandon) many of his most outlandish requests in the final version of the deal, which Mayor Muriel Bowser officially submitted to the Council for approval on Friday. The full details are still trickling out, but the proposal at least appears to be more advantageous to the District than the one initially advanced in the spring. The city is forking over $515 million to overhaul an arena that is hardy falling down, after all, so this is perhaps the least Leonsis could do…