The mayor and the sports mogul kept meeting, even after Ted Leonsis, managing partner of Monumental Sports & Entertainment, stunned D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and the region with plans to move his basketball and hockey teams to Virginia.
“The mayor pinged me, reached out to me, texted me, and then we started having our ‘dates,'” Leonsis said Wednesday, moments after announcing it has reached a deal that would keep the Capitals and Wizards in a renovated Capital One Arena downtown D.C.
“We would go pretty much every week, every other week, to the main couch in the lobby at the Waldorf, and I would jump up and run to the bar and get some drinks and we would sit, but we would talk about what’s the vision for the city,” he said. “Because what I was most interested in is, How are we going to reinvent, reimagine, be in this together?”
During Wednesday’s news conference, he laid out a vision for the arena district — but said staying in the District carried a requirement. “Land. Space. We need space,” said Leonsis, who has said he wants to turn Monumental into “the world’s most valuable regional sports and entertainment company” and would have had 12 acres at Potomac Yard had that move gone through.
