Recently, a story made me laugh out loud when I saw the title. The point of the story is that Ted Leonsis, owner of the NBA Washington Wizards and NHL Washington Capitals, wants to show how much he cares about the local communities getting involved with the teams that he owns. According to Leonsis, engagement with locals was a “fundamental responsibility” of the teams. Then he pats himself on the back for “emphasizing social responsibility” and claims to have been the “catalytic impact” for city growth. But today, and most importantly, Leonsis wants everyone to know that he is now concentrating on “community engagement” at Capital One Arena, their home venue.
Except, Leonsis does none of these things. He does essentially the exact opposite. He does almost nothing for the fans or local communities. Good God, where to begin? Let’s start with a brief history lesson. In 1994, downtown DC was an empty disaster, and the local government had practically no money. So, Abe Pollin built a $220 million arena without significant taxpayer help, outside of below-market loan rates and tax benefits that helped Pollin was his arena debt. In 2009, Leonsis took over ownership. It wasn’t long before this billionaire began crying about how he had inherited “the worst building deal in professional sports.” This worst deal in sports is quite criminal. The city makes Leonsis pay rent every year. What meanies! Several years into his ownership, Leonsis wanted a new practice facility for the Wizards. DC not only built him a new one but paid for 90% of the costs.
Probably my favorite moment of Leonsis occurred in 2016 when he told the media that the recent failures of the Wizards & Capitals happened because “he has to actually pay for his arena.” Then, he threatened to move the team when his lease was over. A writer for the USAToday called Leonsis’s statement “absolutely preposterous” considering Leonsis is the one who “hired bad people who have done a bad job.”
Deadspin did a hilarious job reviewing this statement by Leonsis:
“Here are some things that are true. The Wizards and Capitals are not strapped small-market teams scrounging for revenue in the couch cushions. They play their games smack dab in the downtown heart of one of the most affluent and desirable media markets on the planet…they have plenty of money. They are not handcuffed by anything but their organizational ineptitude, which is real and chronic…Ted Leonsis would like to have more money is neither a convincing defense of their failures nor a compelling argument for turning their bills over to the city’s taxpayers” – Deadspin, 2016
Around 2022, Leonsis decided he needed a full renovation of the arena at a cost of $820 million. Was something drastically wrong with the arena? Was the heat not working? No, the team wanted this renovation “because it could yield more ‘high-value’ seats that were closer to the floor and a range of new luxury and premium suites to maximize ticket revenue.” Still, somehow, Leonsis felt like the city wasn’t making him a “top priority” compared to the Commanders. Local leaders “seemed to care more for other teams“…Is this guy a teenager or a grown adult? Nevermind that Leonsis wasn’t the one who built the arena, wasn’t the one who decided on the arena’s location and still will not pay for anything without taxpayers taking on a significant chunk of the project. If he doesn’t get what he wants, he will act like a ranting baby who is upset at not being given everything that he wants. City officials were pretty clear that when they were negotiating with Leonsis, “money was his primary focus.” Is it any wonder that Leonsis continues to impose an almost yearly trend of hiking ticket prices for both the Capitals and Wizards?’
“The Wizards rolled out their season ticket pricing model for next season, which features price increases across a majority of sections, including hikes of over 50% as the team shifts to more premium seating. One source told Bullets Forever that his company’s cost for two season tickets increased from $14,952 to $23,352 for the 25-26 season. That’s a price increase of 56.1%” – BulletsForever.com, 2025
In 2023, Leonsis went around the DC local media claiming that his arena needed $700+ million in taxpayer money or else he could leave. In the same year, the governor of Virginia stupidly tried to coax the Capitals/Wizards to move into his state in exchange for at minimum $1.4 billion of taxpayer money. Both the Governor and Leonsis repeated taxpayers wouldn’t be on the hook for this project, yet never permitted the public to see the agreement nor permitted other government leaders to see it in time to review it properly. Let me say that again…Leonsis did everything he could to push the Virginia deal through the state government at the last second and with almost zero time to review. THIS WAS A BILLION-DOLLAR PROJECT! As Defector wrote in a story on this subject, Leonsis and Youngkin were hoping for a “severely compressed timeline” so that they could “pressure Virginia lawmakers into shoving along their plan to extract billions of dollars in public financing“. Youngkin dropped a multi-billion dollar project into the laps of state lawmakers and gave them a “single 60-day legislative session” that should have taken years to complete.
As Virginia State Senator Louise Lucas pointed out, this is insane:
“Lucas said that she was blindsided by news in December that Virginia’s Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin reached a deal with Monumental Sports and Entertainment owner Ted Leonsis to move the Washington Capitals and Wizards from D.C. to a new arena in Alexandria’s Potomac Yard neighborhood. She said that the deal was presented in such a rush that the legislature didn’t have time to vet the plan, or even thoroughly understand it.” – ALXNow.com, 2023
Last year, local taxpayers provided Leonsis with $515 million of taxpayer money to purchase and renovate the arena. Washington, DC, an area that was deep into an economic crisis last year and still is this year, gave a man with a net worth of $4 billion that amount of money? In fact, why on earth is DC buying the arena? Oh, that is right…”so Leonsis and his partners won’t have to pay taxes on the $515 million the city is giving them.” When someone brought up the absurdity of this entire transaction, Leonsis claimed that he “shouldn’t have to defend it” since this is “strategically like the right thing to do“? Great.
Now the arena is exempt from taxes. Does the public see a single dollar from the revenues? No. However, the team has tried to explain how these arena upgrades would continue to “put the community-first” since locals would receive “benefit(s)…directly“. What benefits? Well, how about the benefit of locals now seeing a “modernized building exterior“. According to the mayor of DC, the arena being good-looking will “improve” the “public realm“. How could that not cheer up a person looking for a job? Or somehow who is struggling to find his next meal? At least the Wizards have the biggest game day locker room in the entire NBA. Thanks taxpayers! It seems like Leonsis always brings up how he has put hundreds of millions of his own money into his arena. Except, no one has ever shown us proof of this, and sports teams keep their financial records incredibly secret. It is crazy to me that Leonsis can say this often yet never feel the need to show that he is actually doing it.
