Comcast deal may bring NBA team to Va.

Comcast Corp. may be part of a deal to relocate the NBA franchise Sacramento Kings to Virginia Beach, Va., according to a published report.

Inside Business, a business publication in Norfolk, Va., reported early Thursday that next week, Comcast-Spectacor will discuss plans with Virginia Beach officials for a new basketball arena and that Comcast could help finance the project with naming rights.

A bid for the Sacramento Kings would be the latest attempt by the Norfolk-Virginia Beach metropolitan area, the nation's 43d-largest TV market, to claim a professional sports team. In the late 1990s, Norfolk almost became home to a National League Hockey team but lost out to Raleigh, N.C., according to Inside Business.

Comcast-Spectacor, which owns the Philadelphia Flyers and operates an arena-management business, is a Comcast subsidiary with $4 billion a year in revenue.

The Sacramento Kings franchise owner, the Maloof family, has confirmed that it has been approached by other cities, but a spokesman on Thursday in an e-mailed statement to a California newspaper did not confirm that Virginia Beach was on the list.

Tim Frank, NBA senior vice president for basketball communications, said, "We have no information from the Kings on this matter and there has been no application for relocation."

Ike Richman, of Comcast-Spectacor, said Thursday that company officials "will elaborate our collective plans for a new arena" with Virginia Beach public officials on Tuesday.

"Despite preliminary reports, no specific professional sports team from any league has been identified as the potential tenant for this building," Richman said.

Comcast and the Sacramento Kings would not be strangers. Comcast carries Kings games on its CSN California regional sports network. An NBA franchise in Virginia Beach could be shown on a separate Comcast-owned regional sports network, SportsNet Mid-Atlantic.

But the Sacramento Kings TV rights would not automatically transfer, an official said.

Hampton Roads, the name for the Norfolk-Virginia Beach metro area, would not be the smallest NBA market. New Orleans, Memphis, and Oklahoma City are smaller, said sports consultant and former NBA executive Ed Desser.

Contact Bob Fernandez at 215-854-5897 or bob.fernandez@phillynews.com.