This surely will be a dog chasing its own tail, but follow along, please.

The Sacramento Kings’ new home will be Davis; the team will be owned by the citizens of this fine community.

All proceeds from operating the franchise annually will go back into the coffers of the People’s Team.

At the end of each season, the city of Davis will get a check for $2 million to $5 million. Another $5 million will go directly into the city’s schools and almost $2 million in grants will be awarded to deserving area organizations.

Throughout the season, the Yolo Delta Kings (as we’re now calling them) will keep a keen eye on concessions, parking, maintenance, ticket-taking and several other game-day functions. Supervised professionally, these services will be provided by area nonprofits.

That way, even more much-needed cash will flow back into worthy local service programs and clubs.

UC Davis, benevolent as usual, will work with the NCAA and the Big West Conference to smooth over schedule conflicts, because until the new stadium is built (across from Harper Junior High), The Pavilion at UCD is the new home of the Delta Kings.

There’s a lot of “in-between” work to do: forming a board, creating the stock offering, finding big investors who would be the foundation on behalf of their community, leveraging the original money raised, and on and on …

Won’t work, you say?

The Green Bay Packers are owned by their community. That Wisconsin town of 104,000 is known as Title Town USA. And didn’t the Packers just win the Super Bowl?

Why can’t Davis win an NBA title?

I sat down with former National Cooperative Bank official and local resident David Thompson this week and asked “Why not, Davis?”

“Real Madrid and Barcelona of La Liga (European football) are community-owned,” Thompson explained. “And they have the highest number of championships. There are two others teams in La Liga owned by their cities.

“If we were to measure that against the NFL, what we would find is that when the fans own a team, like Green Bay … that team never leaves that community. You (don’t have) owners who are going to sell the club so it can go to another community.”

Or entertain “best offers” from other cities, like You Know Who to the east.

“Look at many other clubs in the NFL. Many have been sold by this owner to that owner and they go to another city … and another,” Thompson said.

The Chicago/St. Louis/Phoenix Cardinals and the Cleveland/Los Angeles/Anaheim/St. Louis Rams come to mind.

Thompson, co-principal of Neighborhood Partners, wrote a piece in Tuesday’s Enterprise hailing Barcelona’s recent Champions League victory over Manchester United. He believes cooperative sports in the United States would work. But there are a handful of daunting negatives to navigate …

* In 1960, new commissioner Pete Rozelle — at the request of owners — wrote into the NFL bylaws (Article V, Section 4) that “charitable organizations and/or corporations not organized for profit and now not a member of the league may not hold membership in the National Football League.”

Called the Green Bay Rule, it’s been eased in some manifestation into all American major sports leagues.

* The pro leagues are protected from antitrust laws (although the NFL is being challenged on several fronts as we speak).

* The existing owners fear the Cooperative Reaper and would, according to Thompson, never vote for such a thing. Green Bay is just too darn efficient and will remain forever in place.

OK, I was only half serious about the Kings coming here. Hey, Maloofs? How about some more pre-season games at The Pavilion?

While I Have You Here: Thompson, born and raised in Blackpool, England, was a young man in the late 1960s. During Robert Kennedy’s run for the Democratic presidential nomination, Thompson was living in California and served as part of Kennedy’s security team.

Forty-three years ago Saturday, Kennedy was shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. He died two days later. Thompson obviously wishes things had been different.

“I apologized that day and told (the Kennedy staff) I couldn’t come that night,” Thompson remembers, thinking back to June 4, 1968. He had a journalism final at Santa Monica City College. He had to study. Blow this test and he wouldn’t get into UCLA.

Just before midnight, his phone rang:

“It was a girl (from) the campaign. She said ‘Robert Kennedy’s been shot. And it’s very bad,” Thompson. “If I didn’t have that test, I would have been amongst all that stuff.”

How does Thompson think Kennedy would have changed American history?

“We never would have had Nixon. We would have had a different ending to the Vietnamese war. How would it end? No one knows. Certainly it would have been shorter. We would have made more progress in civil rights.”

Would our relationship with Islamic nations have been any different?

“When it comes to America and its oil appetite, we’re driven by the economics and not the socio-political component,” Thompson added, shaking his head, doubting much would have changed in that regard.

— Bruce Gallaudet is a staff writer for The Davis Enterprise. Reach him at [email protected] or (530) 747-8047.

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