SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The Sacramento Kings are on a five game winning streak and the team may be directly impacting the local economy.
There's a visible difference in the Downtown Commons, DOCO, depending on if the Kings are playing at home or away. Wednesday night, during an away game, the plaza was empty but it's packed to the brim for home games.
The Polanco Cantina has one of the best views of the Kings winning season and the general manager Liz Guerrero says their winning streak is making a difference for businesses.
“It definitely does help to offset the slower times, we have a front row seat to the successful season it’s been really fun to watch and when that beam is lit we have a great view,” said Guerrero.
Which is part of what the Downtown Sacramento Partnership is calling a "revitalization of downtown."
Scott Ford, with economic development, says leisure spending is 209% which is nearly a 110% increase from 2019. There has also been a huge increase in foot traffic.
“We had 16.5 million people visit downtown Sacramento. That was 30% over 2021 numbers,” said Ford.
Much of this change is attributed to the Kings.
“Pedestrian traffic we are seeing a shift in evening and weekends. We say that those times are becoming the new nine to five and a lot of that has to do with Kings game selling out," said Ford.
But the kings are truly a hyper local economy, catering to nearby fans instead of those outside of the region.
Hotels like the Hyatt Regency see a bump from concerts and events at the Golden 1 Center, but Brenda Kirian, the Director of Sales, says they don’t see an increase for Kings games.
“The Kings are more of a local drive market, so you are getting people from Placer and El Dorado counties. Obviously all of us in Sacramento love the Kings so not really from out of town, more local,” said Kirian.
We asked the Kings organization about their correlation to the local economy, and they provided this statement: “We are enormously proud of the impact the development of Golden 1 Center and the downtown commons (DOCO) has had on the region.”
The downtown partnership and local businesses are both expecting to see another big surge in business for this years March Madness.
