These Kings are unifying a community. And changing the national narrative about Sacramento

Sacramento, like so many cities of its size, most often finds itself in the national conversation when something bad happens.

Examples?

A little over a year ago, six people were killed in a mass shooting on K Street. Deadly wildfires blaze across TV screens and fuel discussion about breathing hazardous air. And the region’s wincing struggles with homelessness — common in many communities but especially acute here — also have drawn attention far and wide.

But something has changed in Sacramento. And while it may sound superficial, it has a lot to do with that purple laser streak of light that dramatically rises over the arena after a Sacramento Kings win.

For many here, that beam — and their team’s improbable rise to prominence — is a beacon of hope. And a unifying force that creates a perhaps subtle, but also feel-good national narrative about our community.

Sports can do that. The Kings are doing that.

Patrick Rishe, a sports economist and Director of the Olin’s Sports Business Program at Washington University in St. Louis, sums it up this way:

“There has been a lot of dark years in Sacramento,” he said. “The Kings franchise has gone through a lot. Light the beam has become a rallying cry, a unifying cry in the community. Around the nation people know what it means.”

The “light the beam” concept, he believes, is one of the most genuine and effective sports marketing campaigns he has ever seen.

The inarguably positive Sacramento Kings “light the beam” storyline has put the capital city in the national news for good reasons. From teenage girls who never considered themselves basketball fans to an activist who opposed the arena, there is a sense that the renewed pride the beam has brought to Sacramento is real and indelible. Even the check-out lights at the Sacramento Food Coop have been switched to purple.

A mayor’s perspective

In an interview with The Sacramento Bee, Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg said, “the Kings’ story is a lot like Sacramento’s story. They have incredible character. They are resilient, they’ve overcome so much.”

Steinberg attended the Kings victory in Game 2 of the first-round playoff series against the rival Golden State Warriors, but said for him, “the happiest moment was before and after the game outside the arena, just to see the thousands of people.”

Steinbergplanned to attend Game 5 Wednesday evening.

In the urban basketball courts at Roosevelt Park, in between pickup games basked in the hue of a warm spring evening, the chatter was about whether star player De’Aaron Fox’s heroics — and perhaps this larger magical moment — would be derailed by a wounded finger on his shooting hand.

Ariston Davis, currently studying to be a surgical tech, said after watching Fox “not back down” against the Warriors’ Draymond Green, during a tense moment in Game 4, he knows the Kings guard is going to suit up and find a way to be effective.

“Fox and this team, the beam, have woken up this city,” David surmised. “They’ve brought back pride. It’s great for the city.”

Minnie Gutierrez, a senior at C.K. McClatchy High School, said she never paid much attention to the Kings. But all the excitement has changed that. How could it not?

Gutierrez’s classmates send each other images of the beam rising over their houses and post them on social media. A hand-scrawled sign on purple poster board in the hallways of the school today cajoled students taking AP tests to “Be a King like De’Aaron and work through the pain.”

Gutierrez said it also appeals to her that the Kings have a smart, female broadcaster in Kayte Christensen. “And the players are like passionate, not macho.”

At Mast Cafe around the corner from Tower Theatre on Broadway, Jonah Paul was wearing an SEIU shirt — purple of course — in support of his union but also the Kings.

“Fox is definitely my favorite,” he said, “but I like Malik Monk. His confidence is contagious.”

So, too, has been the purple fever sweeping a city that has waited for a moment like this for 17 years — 17 years of losses that have piled up amid concerns about the future of the team and what kind of taxpayer commitment it would take to keep them.

Such concerns raise larger existential questions about the true value of professional sports, especially in smaller markets craving positive exposure.

The skeptic turned fan

Paul is a housing activist who has led rent control campaigns in Sacramento. He said he opposed the $223 million bond the city floated to help pay for the arena to keep the Kings from fleeing a decade ago. Still, Paul acknowledged that he has been swept up by the beam spirit, attending downtown watch parties and cheering along with thousands of others.

“The beam won’t house us,” Paul said. ”It won’t help feed us. But the beam is for everyone. It’s lifting our spirits.”

Steinberg believes that indirectly the beam can help address social needs. In his annual State of Downtown address in February, he mentioned the purple laser 25 times.

“Sure it’s a little bit kitschy,” Steinberg told The Bee, “but we should light the beam figuratively for all the great things happening in Sacramento. Overcoming the pandemic and all the other challenges in our community. The incredible energy around art and culture and music and food and housing. All the investments that people from outside Sacramento are making in Sacramento because they see the arc of the city.”

Amid this dramatic series with the Warriors, the Kings have held free watch parties both for fans outside thearena at Downtown Commons, or DOCO, for home games and opened the Golden 1 Center for road games.

In the sold-out watch party for Game 4 Sunday, the fact that the action was happening 90 miles away in San Francisco and being shown on a huge screen seemed to melt away. Fans cursed referees’ tough calls and chanted “MVP” during Fox’s fourth quarter heroics.

It was as though, somehow, the Kings could hear them. That somehow these raised voices could propel the team — and inspire another chapter to this feel-good story, another chance for the nation to see the city in a positive light and for its residents to bask in this unifying moment.

Chris Tellez, a home inspector from Elk Grove, took advantage of the free admission. He brought 25 friends and family to the game, sitting a few rows from courtside in seats they could never afford.

“This is bringing pride back,” Tellez said. “The way it was in the 2000s.”

While this team evokes memories of the team’s heyday Chris Webber and Peja Stojakovic era, “this is better,” Tellez said. “We have the beam. Our team is downtown. It’s brought life to the city.”