11th Hour Deal Saves Knights Season; Future Remains Uncertain

[Apollos]

December 17, 2031: Only hours prior to a scheduled hearing at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Geneva, the Tempe Knights and Tempe Heat F.C. have agreed to terms which would allow the Knights some scheduling rights for the upcoming 2032 baseball season at the team’s shared home, The Keep. While details have yet to be released, it appears the Knights have extracted concessions from the Heats’ management consortium to allow the baseball club to play three to four weeknight games at the standard 7 pm starting time, while reserving one Saturday or Sunday afternoon game per month. As part of the reported settlement, the Knights will increase their rent payments to the Heat and KSM Management, the local stadium authority, as part of their lease agreement for the ’32 season. The exact financial terms are not yet known.

The surprise settlement saves what has been an otherwise quiet start to the Knights return to PEBA in what the club has branded their “re-inaugural season”. Knights COO Lance Van Hauter, along with the team’s baseball executives, had resorted to a public social media campaign in recent days to bring attention to the ongoing dispute, following the formal announcement of legal action against the soccer club and KSM. Their shared campaign of “maximum pressure” appears to have paid dividends – or at the very least – staved off the need for immediate action to salvage the upcoming season given a lack of available alternate venues to host the Knights in ’32.

Despite this success, the Knights future will remain clouded as the two entities have merely kicked the can down the road on a long-term agreement and it is believed that the Van Hauter Group, the private equity firm headed by Knights owner Chris Van Hauter, which fully owns the baseball club, is pursuing further options to ensure the long term success of the organization. While relocation of the club will continue to be the source of rumors around the club given the well documented struggles of the Knights to maintain a profitable product, sources inside the organization insist this has not been discussed at present as Van Hauter remains intent on seeing Tempe succeed in this their second PEBA go-round. Nonetheless, attention will once again shift to the available venues in Charlotte, North Carolina and Tacoma, Washington which had previously been constructed in the hopes of luring a PEBA club and remain, as yet, unused.

In a related move, the Van Hauter Group has enlisted the assistance of their wholly owned subsidiary, Honour Core, in negotiating a long term settlement to the stadium issue. Honour Core has previously negotiated stadium lease agreements on behalf of several professional sports franchises with some in the industry claiming a potential conflict of interest in light of Van Hauter’s ownership of the legal and property acquisition firm. It is anticipated that any future agreements between the Van Hauter Group and KSM will include increasing revenues for the Knights’ organization as an incentive to keep the Knights from leaving town as they did in 2023 with their move to Long Beach.