Staples Center president Tim Leiweke, a candidate to replace Dave Checketts at the Garden, flew home to Los Angeles last night after spending three days in New York being courted by Cablevision.
Clearly, Leiweke is the most qualified candidate to become the Garden president and preside over the Knicks and Rangers. Though he’s shown interest, it’s unknown if he’s willing to leave L.A., where he has established a sports empire in running the Anschutz Group.
“My gut feeling is he doesn’t take it,” an industry source told The Post. “But he’d like a finality to it sooner than later. It would be a distraction to people on both coasts.
“He’s got so much going on in Los Angeles,” the source added. “Maybe that’s what keeps him there. He’s motivated by the challenge of a job and he’s got a lot of challenges out there.”
Leiweke is president of the Kings and combined his talks with Cablevision with a meeting at the NHL offices. Leiweke all but built the new Staples Center and is a board of director of the Lakers. He runs Anschutz, a concert promotion company, oversees an indoor soccer team and a club hockey team in Germany. He’s in the process of building an entertainment complex by the Staples Center and a 45-story hotel.
Leiweke is a past president of the Nuggets and was an executive for the Timberwolves in the late 1980s. The Garden job encompasses the Knicks, Rangers, Liberty, Radio City Music Hall and MSG Network. Cablevision’s Jim Dolan wants to be more hands-on with the Knicks and Rangers, so the new Garden prez could have less of his fingerprints on the sports teams than Checketts did.
Leiweke is a friend of NBA commissioner David Stern. They worked together closely during Leiweke’s tumultuous stint in Denver when the Nuggets renegotiated their lease. A source close to Stern says the commissioner considers Leiweke the “best kind impresario, a jack of all trades.”
Another L.A. executive who has been recommended to Cablevision is Rick Welts, former NBA enterprises president who recently ran the Dodgers and Dodger Stadium.