Washington, D.C
Leonsis says DC could chase NBA, NHL All-Star games after Capital One Arena makeover – WTOP News
Monumental’s $800 million renovation could position Washington for marquee weekends, but Ted Leonsis warns fans the leagues control the tickets.
Monumental’s $800 million-plus renovation could position Washington for marquee weekends, but the company’s CEO warns fans the leagues control the tickets.
Ted Leonsis has never hidden his skepticism about the glamour of hosting an All-Star Game, often noting that the leagues, not the home teams, run the show and divvy up the best seats.
But with a sweeping, multiyear renovation of Capital One Arena underway in D.C., the owner and chairman of Monumental Sports & Entertainment says Washington is ready to raise its hand again for the NBA and NHL’s marquee midseason showcases.
“When our building is up and functioning, I would hope we’d be considered for an NBA All-Star Game,” Leonsis told WTOP. “The NHL All-Star Game … we’d love to be able to host it.”
The Capitals have hosted the NHL All-Star Game only once — in 1982 in Landover, Maryland. The Wizards last hosted the NBA All-Star Game in 2001 in D.C.
Leonsis said bringing the WNBA All-Star Game back for the first time since 2007 is also on his radar.
Leagues rarely spell out a formula for choosing host cities, but new arenas and major renovations typically help push a market to the front of the line.
With more than $800 million in upgrades planned at the Downtown arena, the Capitals, Wizards and Mystics fit that profile. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman toured the site this past season and saw the work firsthand.
“Ted took me on a tour of what’s been done and what’s being planned,” Bettman said in January. “What’s going on here is nothing short of spectacular. And sharing our tent-pole events, our special events with the fans in Washington, with the Capitals, the organization, is always on the table.”
The renovation is expected to wrap ahead of the 2027-28 season, meaning any All-Star bid could still be years away.
Capital One Arena is scheduled to close this summer as work continues. Phase two focuses on new and relocated entrances and a reimagined exterior; that portion is expected to be completed in September 2026, with additional exterior work continuing into 2027.
“Then, we’ll be done and we’ll have a pristine, beautiful, great new experience,” Leonsis said. “And then we can start to bid, and I’ll put my hand up for both of those games.”
CEO Ted Leonsis talks with WTOP’s Ben Raby about his desire to bring an All-Star game to D.C.
Leonsis floated 2031 as an intriguing target for the NBA, the 30th anniversary of the last All-Star Game in Washington.
Still, he said fans should understand what comes with it: The league controls the event and much of the inventory.
“I just have to give the fair warning: It’s not our event. It’s the league’s event, and they are catering to the sponsors,” Leonsis said. “Anybody who has held an All-Star Game always ends up with the hard feelings, ‘I’ve been a season-ticket holder for X years, why can’t I sit in my seats?’ Well, I don’t own the building during the All-Star Game. I don’t own the suites. They give them to all 30 teams.”
He laughed at the memory of learning that lesson during the 2001 NBA All-Star weekend in Washington, when he was an AOL executive with company-held courtside season tickets.
“We were expecting at the All-Star Game that we’d have our same tickets,” he said. “Instead, we were moved to the front row upstairs. The league owns the tickets and the inventory, and they are distributing them as they see best.”
If expectations are clear, Leonsis said the region has plenty of reasons to pursue the events — from national exposure to a surge in visitors.
Like the boost local leaders expect from the NFL draft coming to Washington next April, an All-Star weekend can deliver a significant economic jolt for hotels, restaurants and transit.
Forbes reported the 2024 NHL All-Star Game had a $50-$60 million economic impact on Toronto. The 2025 NBA All-Star Game generated $429 million in total event value for the San Francisco Bay Area economy, according to Temple University’s Sports Industry Research Center.
“I think it’s the right thing for the city and the right thing for our team to show off the new building once it reopens,” Leonsis said. “We’ll put our hand up when the time is right.”
More women’s hockey in DC?
Beyond the All-Star talk, there is also buzz around whether Washington could land a women’s professional hockey team.
Leonsis has long touted the growth of women’s sports and owns the WNBA’s Washington Mystics through Monumental.
“We should be the women’s professional sports capital of the world,” Leonsis said. “We want to play that part and be in that role as a leader and innovator.”
WTOP’s Ben Raby asks Ted Leonsis about the PWHL buzz in D.C.
He said he has closely monitored the Professional Women’s Hockey League, which launched in 2024 and has discussed expansion publicly.
This past winter, Monumental hosted a neutral-site game between the Montreal Victoire and the New York Sirens as part of the PWHL’s Takeover Tour. The game drew a record 17,228 fans to Capital One Arena at the time, the largest U.S. crowd to watch a women’s hockey game and chant a loud refrain of “we want a team.”
Leonsis said the interest is real, but timing matters.
“We have a couple more years of renovations, so it’s very difficult right now to speak with certainty about expansion and what they’re doing along our timetable,” he said.
After the Takeover Tour stop, Leonsis said he spoke with PWHL executive Stan Kasten about ways to bring more women’s hockey to the District.
“Stan and I did talk about, ‘Hey, this went very well,’ We enjoyed it, they enjoyed it, the players enjoyed it,” Leonsis said. “We should maybe do two games next year, or three games the season after that. We should start to get into a rhythm.”
A full-time team, Leonsis noted, could depend on how the league structures ownership. The PWHL currently operates as a single entity, with teams owned and operated by the Mark Walter Group.
Sources told WTOP the league could eventually move away from that model, though no timetable has been set and nothing is imminent. The single-entity approach has been framed by the league as a conservative way to build a foundation for long-term success.
“Given the success of this January’s game in D.C., Monumental has interest in hosting future neutral-site PWHL games and is open to exploring opportunities to bring a team to Washington, D.C., if there were flexibility in the ownership structure,” a Monumental spokesperson said in an email.
“We certainly want to stay close with them,” Leonsis said. “My expectation is that we’ll be a big part of the overall women’s professional sports landscape.”
Museum-like art, memorabilia displays at Capital One Arena
(Courtesy Monumental Sports & Entertainment)
Courtesy Monumental Sports & Entertainment
(10, 10, 10)
10, 10, 10
(Courtesy Monumental Sports & Entertainment)
Courtesy Monumental Sports & Entertainment
(Courtesy Monumental Sports & Entertainment)
Courtesy Monumental Sports & Entertainment
(Courtesy Monumental Sports & Entertainment)
Courtesy Monumental Sports & Entertainment
Among the additions at the revamped arena that Leonsis said he’s most looking forward to will be the District Arts Collection — a multimillion dollar curated art and memorabilia collection which will by displayed throughout the arena.
Benefiting from its partnership with cllct — a premier collectible media and marketing services company — Monumental Sports is in the process of gathering historic artifacts that will eventually be displayed for fans to peruse on all levels of the building. The exhibits will include both sports and Americana memorabilia.
“We want to have a museum, we want to have more interactivity through the arena,” Leonsis said.
The issue Monumental has run into when trying to gather memorabilia from their own teams is that very little has actually been preserved by the clubs themselves. It’s a common oversight by many professional franchises, which cllct is working to correct on the fly.
“It’s strange because in some sense, it’s the only part of teams that are worth billions of dollars that isn’t professionalized, because it was never anyone’s job to do it,” said Darren Rovell, the founder of cllct.
Ted Leonsis tells WTOP’s Ben Raby about the exhibit at Capital One.
Leonsis said that when Monumental began its quest to build museum-like exhibits, he figured it would naturally include items from Michael Jordan’s playing days with the Wizards. He soon found out, though, they didn’t have much in-house.
“We had to hire Darren to go into market to get people to sell us Michael Jordan autographed basketballs, Michael Jordan autographed home and away jerseys,” Leonsis said.
“What we’ve been doing now is trying to be very bespoke on our history. Who were the best players? What did they wear their rookie year? What did they wear the year they retired? What did they wear when they scored their 100th goal? We want to build and amass that type of collection and be able to tell the story in a more interactive, lived way,” he added.
Monumental partnered with Rovell in 2025 with the goal of having museum-like installations in place by fall 2027. Rovell is in constant contact with former players about lending pieces and has also identified a handful of big-time collectors of Capitals and Wizards memorabilia, who are planning to contribute to the arena’s collection.
The original goal structures and nets from Alex Ovechkin’s record-tying and record-breaking 894th and 895th goals have already been obtained and will be among the displays.
“Those goal structures are just not pieces of metal,” Rovell said. “They signify so much.”
Rovell said from his experience that game-used memorabilia can draw in even casual fans, who may remember a special date or game from their own memory bank.
“Game-used is really like the emotion,” Rovell said. “That’s what connects you to the moment. We’re also going to (showcase) it in a display that is meaningful. I think sometimes you have game-used stuff that is not displayed in a way that it deserves. This is museum quality stuff and so giving it the gravitas that it deserves, I think, is going to be a mark of the new Capital One Arena.”
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Washington, D.C
DC’s baseball team faces potential DOJ probe after exec allegedly admitted to religious discrimination
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FIRST ON FOX — Washington, D.C.’s professional baseball franchise could come under Justice Department scrutiny after a viral video showed a team executive appearing to admit to his religious discrimination against a Christian player.
Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., is urging Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon to investigate alleged religious discrimination against players for the Washington Nationals, according to a letter sent Thursday to and first obtained by Fox News Digital.
The letter comes after Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe published a secretly recorded video of Washington Nationals Director of Community Relations Sean Hudson saying the team does not include pitcher Trevor Williams in certain social media promotion.
He cited the player’s public criticism of another Major League Baseball franchise for hosting a drag group mocking Catholics.
Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., is urging the Department of Justice to investigate alleged religious discrimination within the Washington Nationals organization and across Major League Baseball. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
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“According to the reporting by James O’Keefe, it appears the Washington Nationals are engaged in unlawful religious discrimination,” Boebert told Fox News Digital in a written statement. “I urge the DOJ to take immediate and decisive action.”
A spokesperson for the Justice Department said they received Boebert’s letter.
“The Department is reviewing the matter and will evaluate all appropriate next steps. As always, we remain committed to enforcing federal law and protecting civil rights,” they told Fox News Digital.
A spokesperson for the Washington Nationals did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Hudson, in the clandestine recording, pointed to Williams’ public objections to the Los Angeles Dodgers honoring the Sisterhood of Perpetual Indulgence — a drag group that dresses as nuns — during the team’s 2023 “Pride Night.
The event also drew condemnation from multiple Catholic bishops, who described it as “blasphemous.”
Trevor Williams of the Washington Nationals sits in the dugout before a game against the Seattle Mariners at T-Mobile Park in Seattle, Wash., on May 28, 2025. (Stephen Brashear/Getty Images)
Williams said he found the group’s anti-Catholic demonstration featuring vulgar caricatures of the crucifixion and sacred rituals to be “deeply offensive,” in an interview with Bishop Robert Barron last year. The professional baseball player said he made the decision with his wife to speak out even though it would put “a target on our back.”
“Baseball stadiums should be a place where everyone feels welcomed, like 100%,” Williams said in the interview. “We should all feel welcomed there. But that was clearly against one certain religion. If you don’t draw the line in the sand, who’s gonna do it?”
According to Hudson, that public criticism of the drag group’s performance later affected Williams’ opportunities at the Nationals franchise.
“Because of that we don’t use him on social [media],” Hudson told an undercover journalist in the video. “When they’re like ‘is a hot dog a sandwich’ and the players come up, we don’t ask him.”
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Boebert said she is concerned that Hudson’s admission could mean the franchise violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on religion and other protected classes.
“Americans of faith should not face professional repercussions for objecting to the mockery of their sacred traditions,” the Colorado Republican said in the letter. “MLB’s privileged legal position should not become a license for exclusionary practices.”
“Sister Unity” and “Sister Dominia” of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence were honored on Pride Night before the MLB game between the San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Dodgers at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles on June 16, 2023. (Brian Rothmuller/Icon Sportswire)
Hudson, in the video, described himself as “far-left leaning” and nonreligious. Meanwhile, he called Williams “super Catholic.”
The Washington Nationals executive also boasted about a Communist Party poster in his office and mused about pushing redistribution of wealth and other leftist agendas during baseball games at Nationals Park in Southeast Washington, D.C.
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“What a cool opportunity for us [Nationals] to also, be a little bit of like, the voice of reason,” Hudson said. “And a lot of people will tell you when I come to a baseball game, I don’t want to think about that s–t.”
“If you’re a sports fan and we piss you off, where else are you gonna go,” he went on. “I don’t give a sh–t.”
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced Thursday hundreds of millions of dollars to help with what he says are critical structural repairs and upgrades for D.C.’s Union Station.
“It was built in 1908, over a hundred years ago, and it was the largest train station in the world when it was built,” Duffy said. “And over the course of decades, it’s become run-down,” Duffy said.
A $465 million grant aims to ensure the overall experience for those coming and going remains up to par and on track at the transit hub. It will help fast-track repairs like roof upgrades and passenger concourses, Duffy said.
The project includes the Amtrak lounge and the ticket experience.
For some travelers, alternatives to fast food are a must.
Retail, parking and office spaces will be priorities of the project to maximize the station’s revenue, as will public safety.
Already, Columbus Fountain is flowing again after being broken and dry for almost two decades.
“Now when you come out of Union Station, the gateway to our city, you’ll be met with a fountain that is beautiful and a fountain that actually works,” Duffy said.
Alexander Esquivel was eating breakfast in his car outside his Washington, D.C. apartment last August when, unbeknownst to him, an ICE agent approached his vehicle. Esquivel was about to leave for his cleaning job and stepped out of the car to dust crumbs off his shirt when the agent grabbed his wrist.
“He said, ‘which border did you cross?’ He asked me that repeatedly, over and over again,” Esquivel said. “I felt so many emotions: What would happen if they deported me? I’ll lose my family, my friends, everything I’ve built, I’ll lose it all in the blink of an eye, all for nothing.”
When he couldn’t provide proof of citizenship, the officer arrested Esquivel, after which he was transported to Chantilly Detention Center in Northern Virginia.
“They handcuffed us all like animals, at our waists, feet, and arms,” Esquivel said.
Esquivel migrated from El Salvador to the US almost 20 years ago, and he’s one of more than 1,100 people who were detained in D.C. in the two months following President Trump’s surge of federal law enforcement last August, according to Washington Post reporting. Like over 80 percent of those arrested, he did not have a criminal record. While Esquivel is comparatively lucky — he won his court hearing last month, allowing him to remain in the U.S. — he and his family are still among the thousands of D.C. families living in the shadow of the ongoing crackdown.
“I’m always scared, you know, because even if the police stop us, then they could call ICE agents,” said his daughter Kaylie Esquivel, a 9th grader who is U.S. citizen. Kaylie said she cried every night of father’s detention. “I have this bond with my dad that I didn’t really have with anyone else,” she said.
For his part, Esquivel still has nightmares about his incarceration. “I wake up with that trauma, thinking I’m still detained,” he said.
After Chantilly, Esquivel was transferred to Southwest Virginia Regional Jail, six hours away from D.C.. He was then moved to Farmville Detention Center near Richmond, Virginia, where he was given a yellow uniform indicating his lack of a criminal record. He said he met many people who were in the country legally or were in the process of obtaining legal immigration status.
“They took them without a justification and without reason, solely because of the color of their skin and their Hispanic features,” Esquivel said.
Many of the arrests in Washington D.C. occurred without warrants, according to The Washington Post. Last September, a Supreme Court ruling greenlit the use of racial profiling in immigration arrests nationwide.
Esquivel still thinks about the conditions of the jail. “We heard that there were worms in the food,” he said. (An October 2025 report by the National Immigration Project documented reports of worms in the food at Farmville, and detainees facing retaliation for refusing to eat).
“Everyone there was very sick — they got sick with everything, the flu, among other things,” said Esquivel, adding that people struggled to get access to medical care in detention. “The treatment was truly inhumane,” Esquivel said.
The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to request for comment.
While Alex was gone, his wife Dolores says she experienced intense fear, anxiety, and depression. “This wasn’t the life I wanted. Living in fear isn’t living,” she said.
The family received lots of support from their community during his detention, raising over $25,000 to help with his legal fees. Dolores said that while neighbors left food outside for them everyday, it was of limited comfort.
“I don’t want money, I don’t want anything, I want my husband,” she said, of how she felt during those months.
In November, after two months in detention, Esquivel was released on bail. The immigration judge cited his strong family ties and lack of a criminal record.
“It was so fulfilling, such a joy,” said Dolores of when he finally returned home. “There is nothing better than being with your husband, my husband with his daughters, with his parents. That’s the true value of life, family.”
Even while they continue to celebrate, the family worries that last month’s court win that allows him to stay could be challenged by the Department of Homeland Security. He and his family avoid leaving the house as much as possible for fear of running into immigration enforcement.
Still, Esquivel hasn’t lost hope.
“I’d tell them not to lose faith, to fight as hard as they can,” he said of what he’d tell other people facing detention. “To fight until they give their last ounce of effort, to not give up, because without a fight there is no victor.”
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