So why is the public footing the $34.5 million bill to reconfigure the new Little Caesars Arena to accommodate Gores' Pistons as part of their relocation from the Palace of Auburn Hills?

That's been the lurking question amid recent legal wrangling over the money. Last Monday, U.S. District Judge Mark Goldsmith blocked a request to block the Detroit City Council from voting on the arena subsidy on Tuesday — effectively halting what little resistance there has been to any aspect of the arena deal. The council OK'd the additional subsidy on a 7-2 vote on Tuesday.

David Fink, an attorney representing the Downtown Development Authority, which owns the arena, argued in court that delaying or stopping the $34.5 million would prevent the Pistons from moving downtown: "If the Pistons decide they're going back to Auburn Hills, the last time it took them 40 years to come back (to Detroit)," Fink told the judge. "... This would kill the project. And not just this project — many others as well."

Representatives for the Pistons and Red Wings would not comment for this story, but Pistons CFO Greg Campbell, in an affidavit filed in the case and first reported by the Detroit Free Press, wrote that the public dollars are a condition of moving downtown. The implication is that the National Basketball Association's other owners, who are scheduled to vote on the Pistons' move on July 11, could balk at the relocation if the public money isn't squarely in place.

But why? Why do billionaire team owners need tax dollars at all? The question takes on additional importance if Gores and partner Dan Gilbert get the Major League Soccer expansion team they're seeking. They've pitched a $1 billion mixed-use stadium development downtown and they're expected to seek some type of tax subsidy or discount.

Why team owners seek subsidies is easy to answer: Elected officials are willing to hand them over. In the case of the Little Caesars Arena project, it's $324.1 million in public funding, or about 38 percent of the total current cost. Public backing for private sports venues is a trend that's been under way now for decades across the country. Effective resistance is rare, even amid examples of gross failure of such subsidies to deliver the litany of promises about new jobs, spending and spinoff development.

Certainly, today's sports team owners can afford to build their own venues. Detroit native Steve Ballmer, the former Microsoft Inc. CEO, pledged this month to pay for a new arena for his L.A. Clippers to open in 2024. William Davidson spent $90 million to build the Palace in 1988.

Tom Gores can afford to cover the Little Caesars retrofit. Forbes says Gores is worth $3.3 billion, and his Platinum Equity business is an enormous player in the private equity universe. In 2015, it ranked as the 22nd-largest private U.S. company by revenue at $12.5 billion. In March, it hailed its new $6.5 billion Platinum Equity Capital Partners IV global buyout fund, and last year it spent $4 billion to buy a division of St. Louis-based Emerson Electric Co.