They could just leave, right? These millionaires, these billionaires and their toys. These owners of professional sports franchises. All that money, and they want the public’s help?

First the Pacers and the new lease they seek to keep them in town for at least 25 more years, and now the Indy Eleven and a possible new $150 million stadium? On top of the Colts and their $720 million stadium funded mostly by public money? Outrageous, some of you are saying.

So here’s what we ought to do, some of you are saying: Tell them they can’t have any more public funding. Tell them no. What are they going to do? Leave?

Well …

That’s the gamble.

The thing about any wager is this: If you’re willing to make it, you better be OK with losing. Which is the pivot point of this whole thing.

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The issue here is not: Should public money be used to help the richest of the rich get richer? That’s an irritating question to ask, I’ll give you that. It doesn’t sit right with me, either, the prospect of Jim Irsay and Herb Simon receiving tax money that could go elsewhere – we could just fill potholes with those $20 bills – to subsidize their sports homes.

Here’s a harder question, and the ultimate issue: Would you rather the city hang onto every penny of the public funds in question … or would you rather the city hang onto the Pacers? Feel free to substitute “Colts” or “Eleven,” though the Eleven are in the same sentence with those other two, in this story at all, simply for the timing of last week’s bombshells.

What’s your answer? I know mine: I want the Pacers. I want the Colts. And sure, I want the Eleven. Easy for me to say as a sports writer, I’m hearing you there. I don’t just want pro sports in our town – I need them. Literally, my job could depend on it. Probably does. Given that, why listen to me?

Because I’m telling you the truth. You already know this, but the Downtown Indianapolis we know and love wouldn’t exist without the Pacers, whose success here played a role in attracting the Colts, all of which led to the renaissance of our city’s core.

The benefits are financial, of course. On top of the seasonal boon each franchise provides, the Colts hosted the 2012 Super Bowl with an estimated local economic impact of $152 million, and in 2021 the Pacers will host the NBA All-Star Game, which generated an estimated $100 million this past week for Charlotte.

The benefits also are cultural, symbolic, and most of all magnetic. All those Marriotts downtown? They’re not here because of places like the unfortunately named, and dearly departed, Broken English Taco Pub.

Beyond debate: Our city has been immeasurably enhanced by its professional sports franchises, the Colts and Pacers in particular. And we’d be immeasurably diminished by their departure.

Crushed, I’m saying. We’d. Be. Crushed.

ls someone about to leave Indy?

Granted, I’m jumping the gun here a little bit, and by that I mean: a whole lot. Nobody is talking about leaving, but this is the conversation we need to have, right now, to keep it that way.

To be clear, the Colts are included in this story only because they’ve received public financing as well, and because that ticks off a good number of locals. And Pacers owner Herb Simon told me before last season: “My No. 1 goal (is) to leave my legacy: This team permanently in Indianapolis.”

His motivation could be decency, could be vanity, could be some combination of the two. Simon understands that his reputation in Indianapolis, and therefore much of it outside Indy, is tied to the Pacers. Yes, he made his money in malls. You think that’s why so many people around the country know the name “Herb Simon”? No chance. He’s not the guy with the malls. He’s the guy with the Pacers. The Indiana Pacers.

Quick question: How did Art Modell make his money as a young man? Answer: You have no idea.

Another question: Why do you even know Art Modell’s name? Answer: Because he moved the Cleveland Browns out of Cleveland.

Same reason so many folks know the name Bob Irsay, probably …

Herb Simon doesn’t want that legacy. He wants to pass the Pacers someday to his son, Steve. What he also wants, now: millions of dollars of public money set aside for use by the Capital Improvement Board – which manages Bankers Life Fieldhouse, Indiana Convention Center, Lucas Oil Stadium and Victory Field – largely to operate and improve the fieldhouse.

That doesn’t sit right with a lot of people around here, and again, I get it. But not every answer is an easy “yes” or “no.” Sometimes you want to scream: No! But this is what you do instead: You close your eyes, pinch the bridge of your nose to ward off the headache, and you whisper: yes.

Again, many of you have gone to social media to shout rhetorically: “No. Nooooo! What might the Pacers do someday? Leave?”

Well, they might. Teams leave. The Rams left Los Angeles for St. Louis, then left St. Louis for Los Angeles. The Raiders left Oakland, left Los Angeles, and are about to leave Oakland again. The SuperSonics left Seattle for Oklahoma City. The Browns left Cleveland.

The Colts left Baltimore.

Back to Seattle …

Seattle is pouring $700 million into Key Arena for an NHL team coming in 2021. And, they’re helpfully pointing out in Seattle, the refurbished Key Arena would fit an NBA team just fine.

Listen, none of this is to pit Seattle against Indianapolis. Seattle is a concept I’m using here, nothing more, to show you how this whole thing could play out if the CIB can’t find the public money our professional franchises seek (most likely by diverting tax dollars away from other and in some ways more pressing needs). In the 12 years since the Sonics drafted Kevin Durant and then took him and everyone else to Oklahoma City, the city of Seattle has flirted with the Sacramento Kings and Milwaukee Bucks, both of whom played in older, fading coliseums. The Kings and Bucks seemed serious about considering relocation until their cities came up with plans for new arenas.

That’s how it works, and you don’t have to like it any more than I do. But this is the deal: In markets our size, NBA and NFL owners expect public help, and if they don’t get it, they make noise about leaving. Usually they don’t, no. But usually, public funds have to be diverted – away from roads, schools, libraries, etc. – to keep them. It’s the dance, and we either turn up the music or risk the devastating sound of silence downtown.