Sixers and Comcast Spectacor are battling publicly and privately over the team’s proposed downtown arena

The 76ers recently trumpeted a bold claim, saying their proposed downtown arena would generate nearly half a billion dollars in new state tax revenue, on top of a billion dollars for the city of Philadelphia and its school system.

The team did not provide the analysis behind the figures.

Within hours, the X (formerly Twitter) account of the Wells Fargo Center — the Sixers’ home court — shared an image of the team’s tax-windfall news release, freshly stamped with a single word in bright red letters: Myth.

The Sixers soon leveled their own denunciation, with lead developer David Adelman accusing Comcast Spectacor, which owns the Wells Fargo Center, of “lurking in the shadows, hiding behind others, while it lobbies decision-makers and twists arms to try to stop the Sixers from building our own privately funded arena.”

For months, the controversy over the Sixers’ plans for a dazzling, $1.55 billion arena stood as a David-and-Goliath battle between a wealthy NBA team and a Chinatown neighborhood that has long fought for its survival against outside development. Now it’s expanding into a clash between two of Philadelphia’s corporate giants and the uber-rich personalities who run them.

“I never got lobbied more by two sides on anything,” said Councilmember Mark Squilla, who will play a pivotal role in the outcome because his City Council district includes the site of the proposed arena. “My meetings have tripled since this was announced.”

Owned by Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, the Sixers are a disgruntled tenant at the Wells Fargo Center, the South Philadelphia arena owned by Comcast Spectacor, which also owns the Flyers.

The local sports arm of global telecommunications giant Comcast, led by Philadelphia billionaire Brian L. Roberts, sorely wants the Sixers to stay. It’s trying to avoid the loss of its major tenant and avoid having to fight a competitor for bookings of concerts and shows.

It doesn’t believe that Philadelphia needs a second major arena and wants the Sixers to instead be part of a huge, four-team transformation of the Sports Complex. Comcast Spectacor is frustrated by the team’s harsh — it says false — criticisms of the Wells Fargo Center, now completing a $400 million top-to-bottom renovation. And it insists that a project that would impact Center City for decades must be scrutinized.

The Sixers, meanwhile, think it’s unfair that a landlord would try to stop a tenant from leaving at the end of its lease. They say that, like any company, they deserve the right to run their own business in their own building, to gain control over everything from scheduling to T-shirt sales.

Owning an arena would dramatically increase the value of a team already worth more than $3 billion. And the Sixers insist that a Center City arena would move Philadelphia forward while generating foot traffic and spending on a desolate stretch of Market Street East.

Council is expected to decide whether to approve the project in the coming months, and lawmakers such as Squilla are caught between powerful coalitions.

Colossal Comcast is frequently a target of the progressive movement, but now its local division finds itself aligned with activists on the left, a group of urban design experts, and the ardent defenders of Chinatown’s rights as a neighborhood. The 76ers, meanwhile, benefit from support from building trades unions that want thousands of construction jobs, as well as from some members of the Black clergy and the business community.

As Council members reconvened for their fall session last month, Comcast Spectacor distributed a two-page document headlined “Myths and Realities: The Truth About the Wells Fargo Center.”

It sought to refute assertions from Adelman that the Sixers have been treated poorly, rejecting his criticism of the center’s services, sight lines, and game scheduling.

The confrontation between Philadelphia institutions is becoming more pointed and public by the day. It’s also become a bonanza for City Hall lobbyists and public-affairs consultants, as both Comcast Spectacor and the Sixers build armies of hired pros.

Both sides — all sides — await the findings of arena studies being conducted by the city and its public-private economic development agency, Philadelphia Industrial Development Corp. City officials earlier said that three analyses, funded by the Sixers, would examine economics, community impact, and design. Two reports are expected by the end of the year.

The two men at the center of the dispute say they’re friends. And now those friends disagree, with potentially billions of dollars at stake.

Comcast Spectacor is led by Daniel Hilferty, the staid, gray-haired former CEO of Independence Blue Cross and a driver behind some of Philadelphia’s most important civic efforts. The Sixers’ push is guided by the younger Adelman, the long-haired billionaire developer and team part-owner, widely known as the CEO of student-housing empire Campus Apartments, one of the nation’s largest providers of on- and off-campus housing.

Hilferty was hired to run Comcast Spectacor in February, given the key responsibility of fixing the struggling Flyers and moving quickly to name a new president of the Wells Fargo Center, a new Flyers president, and a new team general manager.

He became more publicly involved in opposing the arena over the summer, bristling at digs that Adelman leveled against the Wells Fargo Center in the media.

Those jabs have not ceased.

Recently, Adelman dug in over a dispute about a potential Philadelphia concert by the Eagles, the venerable rock group that’s now mounting its “Long Goodbye” tour. He shared a Pollstar story with comments from famed Los Angeles concert promoter Irving Azoff, who said he was unable to secure a Wells Fargo Center booking.

“We tried multiple times on the Eagles, and they can’t clear the day,” he said.

The Wells Fargo Center social-media account then turned its focus on Adelman.

“This ‘story’ is simply not true, and Mr. Adelman knows it,” it posted on Twitter, adding that in eight years, the center had turned away a total of two concerts.

Adelman responded two weeks ago, sharing a letter from Azoff to Hilferty in which the promoter chastised Comcast Spectacor, backed Adelman’s statements as being “completely accurate,” and threatened to no longer work with the Wells Fargo Center.

“I wouldn’t have come out of the gate saying an industry icon like Irving Azoff has no idea what he’s talking about,” Adelman tweeted, adding that “the biggest ‘myth’ being debunked is that Comcast actually controls Philadelphia like some think it does.”

Sean Coit, a Comcast Spectacor spokesperson, said the company would continue pushing back on Adelman’s claims as city lawmakers prepare to take up the arena issue.

“The Sixers — and Mr. Adelman, in particular — have apparently made a strategic decision to spread distortions and even outright falsehoods about the Wells Fargo Center, to try to force their project through City Council,” Coit said. “We’re not going to allow that to go unchecked.”

The dispute around booking the Eagles speaks to a central point of the debate: Does Philadelphia need a second arena?

The Wells Fargo Center now hosts nearly every big concert and show, operating about 220 days a year and saying that it accommodates 98% of all requests by booking agents.

The Sixers say their arena would have about 150 events a year, or about 110 beyond the team’s 41 home games. They say there exists a big untapped market of artists who have been unable to play Philadelphia — which Comcast Spectacor disputes.

The arena footprint would reach from Market Street to Filbert Street and 10th and 11th Streets, with the north end of the project abutting Chinatown.

The 76ers have promised not to seek city taxpayer support for the arena but have not ruled out accepting state or federal aid, such as grants or tax breaks.

Emily Sparvero, who taught sports marketing at Temple University and now at the University of Texas at Austin, said that if a team’s ownership is truly willing to pay for a new venue from its own pockets — the Sixers say they are — taxpayers may have little to lose. But that doesn’t mean the Sixers’ projections for filling their arena’s calendar with high-profile acts would come true, she said.

“There is the potential to attract events,” she said, “but when you already have multipurpose events facilities, it is likely you are just moving the events from one facility to another.”

The showdown between the two companies simmered all summer, with the Sixers frustrated that their landlord has been welcomed into the debate over the team’s future home. Usually when a lease expires, a renter is free to move.

Adelman was unhappy to see Comcast Spectacor representatives at a June gathering of the Washington Square West Civic Association in which the team was scheduled to make its pitch.

“Not sure what their standing is related to this,” Adelman told the neighborhood group.

The next month, according to emails obtained by The Inquirer, Adelman’s frustration grew as he tried to schedule a meeting to promote the arena to the Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia.

The chamber repeatedly delayed the date — and invited Hilferty to speak.

“At this point,” Adelman wrote this month to the chamber’s leaders, “I would prefer you just be honest with me and tell me that the chamber has no intention of allowing us to present.”

The chamber now has scheduled separate appearances by Adelman and Hilferty.

To the Sixers, the episode showed that Comcast Spectacor, a division of Philadelphia’s most important company, was playing tough behind closed doors.

The chamber has long borne a reputation for being influenced by Comcast, although it has sought to combat that perception amid leadership changes in recent years.

Chamber president and CEO Chellie Cameron said the scheduling issues reflected the business group’s desire to provide its members with as much information as possible, not an effort to hamper the Sixers.

She said the team was told, “We’d love to have you present, but we’ve heard that there is potential development at the stadium district, and we feel like there should be different perspectives to this that would also be valuable.”

Cameron said the chamber has not decided whether it will take a position on the arena after hearing from both sides.

Hilferty’s pique with his biggest tenant has been rising for months, as the Sixers criticized their home court as old and outdated.

The Sixers brushed aside his offer of a 50/50 partnership, with which the team could own half the Wells Fargo Center and reap half the revenue. The Sixers intend to open the new arena when their lease expires in 2031.

Comcast Spectacor still hopes that will change.

“We hope to work with them to build something truly great in South Philadelphia,” Coit said, “without displacing neighborhoods and disrupting the Market East community for years to come.”

The team said in its news release that a study by its consultant, MuniCap Inc., showed that the project would generate $472 million in new, net state tax revenues. That, in addition to $1 billion for the city and the schools.

The Sixers declined requests to share its consultant’s reports.

Asked whether the team’s tax figures were accurate, PIDC referred to the pending studies, saying that “is what the economic-analysis study will review and so we won’t know until that is completed.”

Staff writer Jake Blumgart contributed to this article.