Sacramento’s Latest Craze Is Like a Bat Signal

SACRAMENTO — A brilliant purple laser shoots into the sky. On cloudless nights, it arcs into space like a sci-fi tractor beam.

City residents gape at it from their windows, crane their necks to catch a glimpse while driving or film it on their phones. The beam, shot from the roof of the downtown Golden 1 Center, is cause for celebration: It means the Sacramento Kings won.

“Light the beam!” thousands of fans at Golden 1 chant when the team is on the cusp of yet another victory. Their wish is granted. The beam turns on.

It has rarely been this joyful for basketball fans in California’s capital. For nearly two decades, the Kings have been the laughingstock of the N.B.A., firing a carousel of coaches and missing the playoffs for 16 straight years, the longest drought in N.B.A. history.

The beam was introduced this season — just as the team had begun to show real promise — and it fittingly has become a beacon of hope.

“These fans have been loyal for so many years, and for a long time things just haven’t come together,” said Harrison Barnes, one of the Kings’ starting forwards. “Seeing people excited, seeing people going, ‘Light the beam,’ all those things, it’s been cool to see.”

Less glamorous than Los Angeles and less affluent than San Francisco, Sacramento has long been overlooked. The city was enjoying a resurgence in the years before Covid, but as has been the case elsewhere, the pandemic hit the downtown hard. Just as tech workers haven’t returned to San Francisco’s downtown, many state office employees haven’t returned to Sacramento’s city core on a daily basis.

The state capital is also struggling to address homelessness and a lack of affordable housing. But boosters still see a city with promise. While the remote work culture has reduced the number of government employees downtown, it has made the Sacramento region an attractive destination for residents priced out of the Bay Area.

“It’s rapidly changing from a traditional government town to something more dynamic,” said Mayor Darrell Steinberg, a Kings fan who has lived in Sacramento for nearly 40 years.

Sacramento, Steinberg added, is “like the Kings themselves — we’re not jaded, we’re earnest, we’re always hopeful about the future.”

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the Kings were an elite team, coached by Rick Adelman and led by dynamic playmakers like Vlade Divac and Chris Webber. They were once declared “The Greatest Show on Court,” and Arco Arena, their aging but beloved stadium, was a raucous environment.

It all fell apart too fast. A controversial playoff loss to the Los Angeles Lakers and a career-altering knee injury to Webber ended the Kings’ success.

Growing up in Davis, 20 minutes from Sacramento, I have only faint recollections of the glory days. My first lasting memory is a negative one: my dad picking me up from school and informing me the Kings had traded Mike Bibby, my favorite player. (I did know enough to hate the Lakers.)

The playoff drought during my formative years has been extraordinarily depressing. The Kings passed up generational superstars in the draft and bungled games for so long that fans gave them a nickname, sort of their hapless alter ego: the Kangz.

But fans stayed loyal. In the early 2010s, amid efforts to move the team to Seattle or Anaheim, the Kings’ departure seemed so imminent that their television announcers once bid a tearful farewell. But fans in this town with one major league sports franchise packed council meetings and held rallies. A new owner, Vivek Ranadive, promised to keep the Kings in Sacramento and build an arena downtown.

All of that suffering has made the team’s current success even sweeter. The Kings hired Coach Mike Brown and paired the star point guard De’Aaron Fox with Domantas Sabonis, a gifted Lithuanian American center. The result has been an offensive explosion that’s pushed Sacramento to third place in the Western Conference. A coveted playoff berth is within reach when the All Star Break ends and the Kings resume play Thursday in Sacramento.

If the Kings win that game, against the Portland Trail Blazers, you can expect a player in the arena to press a fake button to “light” the beam, which is formed by a half-dozen 300-watt “Laser Space Cannons” — approved by the Federal Aviation Administration — on the roof.

It’s a cheesy, silly gimmick, and we fans go nuts for it. There’s a “Light the Beam” song and beam-branded merchandise. After wins, fans rush out of the arena to take photos of the beam and even kiss under it.

“It’s like the Bat Signal,” said Doug Christie, a Kings assistant coach who was a key player from 2000-05 when the team had success. “It’s taken on a life of its own.”

For $900,000: A two-bedroom bungalow in Los Angeles, a three-bedroom condominium in San Francisco or a 1941 cottage in Long Beach.

What we’re eating

Yogurt berry parfait with steel-cut oats.

Where we’re traveling

Today’s tip comes from Janine Sprout, who lives in Monterey. Janine recommends Lynn “Rip” Van Winkle Open Space in Pacific Grove:

“A new discovery for us, this open space is not only dog friendly, it’s a dreamy adventure for hikers and kids. A narrow ribbon of open space, it’s located along Congress Avenue in Pacific Grove. The terrain is untamed with paths going every which way, and is heavily forested with Monterey cypress, Monterey pine, and coast live oak. The open space borders Pebble Beach, offering pedestrian access to 17-Mile Drive.”

Tell us about your favorite places to visit in California. Email your suggestions to CAtoday@nytimes.com. We’ll be sharing more in upcoming editions of the newsletter.

And before you go, some good news

Last year on March 3, Marc Beuttler’s birthday, he changed into pajamas and got into bed after work.

Matthew Davis presented Beuttler with a cupcake. Then he gave him a ring, and asked him to marry him.

Beuttler, who grew up in Ventura, and Davis, who grew up in Princeton, N.J., and New Orleans, had kept their romance going over seven years and 14 address changes. Before their wedding in January, Beuttler accepted a position as a dermatologist in Connecticut, and the couple moved yet again.

“Over time,” Beuttler told The Times, “we’ve learned that home is people. It’s the relationships you make.”