I live about four blocks from the Key (I could sense HCP's presence) and I doubt I'd consider going to a WNBA game. There are a lot of fans in the city, but there are a lot of fans of the Sounders, too... there's no accounting for why Seattle is such a freak show of a sports city. There's no reason I want to see the Storm fail--in fact, I'm happy for the fans that bring their daughters or whatever--but it doesn't appeal to me at all. I know they are all significantly better players than I ever was (let alone what I am now) but... so what? I am bigger than many of them and I probably can (still!) outjump many of them. They are more skilled, and I give them that, but I don't find the ground-bound nature of the game thrilling in the least. It has nothing to do with the fact that they're women nor that there is a heavier concentration of homosexual flavor to the whole experience... it's just a boring brand of basketball to me. Ed O.
You're set on your opinion aren't you? Oh well. OKC's arena is first rate! Gorgeous building in a brutally ugly town. Sorry brother, but you are very wrong about KEY. They just gutted the court area, that's it.
I need to find the old articles. I used to have a couple in which the contractors said that nothing of any size had been re-used. I used to use them to argue with Okies on the ESPN Sonic board. They said Ford Center was new and Key was 45 years old. The "worst" in the NBA is from the owners' point of view, not the taxpayers. It's the only one not subsidized. Wikipedia says, "KeyArena is the first publicly financed arena in the area fully supported by earned income from the building." Non-basketball fans didn't care about the team, and after the owners started threatening to leave if they didn't get more tax money, even many Sonic fans became former Sonic fans, even before the team left. At the end, everyone, not just Storm fans, were saying they didn't care whether Bennett left.
"Worst" pretty well covers it. It was so bad that it played a big role in making the main tenant leave. If it was a bargain to taxpayers, then I guess it was a bargain in the same way the Kingdome was. Cheap on the front end, but with a shelf life of 10-15 years. That doesn't cut it for public projects of that size and scope. For what it's worth, I remember when they were renovating it and it was a hole covered by the huge support beams that are still there. It was essentially all new, but the problem was it was fit into the same footprint. Small inside, tiny concourses and not anything like a state of the art arena. Quaint, comfortable, but not up to date. It's a great place for the Storm and Seattle U, but not the NBA. By the way, it cracks me up every time someone wonders out loud why Seattle keeps getting passed over for NCAA tournament games. The sub par arena pretty well covers it. The last painful part of the whole thing was when the stupid politicians couldn't make it work with Ballmer's group ready to pay $200MM for a new arena. Huge money coming from the private sector and they biffed it.
At least someone agrees with me that it was all brand new (except for 1 giant girder left standing at each of 4 corners to support the new roof). Many websites (including Wikipedia) have it wrong and loosely use the words renovation or refurbishment.
Didn't I once ask you what puto means and neither of us knew? All I know is that it's the ultimate insult among Hispanics.
