I finally streamed the hd version of sonicsgate ( www.sonicsgate.org ) to my high def big screen. Wow. I already knew Clay Bennet was a jerk. This movie shows how much of slime ball he really is, even moreso than was reported in the newspapers. Got some new perspective though. In the mid 90's, both the Seahawks and Mariners said the Kingdome was too old (it was 20 years old at the time). The Mariners got 340 million of public funds for their new stadium and the Seahawks got 430 million of public funds for their new stadium. Fast forward to mid 00's. The Sonics are playing in an arena that was built in 1962! The arena is over 50 years old and the Sonics can't get 200-300 million for a new arena. Guess the public and the politicians said that sports teams went to the well one too many times for new sports arenas and the Sonics were a casualty. I sincerely hope that some team can play as the Sonics again some day.
Part of the Sonics problem was the half assed renovation of Key Arena in 1995 or so. The city dumped 75 mil into it and it was outdated the day it opened. If I remember right, it had one of the lowest seating capacities in the NBA when they opened the doors. The Rose Garden opened about the same time and the difference between the two was night and day. Living in Seattle, I saw Key Arena first and thought it was well done. Then I went home and saw the Rose Garden and realized how tiny Key Arena was. It'd be a solid college arena, but it's a fail by NBA standards. Getting people fired up to dump cash into a stadium twice in a decade is pretty tough.
I keep feeling the need to point this out...not a single taxpayer who didn't use the facilities or was a tourist paid a dime for Qwest or Safeco. All the taxes to pay for the were from taxes on tickets and parking, 2% for tourists (like rental cars, hotel rooms, etc) and restaurants surrounding the stadiums. Not car registrations (like paying for the light rail), or levies (like for schools), or appropriations to clean up after Tent City folks. Not a dime. Safeco and Qwest, iirc, might be paid off by 2015. Maybe there's a way to just continue the same tax to get a stadium built by then.
KeyArena is the only stadium in major sports that I know of that will pay its own way. That's why Sonics fans said, "The NBA's business model is broken." The competing business models are 1) the league should pay for its own stadiums by cutting average player salaries if necessary (from like $5M to $4M) vs. 2) government should subsidize stadiums (i.e. pay for almost the whole thing) and often, subsidize operating expenses too. As Seattle councilmembers often noted, this will kill people, since it comes out of programs like winter shelters for homeless people. This is why Seattle politicians laughed at the NBA billionaires and said, how ridiculous.
Paul Allen pays for most of his own stuff. This is why his detractors (like PapaG) call him a poor businessmen, and one reason I like him. Profit isn't his top priority.
