Here is a masterpiece of clear writing that argues against you. This writer makes taxes and bonds interesting. http://crosscut.com/2012/05/14/spor...d-managers-love-losing-money-nba/?page=single
Wait until Canzano and the ass clowns of PDX media piss PA off and he turn the light off on the RG and moves his team up to Seattle. I laugh when DJ and JC tells the people of Portland how it is impossible to move the team. He own the team and the arena. He lost 1 BILLION already, you think he will blink an eye to break a stupid contract and pay 50 million to give a gift to Seattle? People will crucify the shoe salesman and I will laugh my ass off. I hate his self serving/promoting style. PA worth 10+ billion and fight cancer every other year. Contracts are there to be honored or broken, people laugh but Seattle's team could come from Portland
Interesting article -- the writer is VERY focused on the fact that Chris Hansen may make money from building the stadium and bringing an NBA team to Seattle. Like that's a bad or unfair thing. It's mainly financed by PRIVATE MONEY -- profitability would hopefully be the expectation, not something bad about the deal. Apparently, the only way the writer would be happy is if Chris Hansen and his group simply donated all money for the project and got absolutely nothing in return. Lol -- so let's all sit around and hope for that to happen? As far as the unhappiness about about use of public money goes, the writer should read the MOU, now that it's out. It's pretty clear that the source of public funding the stadium is SOLELY tied to fees, taxes, etc. of events THAT OCCUR AT THE STADIUM. I guess it's possible (though highly unlikely) that the stadium is a complete failure and no one ever attends an event there...in which case perhaps the public would be on the hook through the bond issuance. The real diligence that needs to be done is whether the proposed taxes on events is large enough to satisfy the public contribution. But given the Key Arena is a little shoebox that concert promoters hate (so that they avoid Seattle) and the fact that NBA/NHL games absolutely will draw a lot of fans, that concern seems theoretical rather than practical...but of course number crunchers need to confirm the truth of it. $300M of public money was used for Qwest/Century Link and I'm pretty sure approx $250M of public money was used for Safeco (that's memory, so I could well be wrong) and both of those derived funding from broader sources than the proposed arena. If only an NBA team comes, the public contribution is $120 M. If both NBA and NHL teams come, then the public contribution is $200M. Both are bargains compared to the baseball and football stadiums. I also don't get all the traffic talk. It's not like NBA games ever happen during regular business hours midweek (7 pm start is generally after big traffic times and midday weekend games won't be a problem). No one said a peep about it when the 48,000 capacity Safeco was built or 70,000 capacity football stadium was built in Sodo, but people are all in a tizzy over traffic with the 20,000 capacity arena being discussed. Not to say that there aren't traffic issues to resolve, but I don't get all the traffic drama queens.
This is still my favorite option. Too bad they will never allow the USPS Site to be developed into a sports stadium.
