To be fair, for the team to stick in Seattle, they needed a new arena. Stern agreed. Seattle didn't care enough to step up to the plate, and the team left. In Sacramento, they are stepping up to the plate and will build a new arena to keep the team. Stern would have done what he could to help Seattle if they had decided to step up to the plate - that much was clear back during that whole fiasco. Nobody should be surprised Stern is trying to help Sacramento out, as he's doing exactly what it looks like he'd have done if Seattle had wanted to keep their team and did what needed to be done (a new arena).
I'm going to go off on a tangent here for a second. I HATE the idea of a city paying for a new arena. You have tax payers paying millions of dollars for a new arena and what do they get from it? Nothing its not like tickets become cheaper, they usually go up after a new arena build. These rediculousely rich people who buy the team should have to build the arenas themselves not get a giant handout from a city were the city and the, citizens thats taxs went to pay for it, get no payback from it at all.
Totally agreed. It's one thing I appreciate about Paul Allen. He's wealthy enough he built his own arena. I feel bad for the markets where taxpayers pay for the arena, then they have to pay ridiculous prices for tickets and concessions at the games.
If the City helps build the arena every TAX payer in that city should get a card were they get 50% of concessions and can get special tickets at half price as well were they have to show a state ID with the ticket. Shouldn't be a forever thing but for the first 4 to 5 years of the arena being open.
To be clear, I've been focused on how Stern has treated the two parties in the current drama. I haven't been comparing Stern/Seattle when the Sonics moved to OKC to Stern/Sac and the Kings to Seattle. The facts are enough different that I think it's difficult to compare the two situations. I do think your description of the arena situation in Seattle is pretty simplistic. Bennett & crew didn't make a genuine effort at a new arena deal (they admitted as much after the fact.) Howard had a hard time making progress because the public had just spent big money on Key Arena, which was less than 10 years old at the time.
Seattle has financed baseball, football/soccer, and now possibly basketball arenas recently. I actually think basketball arenas make the most sense from a public standpoint. 41+ games on the schedule for basketball, more for hockey plus they're good for concerts, circus, etc. In Seattle's case, it doesn't get NCAA tournament games any more. A new arena would solve that. Football has so few games, it's probably the worst...although, it helps the Sounders play there.
My whole point was they have these ultra rich owners who instead of having to pay for the arena themselves they take a huge amount of public money and give nothing back. People who contributed there tax money still have to pay ticket prices that will only continue to rise and concessions that are ridiculously priced.
The public contribution on the new Seattle arena is solely paid through taxes/fees on the events that occur at the arena. It's a pretty clever way of dealing with the detractors...if you don't want to pay for the arena, then don't go to arena events. It's been interesting to see how the detractors have come with reasons that the public is supposedly paying, eg impact on the city's bonding capacity (negligible/non-existent) and the fact that the arena land is currently taxable, but won't be when the city owns the arena, which means property taxes would increase for other land owners by the $ amount lost (spread out over all property owners, it pretty miniscule.)
Not totally true. The building is much older than that. It was renovated in, what, 1994 or 1995? The Sonics left after the 2008 season - that's clearly not "less than years old at the time." Renovating a building built in the 1960's isn't the same as building a new building. I mean, every time any sort of facelift has been performed on PGE Park, it's still clearly the same ol' park. Ultimately, you can only do so much through renovation. The OKC group didn't put much effort into it. Howard couildn't get the arena he needed, and the fans and local politicians weren't much help. Everyone knew as soon as Howard sold to the OKC group, the team would be gone. The city easily could have kept the team, but by doing nothing, they chose to let them walk.
Wrong - when Shultz was trying to get a new arena, Key Arena was approx. 10 years old. He sold the team in 2006, after failing in an attempt to get a new arena. The arena opened in '95. Guessing that you don't know what the renovation looked like...it was a huge amount of work and pretty big money ($100M or so). Enough money that people weren't too happy about throwing down more cash 10 years later. Seattle is really good at going the cheap and expedient route (eg Kingdome). In this case they threw $100M at the arena, but didn't really solve the problem. Key Arena opened about the same time as the Rose Garden and the Rose Garden blew it out of the water.
What was wrong? The Seattle Center Coliseum was built in 1962, and was renovated in 1995, and re-opened as Key Arena. You said "less than ten years," but it was more than 10. I went to more than 6 games there before the renovation, and I went to even more after the renovation, so I'd say your guess in wrong, and I know what the arena looked like. Yes, you can throw $100MM at it and not solve the problem - that was my point. The Blazers built the Garden (or started building it) a year or so prior to the renovation. The cost of the RG was, what $250-260MM? So $100MM wasn't much, especially on a 30+ year old building, when building and technology has changed so much in that span.
The point is that $100M in renovations were thrown at the Key -- that's a lot of coin. Taxpayers were sold on the idea that it was a long term solution. Less than 10 years later, they were told it was obsolete by Howard. I don't think it's shocking that getting a new arena built at that time was difficult. Of course, I'd seen the Rose Garden and knew the Key was laughable in comparison.
You did some switch-hitting there, reversing sides in less than an hour of posting. Seattle heroically refused to pay $500 million, with zero contribution from Bennett, for the "world class stadium" that he demanded be gifted to him for free by the taxpayers. Well, I went to it during the construction. I saw a massive heap of rubble. Seattle Center was completely torn down, and replaced by a brand new KeyArena. You are wrong that it was a renovation or a facelift. (Many sites call it a renovation, but they just copy each other. They didn't go there and see what I saw.) User fees have been around for thousands of years. Washington has many, being 1 of only 6 states without an income tax. Go to a park or a museum, it'll cost ya.
Right on -- the difference is that fees incurred at the arena are the SOLE mechanism of public contribution. Hockey-hating, basketball-scroogin', concert-detestin', noncircus-goers are on the hook for nothing (or as near to it as you can get.)
I tell you, the thing that rubs me wrong are the statements that Seattle/Seattle fans didn't step up to the plate and because they didn't support it the Sonics left. That's total B.S. I'm 100% Blazer fan and was against the Sonics for years. In perhaps a low moment, I got far too much pleasure when I attended the game when the #8 Nuggets knocked the #1 Sonics out of the playoffs and Mutombo rolled around on the floor. That said, I saw how they supported the team during ups and downs. I went to some of the last Sonics games and was blown away by the attendance and the energy of the fans. I watched a stupid coffee baron, bad luck, poor politicians and OKC schemers hit in a bad combination. What happened to them was hogwash and it was not their fault. It could happen to any team in any city. They should have a team. I can't wait to watch the Blazers beat them when they're back.
Knowing that the Grizzlies were leaving, I crossed Customs a couple of times to see their last games, including one vs. my favorite team, the Blazers. The Vancouver crowd was exhuberant, despite knowing their team was about to be moved by the new owner Heimsley or whatever the thief's name is. Sonic attendance was affected by the roster drying out in 10 years of death throes, with Wally Walker making 1 good trade in all that time, Payton for Allen. The talent level was a long climb downhill after Bob Whitsitt left. If attendance went down (I don't know that), I don't blame the fans.
Listened to sports radio on the way to work and the latest is that the finance/relocation committee is meeting via telecon today and will then spend 2-3 days putting it in writing that goes to the BoG. That written recommendation will get the 7 business day clock ticking; although, it sounds like the BoG will take extra days anyway. No huge news/change in the timing from this, but it's procedural info that I wasn't aware of. They also said that the committee had a fair number of questions for the two prospective owner groups and that essentially all of the questions went to Sacramento. Read into that what you will.
Late last week, Stern pushed the decision date to on or about May 13. We're still a solid two weeks out. It'll be interesting to see if the committee recommendation is made public because it will give a pretty good indication of where things are headed. If they stick to current timeline, the written recommendation will go out Thursday or Friday of this week. http://mynorthwest.com/27/2260634/Stern-expects-final-Kings-vote-within-next-three-weeks
