Ladies and gentlemen, the Oklahoma City Sonics
The Sonics are being sold to a group of Oklahoma City investors.
Congratulations, people of Seattle. You have pushed the Sonics out of the Key. With no one in the building, the Seattle Center will move that much closer to insolvency.
And once the Center gets really desperate, they’ll look towards what Houston did with the old Summit — lease the building to a megachurch. Hmm. Isn’t there a megachurch on the Eastside that doesn’t have a building?
Oh, yeah. That one.
That sound you just heard? Everyone at the Stranger either screaming from the impending Ken Hutcherson invasion, or squealing from the easy stories the Key-based church will generate for the paper.
Oh, the sweet, delicious irony.
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If by “pushed out” you mean “not subsidised enough with money that could have been spent on useful things” then yes, we have.
Dylan,
Seeing as how the city was losing money on the sonic and not making money, this is actually a step towards profitability. Especially since they won’t have to share the revenue from the long list of concerts that are always playing there.
So, Seattle’s going to be able to book 61 more concerts? Not bloody likely. Not with Everett’s arena. Not if Renton or Bellevue decide to go ahead with their arenas.
The future will be the Center getting sub-divided and sold to condo developers. Goodbye, Bumbershoot. Goodbye, Folklife.
DW: you’re assuming that Key Arena must be used on every date that it’s currently used for basketball, in order to break even. I’m not convinced this assumption actually holds, and even if it does I doubt the direct subsidy KeyArena would need to stay open is more than the $200+ million the Sonics have been demanding.
Don’t get me wrong - I will be sad if we lose either or both of our basketball teams (it’s not yet certain that we will, but it does seem likely). I’m just not convinced that the good they bring the city is worth $400 of each of our money, on top of what each fan spends on tickets, merchandise and concessions. I also get the impression that the relationship between the previous owners and the city was bad enough that they were never going to agree - if the new owners actually do want to keep the teams here then perhaps they can work something out that doesn’t involve ripping off the city.
Doesn’t anyone here remember the crocodile tears shed by John Ellis on the so-called “Black Saturday” when the Mariners, after being rebuffed again on public financing for a new stadium, announced that they were pulling up and moving out of Seattle and nothing was going to change their minds?
Folks, it’s just like cell phones: wireless companies have convinced consumers we can’t live without them (even though we did for about a century). Similarly, there is an element here that insists our quality of life will descend to heretofore unknown depths without NBA basketball.
Sheesh.
I don’t care if we lose every single professional sports team we have, I’m sick and tired of subsidizing multi-millionaires at the expense of projects that really deserve my tax dollars. When homelessness is marginal, our police and fire departments are completely staffed with trained professionals who have every possible tool available to them, when all of our parks are completely remodeled to be clean and safe,when Seattle city streets aren’t full of potholes, when our students are all getting a quality education, when we have low-cost/no-cost housing & health care for everyone who deserves it, and we have some skateparks for our kids, then and maybe then I will give a damn about a bunch of greedheads who bring in massive amounts of revenue through ticketing and merchandise that they DON’T share with me but yet somehow think my tax money should be handed over to them at their whim. There’s not a single city in America that would go bankrupt if it lost every single one of its “professional” teams.
The Center–originally slated to be a temporary facility–has become a major tourist attraction because of the Space Needle and is also the host to opera, ballet and theater. Freed of the obligation to support the demands of the spoiled billionaires demanding our tax dollars in the name of professional sports, Key Arena staff can market their facility to a number of events.
Again, Eldan, keep in mind that the Key is in direct competition with the T-Dome and the Everett Events Center. Everett’s arena is newer and plusher and has been picking up a lot of shows. And, it’s cheaper to run, since it’s a little smaller and Everett is a little cheaper. Tacoma is having money troubles with the T-Dome right now, mainly because of Everett.
Now, throw in a Bellevue or Renton arena, and suddenly you have four events centers in the area competing for the same acts. I don’t see how the Key in its current state is going to beat out Everett or Renton’s sparkling new places. Yeah, Seattle has 19,000 seats, but so does the T-Dome, and that hasn’t helped.
Even if the Key doesn’t get a $200M facelift, it will likely need a $20-30M facelift in the next couple of years to compete with Everett/Renton/Bellevue. And I-91 would effectively stop that from happening. Nice.
The Seattle Center is in desperate need of help, no matter what happens with the Sonics. If this city thinks having a fairground is important, it needs to invest in it. And so far, this city barely thinks more than 5 minutes in the future when it comes to the public good.
And as for “it’s not yet certain,” I grew up in Tulsa. I know how long Oklahoma City has been jockeying for a pro sports team. They came close to getting the Oilers and Whalers. They almost got an NHL expansion franchise last round. These owners aren’t interested in keeping the Sonics in Seattle at all. Landing the Sonics is the crowning achievement of the MAPS Project, a taxpayer-funded remake of the downtown OKC/Bricktown built environment.
And here’s the irony — OKC is getting the Sonics because they were more forward-thinking about their city than Seattle. While Seattle was dithering about building height and voting endlessly about transit, OKC spent the money on two new stadiums, road improvements, restoring the canal system, providing money for warehouse makeovers and condos, bringing in entertainment venues and shopping…. And this was in a shorter period of time than it took for the Northgate makeover to get through the planning stages and lawsuits.
Well, Zee dear, if those are so important to you, figure out how to pay for it. If it needs a tax hike, either arm-twist the city council or use an initiative to put it before the voters.
To say it’s “billionaires” or “safe parks” is a false dichotomy.
I’ve been agitating for all of these things for years. I don’t just complain. Sadly, that just complaining is what far too many people do actually think is the best way to solve our myriad social issues.
But, see, that’s the exact problem. You don’t act.
So we don’t put taxes up $250M on the stadium. Fine. But no one ever suggests doing the exact same thing to, say, pay for homeless shelters, or paying for lower-income housing.
I mean, honestly, how hard would it be to put together a tax package that would provide the long-term financial infrastructure to solve some of these problems? Not hard at all. Tim Eyman has been buying Lexuses off initiatives for years.
All you have to do is think like Timmy boy. Make it simple. Make it visceral. Make it substantive. For example, just how hard would it be to put together an intiative to provide permanent funding to the Seattle Public Library? I’m tired of seeing them go begging for money to buy their collections.
So how does one write an initiative? I would be happy to provide permanent funding to the SPL.
Zee, make sure that’s a city-only or King County initiative. The rest of the state is tired of paying for Puget-Sound Area luxuries with our taxes…
Zee: I can’t find the info on the Seattle city website. Odd. It’s like they don’t want you to know it’s there.
Aaron: We’ll stop passing the taxes when you stop telling us what to do with our money. For that matter, maybe we can just give Vancouver to Portland and let them deal with the crappy schools and income tax.
About those concerts, yes, the Key will be competing with Tacoma and Renton and the others, but the Key has one big advantage. It’s actually IN Seattle.
I never drive to concerts and thus will never probably visit one of the other venues, but I can take one bus to the Key. I think they can make a go of it by capturing the inelastic travelers such as myself.
Plus, bands, I think, prefer to say they’re playing Seattle, as opposed to Tacoma or Renton. It means something and if the marketing team does its job, they can capture that.
This is true, but the problem is that there just aren’t that many more events for them to pull in. I’m looking at the Everett and Tacoma calendars over the next few months, and the only things I can see them attracting are Champions on Ice (which used to be at the Key) and Watchtower (the Jehovah’s Witnesses convention). That’s it. An ice show and a multi-day convention. Maybe that would be enough. Or maybe not.
As is, the Key is already attracting the big concerts (Elton John, Cirque de Soleil, Tim McGraw). There’s just not that much more to add.
And honestly, that not only calls into question the Key’s viability without another sports franchise taking up the days, but also whether a Renton arena would have enough event days to be viable.