Because everything is political - The Seattle Sonics

Billionaires are great. They set up charities create investment, buy really freakin' big houses, and try and move sports teams to their home city. Yes, I am talking about the Seattle Sonics and the Seattle Strom, and their new owner Clay Bennett and a group of Oklahoma Business men.

Today, they are being sued by a pair of Seattle Season Ticket holders for fraud. This case serves a as a good talking point about wealth, responsibility, and Stadiums. When Clay Bennette and his group bought the Sonics, and the Storm it was with the intention of moving them, or flipping the team. This is the source of his suit against the city of Seattle. He is costing the city thousands of dollars in attorney fees, just because he wants to move the team. Now, if he gets a new stadium like he wants, he'll sell the team and make a nice profit.

So, what are the options? Well you can sue, which has happened. Now there are other solutions as well. We can let the team move for instance, which no one really wants to do. Seattle loves the Sonics, they are one of the few teams in the area not to suffer fair-weather fans. Take my Mariners, please! Just don’t take my Sonics. Also, we have the domination machine known as the Storm. Now the Strom gets a good amount respect for a WNBA team, and they wouldn’t do as well in conservative Oklahoma, as they do out here in liberal Seattle. There are marketing reasons for this that I don’t really want to get into. We could spend hundreds of millions of dollars on building a new stadium. But that would make traffic worse, and who really wants that. Also it would put a drain on local businesses at a time when our economy is gangbusters. Plus, it would be in Everett or somewhere similarly crappy.

The solution I favor is buying the teams. Yes, the city of Seattle should own the Storm, and the Sonics. Why not? It would be more financially reasonable then say building a stadium we wouldn’t own or make money off of. There would be security for current fans, knowing the team definitely is leaving, which would increase ticket sales. Also there is the windfall that new fans would create. People not in favor of the Sonics, and the Strom would get behind them. I am not saying every one would, but the Northwest likes to buy local, and a local team, with local owners, might be enough to convince some skeptics to come to a few games, and maybe buy a baseball cap or something.

Buying a team also means that we won’t have to keep spending tons of money making major renovations every 10 years, and building new facilities every 25 years or so. Ultimately a locally owned team is the best solution. If Seattle doesn’t want to put its money where its mouth is it should let the teams leave, but we shouldn’t waste our money on another stadium.

This article was inspired by a peice in the Seattle Times. Linked here.