NO SCHOOLS PAGE: Total agreement here, Kent. People like their entertainment and they like their entertainers. Something that needs talk is the symbiotic relationship between big sports and the media. Note the amount of space the ST devotes to sports. Cheap filler, right? a couple of airheads intoning and a lot of scheduled, predictable headlines. This creates interdependence. Anticipation, event, coverage. It fills space.
Sells ads.

Even Mr. Brewster, local hero, seems to have an obscure vein of sports allegiance; where did that come from? well, first of all, he's a journalist.

Sports franchises do add to a city's appeal: Your argument is predicated on the fact that many major metropolitan cities do not have elite sporting teams or events and I'm here to say that you're just dead wrong. Using your examples, London has five English Premier League teams including names recognized worldwide - Chelsea and Arsenal. In addition, London plays host to Wimbledon, arguably one of the most recognizable sporting events in the world. Paris, likewise, plays host to the French Open and A.S. Roma is one of the most popular football teams in Europe. These are just a few examples that are known internationally but there are many more basketball, cricket, and rugby teams recognizable to city residents and throughout Europe.

I'm not here to make a case for publicly funding a Sonics arena but I'm tired of of the many vocal authors and politicians, who don't happen to be sports fans, saying that professional sports don't add to the metropolitan appeal of a city, I think this premise is false.

Markets: Since the beginning of western civilization, arenas have been built and paid for by the public. Outside of Seattle, it's generally considered to be in the public's interest to have a large venue where citizens can gather to see theater, hear music, watch sports, or participate in political rallies.

Most businesses that use large arenas (Led Zeppelin, Barack Obama's campaign, Disney on Ice, Roman gladiators) pay to lease the space, but they don't pay a dime for its construction. If the reunited Van Halen didn't have to kick in for the new arena, why should the Sonics?

The bottom line is that the Sonics are acting like a business by looking for the best deal they can find, and they've found a better deal in Oklahoma. As long as there are cities willing to invest in the NBA, its teams don't have to cut salaries or stick around in politically dysfunctional cities losing money.

At this point, I'd be happy to see the Sonics go just so that I don't have to read any more misguided, self-righteous "populist" rants.

Kent is right on: The big pro sports franchises want it both ways: they want to be completely free to be run like a business, yet they want total public support through tax dollars and anti-trust exemptions. At one time, you might have been able to make the case that Seattle's having pro-sports franchises was important to our future success--and the Sonics did help put us on the map. But forty years later, we're being choked by our "success" and it's time we learn to pay the true costs of growth. Kent's suggestion that the dollars be spent on cleaning up Puget Sound is a good one: we need to re-focus on the basics, such as the general health of the community.

The money...: The current proposal isn't to extend the tax. It is to use the last three years of the tax since Safeco is going to be paid off early. Also keep in mind that the city is going to put much more than 75 million into Seattle Center in their proposed redesign which will include Key Arena.

It is not often that you have potential owners offer to pay half the cost of a public owned arena. It is sad that many of our political leaders in the state of Washington weren't even bothered to take a look at a deal that included the CEO's of Microsoft and Costco.

RE: Kent is right on: Cleaning up Puget sound would be an expense. Updating an arena, in contrast, would be an investment.

Big difference.

The Real Agenda: This isn't about sports, it's about power...and high-end extortion.

Eventually, citizens somewhere will simply say, "Enough!" and figuratively lay down on the tracks of one of these professional sports palace financing scams to prevent the locomotive of the big-money, big-power consortium of leagues, owners, politiicians, and even well-heeled so-called "good citizens" to put a stop to this nonsense.

Could it be that uber-blue Seattle/King County is the one? Be still my heart, but let it be so!

To contend that succumbing to the extortion effort of Clay Bennett, David Stern and the NBA now joined by Mayor Nickels is "investment" is to misunderstand the term. Overall, those who can ill-afford this type of "investment" (the taxpayers) receive nothing in return, while those who have the most to "invest" effectively get off scot-free and those who reap the greatest reward do so out of proportion to their ante.

The new Gang of Four can just as easily pony the full load as half of it, while erstwhile "fans," a group that's numerically pretty small when you think about it, get a benefit well out of proportion to what they've put into the pot.

The public money could be better spent on cleaning up Puget Sound, improving schools, or even, perish the thought, being returned to the pockets of taxpayers who then can direct "investments" of their own as they see fit.

No matter the direction of the money saved, what is necessary is to break the cycle of abuse. Haves threatening have-nots forcing them to become have-even-less-nots while the haves become haves-who-have-a-Hell-of-a-lot-more. Where's the good sense or simple justice in that?

There are other models. The Green Bay Packers will never leave Lambeau Field because the team is largely owned by fans. Could have happened here, which, perhaps, gives testimony to how dependent we've become on government. That this creates an interesting dichotomy with how the general public is saying, "No!" is a fascinating subject deserving of study.

Still, it's well past time for the community to take to heart the words of that great moral philosopher, Popeye the Sailor:

"That's all I can stands, I can't stands no more!"

We've had it! One jack attempt too many. George Argyros, Ken Behring, and now their prarie pardner, Clay Bennett - bugger the lot! And bugger all who play their game and don't call their bluff.

Power to the people. Let the revolution start here; it's as good a place as any.

The Piper

Hey strawman, where does money come from?: Hi, the Seattle portion of the public funds are to be repaid through revenue generating activities from having the Sonics playing games and as an anchor tenant at Key Arena.
No Sonics, no revenue, no private money upgrade to the facility to the benefit of concert going public. Now that the state wants to take a tax called a Stadium Tax, and spend it on non-stadium things I will guess that the businesses that have the tax and benefit from the revenue generating activity of sports teams are going to be much less likely to support extending the tax that burdons them, and they are likely to step up and directly assist in keeping the revenue generating activity (Sonics games) in Key Arena. If the Sonics leave, expect the Washington Restuarant association to kill the tax.
I agree, there are better places to spend money if that were the argument, but it is not.
The Key Arena will require at least 20 million in upgrades to make it attractive to more tenants if the Sonics leave, then you hope to have non-sports millionaires generate revenue. It then becomes a drain, enjoy.

lead by example: if money can be better spent on the laundry list of non-sports and entertainment things then let's start with that 1% for the arts that everybody not living in a tree, or under a rock, pays for no matter what they think of spending tax money on such things. Have you been to the dump?
I don't think we need to give money away to "art" that does not generate enough money to sustain that broken business model.
Replace the word "sports" with "truck tire installation at the DUMP" and I can make the very same arguments as the mossback and writers here and you know it. The clear difference is that all of the other public-public partnerships are of personal interest to you, therefore they MUST be if interest to "Seattle", and nessisary to fund.
Just so we are clear, I was born here too, and in no way did I want my tax money paying for the rusty outdoor sculpture, or any of the thousands of shiny metal/concrete postmodern blobs littering my city, that's okay with you, and yet, here you hypocrites spout off about the Key Arena. You've got some nerve, too bad it isn't connected to your stored memory instead to your knee, where we find your myopic knee-jerk reaction.
How about leading by example, and get rid of the handouts of my tax money to the broken business model of the "arts" community.

Do your research: Pretension is best backed by facts.

You sir, have put the cart well ahead of the horse.

The proposal in Olympia this week had nothing to do with either extending an existing tax, or even taxing the citizens of Seattle.

The funding for a Key Arena renovation would have come from the extension of the tourism tax that built Safeco Field.

Those taxed are visitors to the state, not the state itself.

People like Kent here love to sit on their pedestal and talk about all the ways our government should be spending money, yet thinkers like Kent have been in power for years in that state, and nothing ever gets better.

You use a lot of big words, sir, unfortunately, none of them are backed with logic, and that's where you fail as a thinker, and a writer.

Oops.: And commenting on pretention is best backed by editing...

That should have read:

"The funding for a Key Arena renovation would have come from letting the tourism tax that built Safeco Field live out its original term (2016)."

Don't let anti-sports bias stand in the way of good policy: Look, there's plenty of reason to be frustrated with the NBA. But this article is just another knee-jerk rant hitting the main anti-sports points without actually addressing the facts of the proposal.

Kent's points seem to be that we:
1. Shouldn't spend public money on private enterprise
2. Spend public money on more important things
3. Shouldn't support rich owners and players

1. Public money, private enterprise
This is a biggie, and last year, it was justified. Clay Bennett's plan would have put $500 million of public money into a facility that would have benefited only the Sonics.

The new plan would involve public money and $150 million of private money going towards the renovation of a public facility. Shouldn't people dead-set against public money going to private enterprise be holding parties to celebrate private money going towards a public facility.

The city is actually playing this very nicely. They've parlayed the NBA's threat to leave into a $150 million private-money windfall for one of the fundamental and largest revenue-earning buildings in Seattle Center. It's used for purposes beyond sports, and taxpayers are already on the hook for it. This is a huge win.

2. Spend public money on more important things
Well, yeah. Sonics fans want firefighting, transportation, and education too.

But not every government dollar goes to those important things. For example, our government is in the business of making an area a great place to live. This is why we have a great parks system, the Olympic Sculpture Garden (~$20 million in public funds), Benaroya Hall (>$100 million in public funds), and McCaw Hall (~$55 million public funds). The Sonics, Seahawks, and Mariners are other civic treasures that make this area great.

By the way, where are all these defenders of public resources when it's the arts getting multi-million-dollar public subsidies?

Also, this plan wouldn't actually take money away from education and transportation. The $75 million of county funds originally on the table were from a tax created expressly for sports stadiums and taxing activities frequently associated with tourism. These aren't funds that are otherwise going to police.

The city is now looking for the $75 million, but the deputy mayor has said there's no chance the funds would compete with education and the rest. The money would likely come from usage taxes on people who actually use the facility. Just like the Key Arena remodel in the '90s.

But if this plan and its $150 million private contribution is rejected, the taxpayers will be solely on the hook for rescuing Seattle Center. That rescue effort would likely come from the General Fund, meaning it would be robbed from transportation, education, etc.

3. We shouldn't support rich owners and players
Why should we care? We shouldn't do something just because billionaires are involved, and, importantly, we shouldn't not do something just because they are involved.

This plan is just good policy. Seattle Center, a public facility, is on the downturn. Key Arena is one of the main revenue-generators in Seattle Center. If we pass on this, Key Arena will lose not only a $150 million private contribution towards its renovation, but its anchor tenant that pays rent and brings 15,000 people into Seattle Center 41 nights a year.

I'm a Sonics fan, and I want them around. I enjoy the team, and I like the way a successful team can bring a community together. I get that some people don't care, but they should care about what happens to Seattle Center. Look past the normal anti-sports knee-jerk points and please just evaluate this deal on its merits.

RE: The Real Agenda: Piper: This isn't about sports, it's about power...and high-end extortion. Eventually, citizens somewhere will simply say, "Enough!" and figuratively lay down on the tracks of one of these professional sports palace financing scams to prevent the locomotive of the big-money, big-power consortium of leagues, owners, politiicians, and even well-heeled so-called "good citizens" to put a stop to this nonsense.

Buried in all this revolutionary jargon (down with the imperialist running dogs!) is this:
- I think the NBA is a bunch of bullies
- We should stand up to these bullies

Which is fine. But it should be recognized for what it is - not a good basis for a smart decision on what is a pretty important question for the whole region.

And Piper, you should recognize that while the reason this new plan is so reasonable is because the last few plans weren't. Drawing conclusions from the Sonics' recent history and demands isn't informative when looking at this proposal. It really isn't.

RE: The Real Agenda: Sorry - I realized I had one more thing to say. :-)

Piper: We've had it! One jack attempt too many. George Argyros, Ken Behring, and now their prarie pardner, Clay Bennett - bugger the lot! And bugger all who play their game and don't call their bluff.

You do realize, don't you, that we told Argyros and Behring to bugger off, and we still kept the Mariners and Seahawks. We kept them because more suitable ownership stepped up with facility plans that taxed the group of people most likely to be using the facilities. We didn't give in to Argyros and Behring (or Smulyan) - we embraced the people willing to make things work.

Likewise, you need to understand that this isn't for Clay Bennett. It's not on the table for him, because he's not willing to pay his money for an arena. The last thing he wants is for Seattle to have good local ownership standing by with a real arena plan.

If you really want to tell Clay Bennett to bugger off, that's great - you'll have plenty of company. I'll stand shoulder-to-shoulder with you. But the people you're really telling to bugger off this time are the local businessmen who stepped forward to keep the team here, playing at Key Arena, and who have been willing to put their own money forward. The best way to screw Clay Bennett and his threats is to get this deal done, because it's the last thing he wants to see happen.

Power to the people. Let the revolution start here; it's as good a place as any.

Like I said in my other reply, this isn't particularly smart. Let's say you go tell the NBA to go do crude things with itself. The NBA shrugs and goes away, and you feel a burst of fierce pride that you really stood up for the little guy. Grr!

Great. While you're beating your chest, the rest of us are left with:
- no team, and for some of us that's a really big deal
- a Key Arena with no major tenant and dramatically lessened income
- a Seattle Center even less healthy than it is today

And that equates to a much bigger funding crisis down the road - which actually could detract from the more important things you want to spend money on.

End the Hype: Maybe this conversation could be reframed.

What will it take to make sure that Key Arena doesn't become a huge drain on city finance and is kept up to support all the things that happen there, not just the Sonics?

How can we make sure that Seattle Center continues to be a strong regional asset? What is the role of year round Key arena events on that equation, and the businesses and jobs that feed it?

And while we're at it, why aren't we looking at the hundreds of everyday jobs that don't pay a ton that are Sonics related, not just the big salaries of the athletes?

Do all kinds of urban amenities (like NBA basketball at Seattle Center) spur more focused urbanized development that acts as a hedge against the type of sprawl that will further degrade the health of Puget Sound?

Is NBA basketball just about elites and high paid athletes, or is it something that happens in wet dark winters that keeps young and old entertained and give a whole state something to root together for?

I'm not big on the Sonis anymore. But I think the NBA does matter.

Overall, even with the warts, the presence of the Sonics here is a community asset well worth protecting. It was good to see some of the state's wealthiest people step forward to save the team. Those guys should be congratulated, not knocked.

I sorta doubt the taxes the county raises for the other stadiums will go away. There are too many other interests (arts to affordable housing) that want access to them. And there is something to be said for a policy of establishing a direct relationship between a tax and the things that benefit from it. So I wouldn't hold my breath that those taxes will ever be targeted at saving the Sound or improving access to health care.

The Sonics are worth something, but .....: Pro basketball and other pro sports seem to be a bottomless pit. I think there was an article a few months ago in the Times: The Mariners were quietly lobbying against the tax going to the Sonics because the Mariners know that at some point the stadium is going to need upgrades or replacements, paid for by .... you and me (or tourists).

If the Ballmersonics proposal is a hard cap at $75 MM, and Steveb is willing to cover construction overruns, ongoing losses from revenue shortfalls, less than projected growth in TV revenues because of the transitions in the advertising market (ironically on which Microsoft is trying to capitalize) or buyer fatigue at the high ticket prices, that's one thing. But there have not been any in depth reports of how exactly his proposal would work, or whether $300MM into Key Arena is enough to make the business model work.

This former Microsoftee wonders if the timing was just a PR stunt, sort of like Microsoft's announcement many years ago that pulled the rug out from under Phillipe Kahn and Borland, Ray Noorda and Novell, Wordperfect, Netscape and many other companies that have long since vanished.

Seattle hates privately funded arenas: Back in the early 1990's, Sonics owner Barry Ackerley and Spectrum Group from NY/Philly offered to privately fund a new arena on the old Kingdome Parking lot site which now is Safeco Field. The Seattle City Council killed the plan based on infrastructure costs. Many times, the private business groups cannot assemble the land packages due to zoning restrictions and lack of eminent domain and condemnation powers. And, do the privately funded buildings have to offer usage for public purposes such as graduations, speeches, public employee meetings and trade shows, etc?? The Greater Puget Sound Metroplex has yet to properly identify a location and 'need' for a new mega-arena of which the Sonics would be a 45 day tenant.

It's a tough balance: I've know Kent for at least 15 years - he is probably to Seattle what Bill Cosby is to comedy in this Country. FWIW I think he does a better job as unofficial host than as official scribe, but that's just my opinion. In any case this guy is probably worth more to the City than the Sonics and the Mariners combined - and he works for free.

Attacking a civic activist who at least acknowledges the need for fiscal responsibility may be fair politics, but when those attacks are for gross profit, undermine the civic fabric, and/or destroy the ability of a private citizen to make a living from his, or her, endeavors than we have a problem.

The Sonics are not the worst example of this, but they are, perhaps the most symbolic.

I do disagree with Mr. Kammerer on governments need to focus solely on needs. FWIW, a large reason why Seattle has infrastructure problems was that they chose, in Olympia, to go after the Social Service dollars and leave the highway money to Eastern Washington.

The thing to do is to be smart about how we go about things, and when we do it. The time to spend money on luxuries is when times are good, and they are not so now. Now is the time to dig into the reserves and invest in infrastructure, though unfortunately we do not have those reserves now.

We can also see that our transportation monies are spent in a way that is socially beneficial - hire apprentices, even recent jail releases to work on the roads, not distort our economy with artificially high union wages.

People do have their own preferences and we need to respect it. I suspect the wants of myself and Mr. Kammerer are actually pretty close. But if one is otherwise a sports fan or an arts fan, or whatever, I do think they should be at the table.

If, however, you are seeking to get absurdly rich by a strategy of insults and treating the average citizen as a 21st century slave, well does it really need to be said? Perhaps it does.

RE: The Real Agenda: FWIW the Sonics themselves aren't the real culprits.

The folks who claim to work for them are. The biggest shame on the Sonics is the hiring of such overpaid, complete deadbeat, trash.

That's the thing about bad lawyers, everybody ends up losing.

It's lose-lose or win-win. Which do you choose?

Cry me a river....: Sports are a quality of life issue - an important issue, overall, to be sure.

But there are many aspects to quality of life - and, for one, the health of Puget Sound is a quality of life issue, not mention also a public health matter, etc.

When you insist in outrageous profits based on such specious arguments you come across as nothing more than dumb bully jock shaking down his classmates for lunch money.

If you love the Sonics so much, why don't you go to Oklahoma with them?

FWIW, if we could get all of you to leave the quality of life in Western Washington would go up one heck of a lot more than would saving the Sonics.

Well Said: Your point is a good one, and really the only good opposition in this entire comment thread.

But the crucial distinction, in my mind, is how much we are paying people to work for our entertainment.

An artist will likely work for 50k a year - the players and owners of a pro-sports team might be making 5 million.

FWIW, I'd bet we could get a lot more for our 50k, if we were smarter about arts funding. But 5 million, please, get real.

A Counter Proposal: What about spending that same money on improving highway's 2 and 7, and perhaps 101 - improving access to our superb natural assets?

This is a better proposal: However with the involvement of Matt Griffin it is really just an example of same old same old.

If a car dealer tries to rip you off for 50k do you go back to him when he offers to give you a deal that might have even been fair? No, you go shop somewhere else.

At least that's what I'd do. I guess you wouldn't, right 'tough guy'?

RE: Seattle hates privately funded arenas: Maybe they should offer their deal to Tacoma - might be a better deal for us than continuing to pour money into our convention center (which is, BTW, pretty sweet, though not profitable)

If we let this shoe drop....many more to come.: SJenner hits on the number one reason to reject the Ballmer offer: it is just one step in an endless vicious cycle.

The Mariners were quietly lobbying against the tax going to the Sonics because the Mariners know that at some point the stadium is going to need upgrades or replacements, paid for by .... you and me (or tourists).


Robert Mak, once asked Wally Walker (former Sonics CEO) about why the Sonics needed a new stadium only 10 years after the 1995 gut/rebuild of KeyArena. The reason was that the M's & Hawks stadiums, built following KeyArena, had offered more attractive luxury-box facilities and had stolen a lot of business from the Sonics. The Key plan had penciled out at the time, but had not accounted for the new stadiums.

If we were to re-revamp KeyArena, it is a virtual certainty that the M's and/or Hawks would be back in Oympia with their hands out in the near future. We can stop the vicous cycle here, or look forward to being repeatedly victimized in the future.

Generic: Generic Online Levitra
Online Discount Pharmacy
Online Viagra Visa