Seattle takes the money. The Sonics run.

[pscot]

I understand that for most of you this doesn't very much matter. If you've only lived here for the last five or ten years losing the Sonics may not seem like a big deal. Just another greedy sport franchise trying to batten at the public trough. But some of us have bled green and gold for the last 40 years, and this leaves a big hole in our hearts. May Howard Schultz, Greg Nickles and Chris Gregoire burn in hell.


"The city of Seattle will be paid $45 million in exchange for letting the Sonics move to Oklahoma City this year as part of last-minute settlement announced this afternoon.

Sonics owner Clay Bennett will pay the city an additional $30 million in five years if the city is unable to secure another NBA team, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels said.

In a press conference in Oklahoma City, Bennett said, "We made it. Congratulations.... The NBA will be in Oklahoma City next season, playing their games."

Nickels said the NBA agreed that a renovated KeyArena would be suitable to support a new team. However, the mayor said the state Legislature must pass a funding bill next year to help pay for the improvements."

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/sonics/

[Mojambo]

1. It sucks man. It really sucks.

I would add David Stern to that list of people who need to burn.

I wonder what they are going to rename the team.

I think the Oklahoma City Wingers would be appropriate, given the right wing assholes who own the team.

Boy, those players just have to be thrilled to be moving to Oklahoma City...

[pscot]

2. I thought Horse Thieves might be appropriate

Or maybe Rustlers. There's enough bad kharma associated with this to blight Oklahoma City for the next 100 years.

[Mojambo]

3. Oh, Rustlers... That's good. n/t

[flamingyouth]

7. David Stern is the worst & crookedest commissioner of any sport EVER.

What a fucking tool that guy is.

But fuck Howard Schultz for selling to these creeps in the first place.

[rhett o rick]

9. They are all in it. Rip-off the taxpayers. Just wait. Next step in the game is

the city will ask the taxpayers, many that are having trouble making ends meet, to cough up millions to provide an arena so super rich players can play and super rich owners can make millions. Then after a few years, well before the arena is paid off, they will go thru the same game. Threaten to move and if you don't pay your 100 million you loose your team.

You can fool some of the people some of the time but apparently you can fool sports fans all the time. I wouldn't mind but we all have to foot the bill.

[flamingyouth]

10. What are you talking about? The team's gone.

The city got their cash out of the lease. It's over, pal.

[rhett o rick]

12. LOL, it's never over. This is just a stage in the game. The next stage is that

the fans will holler for a team. The NBA will say that we need a extremely expensive stadium. Us taxpayers will be forced to cough up taxes to build a new facility. A team will be ripped out of an existing city and brought to Seattle. That city will have to build a new arena etc.

The city got 45 million. Is that enough to pay off the arena and tear it down? If it was enough to upgrade the arena, then why didn't the Sonics do it?

Sports teams are fine, but it is ridiculous to build new facilities as often as we do. Especially with the economy like it is.

George Bush used the sports team game to make nearly $50 million dollars.

[flamingyouth]

13. You think Stern's going to give us a new team right now?

Apparently you haven't been following this story very closely.

[rhett o rick]

17. I didn't say that. I said that the next stage in the cyclic sports rip-off game is that the fans

will start clamoring for a team and the NBA owners will make a deal that if Seattle coughs up a new expensive arena then they will rip a team out of some poor city that is into the cycle with an older, but adequate arena. The owners seem to get richer as the cycle goes around. I wouldn't care but the taxpayers have to pay the bill.

[rhett o rick]

18. Since you follow this story closer than I, how much per year does it cost taxpayers

to have the Key Arena? I am serious. Original cost plus upgrade costs plus maintenance plus the cost of tearing it down divided by number of years of service. Be interesting to know.

[rhett o rick]

4. This is just part of the pro-sports ripoff game. Players make millions and owners make millions

and fans and taxpayers get royally screwed.

We just passed thru the "Threaten to take the team away unless they give us millions of your dollars" phase. The claim that the facilities are inadequate. Bull Friggin Shit. Then if you don't fall for that, they will actually take your team. Courts (liberal judges? i don't think so) will always rule in favor of the rich owners.

Next stage is "If you want a team you will have to cough up tens or hundreds of millions. And that money will not buy you a contract that rich owners can't easily get out of. That money doesn't guarantee you diddly squat.

This is snake oil sales and people continue to fall for it. Besides the games are rigged. Hello.

[pscot]

5. Everyone is entitled to their opinion

Thanks for sharing. Goodbye.

[rhett o rick]

6. If you want a team then YOU pay for it. Don't ask me to pay for it. How gullible are you?

The NBA will tell Seattle that they need to spend billions of dollars and the city will bow and kiss their feet. "Dear NBA how much money do you want. We can bleed it out of our feed the children fund." If you want to play that game then take up a collection and keep your hands out of taxpayers pockets. The Mariners, the Seahawks, millions and millions of taxpayer dollars we can not afford. People are losing their homes, and going hungry, veterans living on the street and we should cough up millions and millions of dollars to give the rich players and owners. Bullshit.

[rhett o rick]

8. George Bush made his first millions playing the sports rip-off game. nm

[MikeNearMcChord]

11. The villian here is Howard Schultz

Anyone with at least two brain cells knew the moment it was sold to Clayton Bennett the Sonics future was baked into the cake. If Howie was such in bad straits why didn't he go to Steve Ballmer and other minority owners with a proposition to sell? As for blaming Governor Gregoire, sorry I think there are bigger concerns for her than providing welfare for millionaires and billionaires. Oh BTW I notice that Paul Allen must be crying tears for the loss of the Sonics, oh well at least the TrailBlazers are an up and coming team, maybe they can play a couple of games at Key Arena(which cannot be converted to NHL standards thanks to Mr. Ackerly)

[Fenris]

14. Schultz didn't care.

In fact, he doesn't care. The only reason why he's said anything recently is that he wants the public to think he was duped and not just a money-grubbing asshole. To accept that Schultz was fooled by Bennett assumes that Schultz has a child-like intelligence, which, while he may be a colossal jerk, he does not. He knows enough to make a lot of money (although his ability for long term planning and quality maintenance is lacking), which is precisely why he sold the team to the Okies.

[Wash. state Desk Jet]

15. That 's like saying find another one and keep shelling out the money.

Figure though MikenearMcChord that even Rossi tried to gather people support, the pide pipper,Join me in saving the Sonics!
I think you are right in that most people knew the Sonics were gone when the deal went down,however some things are hard to give up,so ,as you know people hold out for hope.

My significant other agrees with the hard line,cannot afford that ,and she calls it all bull shit.Welfare for the super rich ,all that.

The fact is Seattle is a world class city these days and what it loses today it regains some other day.

I mean really ,do corperate raiders warn the corperations they intend to destroy or take over about their intentions! I mean come on now,it's all about keeping the stiff upper lip,the object being to fool the potential victims into believing it's all a fair friendly game! I mean hell, Rossi bought it! Doesn't it occure to you Mike that there are very many people in this state that are as stupid as Rossi! Exclude those that were holding out for hope in that statement please.

As the saying goes,sometimes the truth is hard to swallow.

[rhett o rick]

19. It is not just Schultz. The NBA commissioner and owners are business people.

With a few exceptions they are only interested in the bottom line. It's to be expected because they are in business.
Commissioners do not get their job because they want to make fans happy.

[eridani]

16. Blumenauer's Give Fans a Chance Act

An oldie but goodie--still relevant after 10 years

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_n28_v14/ai_21043925

"It is almost as if they have a death wish" Rep. Earl Blumenauer, an Oregon Democrat, says of professional sports franchises. "Fifty million Americans live in a community that has either lost a team or where a franchise relocation is threatened."

Blumenauer has introduced a bill known as the "Give Fans a Chance Act" and tells Insight he is fed up with "the big business of big sports which is increasingly growing distant from the communities of which they once were a part. There is a set of dynamics now that makes the fan feel he or she is being held hostage by the big sports cartels."

Gone are the glory days of the Rooneys, Rosenblooms and Halases, when the game, not the dollar, was paramount. While the sports leagues are making business decisions, cities increasingly are feeling that they are under the thumbs of owners who want lucrative stadium deals and other taxpayer subsidies and concessions from politicians, according to newspaper editorial pages.

http://www.newrules.org/sports/fans.html

Also--socialism in one football town

http://www.pbs.org/livelyhood/ourtowns/greenbay.html

In this segment, host Will Durst takes us to fan-lined Lambeau Field, home of the NFL football franchise, Green Bay Packers, where the local die-hard "cheeseheads," as they are known, celebrate local identity and pride and, most importantly, local ownership. The Packers, named for Green Bay's cheese packers and manufacturing workers, almost went bankrupt in the 1920s, until the community stepped in and reorganized the franchise into a non-profit entity -- selling shares in the team to the community.

For over 70 years, the team has been the only major sports franchise to be owned by the community in which it is based, and since 1960 NFL rules have prohibited public ownership of football franchises. Packers' owners' individual shares can never be cashed in more than their purchase price, but the wide local ownership arrangement has continually added new vigor to town pride and resources to civic groups -- not to mention all it's done for the guys who sell those ever-stylish cheesehead hats. Volunteers from local charities work home game concessions, in which 60 percent of profits go to charities.



http://www.pbs.org/livelyhood/ourtowns/greenbay.html

[flamingyouth]

20. I've always loved the Green Bay story.

Watching the fans/owners clean the snow off the stands before the games is awesome.

[Wash. state Desk Jet]

21. If you think about it,

A guy like Rossi will use anything to get your attention focused on him. The Sonics issue was a means to that end. Rossi therefore must have thought he saw a good deal in the making. I say that because he cannot afford to demonstrate publicly how little he knows about cooperate Enterprise. There you can easily see just how stupid he is. The chance he took when he went public on that support deal will no doubt reflect very badly on his supposed capabilities. I mean really, even a lowest level junior executive fresh out of college wouldn't be stupid enough to jump in on that dumb deal ,knowing something at least about how it works.

The idea itself was good,though realistically not a option in the game of high level cooperate business.


So Rossi jumped in ,and that's the guy the republicans got!That's the guy that thinks he can attract cooperate Enterprise to Washington State.
That's the guy they believe knows how to wheel and deal in high level cooperate wheelings and dealings!
And that's the loser they love so much!

Rossi would claim that nobody could have known what they were really planing at that time. And the truth is nobody is really that stupid,but apparently some people are.
And Rossi represents them all.
However this time Rossi revealed the fact publicly that he too is as stupid as all hell.

[pscot]

22. Ah, but Green Bay is a community

Seattle used to be, but is no longer. It seems like every Seattlite is now an aggrieved interest group of one. Everyone has their own agenda and will brook no compromise. There is no longer any broad vision of what the city is, or what it could be. Like the Preacher said, where there is no vision, the people perish.

[Wash. state Desk Jet]

23. Magic Mike and Safeco fields

It's almost to unbelievable that after Magic Mike MaGavic's true story became known to the gereral public that there would be those that did not have a clue to what was happening with the Sonics. But the fact is no two people see the same thing the same way.
But the hell if the big clue wasn't there before them all along. And of course leaving each person to see in their own way. But many choose not to see it for the truth in it.

MaGavic taught Rossi how to get out in front of it ,even if you are not sure it will work!
Rossi did not know the difference between figuratively and literally.! So Rossi figured,oh what the hell ,I ll jump right in and if it works ,I'll come out way ahead in the polls. !

The thing of it is Rossi had no line into the inner workings in any of it. Where-as MaGavic did and does. However MaGavic no longer operates in secrecy. Rossi too is a open book!

MaGavic you see is savvy to the dirty ways about high level cooperate business dealings. Most dirt bags are.
But Magavic may have different ideas about this election. When Rossi loses ,he will than be ruled out completely.
Rossi will be viewed not just as a loser but one who is stupid as all hell!

That means in 2012 the republican party will beg MaGavic to run!
See how the game is played?

If they beg him to run ,than he runs because of popular demand .
Than he is viewed like a hero,like his hero BATMAN!

Rossi is just some dumb ass you cannot tell anything because he thinks he already knows.
MaGavic knew the best way to get ahead is to get to know every self serving scumbag there is,every step of the way.

As far as the people go, the scumbag rule of thumb is, use them all,put the screws to them all.That rule of thumb Rossi knows quite a bit about. But Rossi lacks experience and a long line into the who is who in the world of cooperate enterprise.

Therefore MaGavic is smarter than Rossi !

[flamingyouth]

24. I know - you're right.

I guess I'm nostalgic for the Seattle of my youth, which certainly doesn't exist anymore (and I'm not even that old - at least I don't think so). I was a kid when the Sonics won the championship and have fond memories of the finals and of the parade. In a way it seems like a million years ago (and like a completely different city).

[pscot]

25. I'm with you

I hit town the same year the Sonics did. Their leaving is the end of something really special, though in fact, old Seattle died many years ago. I knew the jig was up when they tore down the Bounty tavern, one among many low-life landmarks that have fallen to the bulldozers.

[Wash. state Desk Jet]

27. I know just what you mean.

I got a demolition contract on the old block where the Army surplus store used to be down town. The salvage was part of the deal sweetener. The old rocket you may recall! I heard Fremont wanted it. So we let them have it. It was that or turn it in for scrap at the old yard in west Seattle. Some cool people told me to come and see Fremont,it's the place to hang a shingle. So I did. You can come on over and see the old rocket that used to be down town any time you want to. It there in Fremont for your viewing pleasure any day of the week ,or every day! Old Seattle remains in Seattle's soul. It's everywhere. If you got it,you got it .And if you don't,you really should. It's a good thing to have.

[eridani]

26. They don't even have professional cheerleaders

High school squads from all around Wisconsin take turns leading the cheers.

[LisaM]

28. In other words, they actually HAVE cheerleaders!

I refuse to call, for example, the Sea Gals, cheerleaders. They don't lead cheers! They just strut around.

The sports world is scared of the Green Bay model, so they won't allow it any more.

I firmly believe that communities, and fans, deserve some rights. We supply the names, the fan base, the money, and the identity for the team. Yet we have no rights! It's insane.