The Buyout Era Is Tainting The Game

[JohnnyK]

-= original quote snipped =-
You're just flat wrong.

No I am not. You just haven't done your homework.

Taxpayers in cities don't have to do anything they don't want to, but the REALITY is if you want to be one of only 30 cities with an NBA franchise, you have to pay the going price.

So the going price is a (basically) new arena every 12 years or so?

And you can't say, "We put a new coat of paint on our out-of-date model 15 years ago" and then complain you've done all you can do, because that's akin to me offering $1000 to the Ferrari dealer and saying "But I really want that Ferrari, you just aren't being fair and letting me buy it."

Apart from the fact that your analogy is crap, there's this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KeyArena
It was completely rebuilt in between 1994 and 1995. The building's original roofline was used as a guide, but almost everything about the arena was brand new aside from the roof trusses and some of the original concrete supports.

New paint? Yeah, right.

Sure, it is not the most state-of-the-art arena, but there is worse.

You are also ignoring 2 more important facts - the new owners bought the team with the sole intention to move it (as numerous reports have shown) and lied to the league and the other owners about it (see http://www.boston.com/sports/basketball ... 7_e_mails/ for an example).

Look, I am not a Sonics fan by any means. I live 10.000 miles away from Seattle. Their move will not impact me in any way. But the whole issue just stinks.

[FGump]

Actually I have done my homework. This is an OLD stadium from the early 60s, and it's been remodeled but still has the old footprint and structure. It's small by NBA standards and lacks most of the amenities of stadiums around the NBA these days.

But just as big of a problem is that Seattle didn't even actually pay for an upgrade in the 1990s. They merely made what was in essence a loan to the Sonics and only on an upgrade of a creaky leaky building that was about 35 years old and way out of date. The Sonics took the best deal they could get but it was still from the "bad deal" category.

As a result, the diminished size and footprint limits the possible revenue streams, and ultimately the fact that the city gets a significant slice of that already-undersized pie makes the economic model unworkable.

Meanwhile the city opted to tear down the Kingdome (built in the late 70s) and PAY for brand new state-of-the-art facilities for football and baseball.

And now the locals are saying, Why should we build arenas? We've built new ones! "But for the Sonics?" Well nope, but we've built some, and we don't want to pay for any more

The reality is they don't want to spend for a BASKETBALL franchise.

This isn't about Bennett or the NBA. There were local billionaires who tried to save the team for Seattle and looked at the business model. They said here's what we need, and we'll agree to renovate and keep the team here. Instead Seattle said no.

The Seattle-ites have no one to blame but themselves. The fans in other cities pay the going price for their NBA teams but they won't (and it's not about financial ability, because with Microsoft there, they are a very affluent city). If you don't pay the going rate, you've made your choice.

People ask "Why should fans pay for this or that, for a team?" The answer is, that's the price tag if you want your own team these days. They decided they don't want to pay, which is their right, but they have no one to blame but themselves.