Comments

1
I thInk citing the line "far more important than 30 libraries" counts as a gaffe. Go to your corner.
2
Basketball is entertainment for blacks and poors though. We here in Seattle might love humanity but we hate people, especially THOSE people, so fuck them.
3
You lost me at "Art Modell," the biggest civic turncoat in the history of pro sports. He makes Howard Schultz look like George S. Bailey.
4
"I've sold sports arenas to Indianapolis, Baltimore, and North Haverbrook, and by gum it put them on the map!"
5
Baltimore Ravens owner Art Modell once said, “The pride and the presence of a professional football team is far more important than 30 libraries.”Fuck Art Modell. You might want to think twice about quoting this guy in a story about moving sports franchises, after the way he moved the Cleveland Browns to Baltimore. That's a pretty peculiar way to distract attention from how the Sonics were moved to Oklahoma. It only serves to remind us that he who giveth also taketh away, and if we steal a franchise from someone else we can lose another one ourselves.

Plus, libraries. Fuck you, Art Modell.
6
so let's let the public vote on this, then.
7
Nice effort! Your one study talks about taking a city with no pro sports and adding one team, namely football. So, we have a football team. And a baseball team. Did you find any research on what effect could be discerned at all by a city adding a third team, as with the reboot of the "Sonics" name? How about a fourth, the hockey team Hansen claims is necessary to make this worth his while?

I get that many people who were alive during the Sonics term are sad they left. And believe that when the new company names itself Sonics, and hires staff and players not related in any way to the history of the Sonics, they will not feel so bad any more. And that's good. But supporters such as attended last night's meeting presented a petition with 12,000 signatures. That is less than one full new arena night worth of people. Is this a good reflection of the number of people who will attend every game? Or who are going to be helped to feel better? If so, what is the per-old-Sonics-mourner cost to the general public of helping Sonics-mourners feel better?

Honestly, the tycoon owners' group needs to just pay for all their business's startup costs all by themselves, like every other business today has to. Once their business is running, its operations will generate taxes our city's general fund desperately needs. If we stupidly accept the tycoons' first offer now, those operations taxes will be lost - we'll have to sink them back into servicing the debt they will have fooled us into taking on for them.

There's no reason for us to take this deal when we can hold out for them paying their own way. They are bluffing on a business basis, and we'd be fools to give in at this point. And to those who fear these billionaires will walk away if we hold out for a good deal, I say if they walk they would never have stuck around in any case, and how well did that work out last time?
8
I'm dumber for reading this article.
9
"The pride and presence of a BathFitter brand bathtub is far more importan than 30 book cases," said Clark K. Carson, bathtub salesman.

"The pride and presence of a Big Mac is far more important than 30 7-11 tacquitos," said Duncan Flatworth, McDonald's manager, franchise #125713.

"The pride and presence of some Apple product is far more important than 30 of whatever shitty knockoffs Microsoft is making these days," said Steve Jobs, Apple head honcho and chief fry cook.
10
I've never spoken to a stranger before, but gee if the Sonics come back I'll certainly be talking to new people all the time.

And the correlation between football teams and higher rents in cities is so strong, it must be causation.
11
"But it’s really dumb to make a solely economic argument for building an expensive pro sports arena."

Intern, what grade are you in and do you realize Seattle has upcoming cost overruns on a tunnel they are going dig under downtown that we are going to have to pay for, our libraries are holding out hope we approve a levy to fund them for a few more years and Metro is going to be asking for a HUGE amount of money to replace the bus fleet at some point in the near future.

The economic argument is the ONLY fucking argument that counts at this time. It's called a recession and daddy says NO to your new playground. You already got two new playgrounds
12
How are they not already using this argument? Arena proponents have been getting slammed on the economics of the project, so they're falling back on civic pride, because that is literally the only reason to use public funds for this project.

And I'm with #6. If civic pride is so important to this city and if this project is so popular with the voters, let the voters decide. How is it we're voting on necessary infrastructure like the seawall and not on a multimillionaire's pet project?
13
Also, did the study analyze the civic pride of just winning teams? How much pride should I schedule for a Sonics team that goes 21-61?
14
Really, I don't think you gained many converts with the crack about libraries. Best just to have left that quote out of the post.

I would agree that there is some nebulous civic value to a sports team. But any attempt to quantify it with data is all but impossible. And it is a little hard to set aside economic concerns when the city, county, and state have been in perpetual budget-slashing mode for years, with no end in sight.
15
If sports teams are so important, wheres the drive to get nascar? Its the number one sport in the country. ( by capita or some bullshit metric )

OH THATS RIGHT NASCAR DIDNT BREAK UP WITH THE CITY AND DIDNT LEAVE A BUNCH OF WHINY BROKEN HEART CRYBABIES DESPERATE FOR THE ATTENTION OF CELEBRITIES.

seriously the NBA dumped you, get over it, pining for a new chance with your ex isn't good policy, or a way to decide how to spend money.
16
Joseph Staten writes:
Economists across the country agree that the net regional benefit of building new arenas is "approximately zero," and a 2009 survey found that eighty-five percent of economists believe that we should eliminate local public subsidies for pro sports entirely. All of this adds up to a pretty good dismantling of the argument that says a new arena will be an economic boon to the region.

Note we're talking about "regional benefit" and "boon to the region." As a Seattleite and a cityphile, my interest is in seeing this arena happen in Seattle and not some place else in the region. In that respect, it's not hard to formulate a case that Seattle will benefit economically, considering that (I'm guessing here) 75% of the attendees for an NBA or NHL game will be coming from out of town.

My one concern is about how practical it will be to take light rail to the arena.

About the 85% of economists wanting to eliminate public subsidies for pro sports--I'm glad that Seattle set the precedent that from now on, when major-league sports owners say, "Subsidize us or we'll leave," we held our ground. But let me ask a question. When the bank loans me money for my mortgage, are they giving me a subsidy? No, they're, well, giving me a loan. And letting this project use some of the city's bonding capacity can ultimately enrich this city, both financially and culturally.
17
Totally absurd. How can anyone witness the hero worship that went to pedophile enabler Paterno and not realize the appalling negative impact of idolizing people playing a children's game.
18
When the bank loans me money for my mortgage, are they giving me a subsidy?


No, it's not, but if the city bought your house and then paid off the loan with the property taxes you pay, that would be a subsidy.
19
@18, very nicely put indeed.
21
Determining the relative utility of things like professional sports is something that markets are *really* good at.
22
All you gotta do is put the name of your host city in front of the name of your private business and presto! Civic pride. Everybody can feel like they had a hand in it when "their" team wins, and place the blame squarely on the actual owners when it loses. It is absolutely worth de-funding 30 libraries (or more!) for that warm feeling of imaginary ownership.
23
The city and county will MAKE money on this deal (because of how the revenues are structured--I won't take the time here), so if there is ANY net civic positive, we should be doing it, and there are at least some people who will be employed who weren't before if this goes through (the McHughs support it), and there are legions of rabid basketball fans in teh hinterlands who will spend in Seattle because of it. These things seem more or less obvious, even if you sneer at the "children's game."

@18 But it's a subsidy with no net cost to the city.
24
Got your ass handed to you trying to make an economic argument in an area with lots of good research proving you full of shit. Solution? Switch to an area where there is no research -- then make shit up and challenge everyone to prove your made up shit wrong. Brilliant.

Except I prove you wrong thus: you made this shit up.

25
Anyone notice all the people against the new arena were white. How about surveying people living in the Central District down to Rainier Beach whether or not the Sonics add any cultural value to the city.
26
shorter version of the "social benefits" theory:

sometimes factional interests combine to suck off the public teat. sometimes it's public employee unions as in stockton, california, sometimes it's wall street bailouts, sometimes its farmers getting farm aid, or don't farm aid, sometimes it's sonics fans.

this is a weakness of democracy.
27
The two places you're most likely to see different races, and cultures interact in Seattle are on a basketball court, or at a hip hop show. Not at a PCC in Green Lake.
28
@23,

How will we *make* money on this deal? Hansen Co.'s own rosy projections show us breaking even. And that's not including how much we'll be spending on city and county infrastructure and services like transit and police for the arena itself.

And so would it be if the city/county/state bought me a house and let me pay it off by paying my property taxes. I mean that would especially make sense in a city facing tons of foreclosures since they'd be forgoing the property tax anyway. Why haven't Detroit, Las Vegas, and most of Florida implemented such an amazing plan?
29
most states and cities without sports teams are shit holes. Blue cities have great sports team traditions. Boston, Philly(reprsent), NYC, San Fran, LA. Whereas, North Dakota, Miss, Alabama have no sports team. Yeah, we want to be like them. But, lets face it, most people (not all) who now call Seattle home arent from here. they could care less about the Soops. Most of the fans were priced out of the market and are living in the god forsaken burbs. This region will never get another deal like this, ever. This is a brutal capitalist system, there is no team owned by the people scenario in the future. The port is manipulating fools like crazy. Face it , Soops are gone and theyre never coming back. Blame the Starbucks guy, greedy owners and resentful anti sports Seattle residents, who cry libraries but never go to them. and cheer for Philly. ;)
30
@23, it's not a susidy with no net loss. Those taxes belong in the general fund. Diverting them to service the arena debt robs the general fund. It's a loss.
31
Here it is...the completely barren calendar of the Tacoma Dome:

http://www.tacomadome.org/events.aspx?Ca…

This free to the taker, one of a kind (now that we demolished her sister in Seattle) sports dome is a cavernous dwelling, ready to Play Ball!

It's a basket of transit options:

http://piercetransit.org/tds2.htm

32
Intern, The Stranger may not be paying you so who is it then? Hansen?

There is NO great city of the world built on sports.

If the denizens of a city cannot take pride in its natural beauty, architecture, educational institutions, arts institutions because they lack a sports team, then I don't want to live there.

And finally, we DO have sports. Up the ass, we have sports. We don't need a team of pituitary cases to prove our worth.
33
The city is buying 7 acres in SODO with arena taxes.

Field of Schemes (known pro arena whores) say it complies with I-91, and pretty much comes down to deciding to want it or not.
http://www.fieldofschemes.com/news/archi…

As far as "want", the tv ratings in the Seattle have more people watching basketball than there are people in the Oklahoma City tv market.

The only thing the unpaid intern wrote that is meaningful is that he lives here and likes basketball.

That, as Julia Patterson said a couple weeks ago, is probably what this comes down to, is this something enough people want for the county to participate in, they "loan money to for profit companies all the time" (which I found a bit surprising).

The economic benefit is a matter of how big or small you draw the circle. Draw it around the state and the net benefit is pretty small operationally, the state gets a net positive in B&O taxes when those businesses relocate in state (2.5 mil a year on the low end for just the nba team).
As the Mariners pointed out in their www.StadiumDistrict.org draft proposal last year, the are around the stadiums and parts of Pioneer Square just can't sustain employment levels in the winter when the Seahawks end and before the Mariners start.

King County will get some substitution from Snohomish and Peirce counties, Seattle gets some substitution from outside of the city limits (60% of Sonics fans came in from outside of the city). I would feel bad for Everett and Kent, but they really didn't give a rats ass their new arenas had on Key Arena. If you don't think you are competing locally, then you are fooling your self.

Build it in Seattle, or it is all down side for Seattle. Everybody goes back to ignoring the Port's bullshit claims, and the substitution effect leaves (net nagative) and in a few years when Bellevue can convince their citizens to subsidize to a greater extent a less "privately funded" effort.
You build the arena, you get the benefit of that.
34
The greatest cities in the world have great sports traditions. Barça became a bastion of resistence against Franco. People in Barcelona love Barça as much as their great Ramblas. Let's not even get into the sports traditions in the great cities of South America and let's get real shitty cities and states in the US have no sports teams. None. To ignore and hate sports is to ignore world and urban history. Soops are never coming back here, it's corporate greed's fault and no one elses, but let's keep it real. The new transplanted Seattlelites don't want a sports team unless is a mediocre MLS and the worlds worst futbol( soccer) not to hate on the Sounders but MLS is awful. Remember Seattle in 95 and the Ms run? This city was alive then.
35
I wrote @16: But let me ask a question. When the bank loans me money for my mortgage, are they giving me a subsidy? No, they're, well, giving me a loan.

Keshmeshi replied @17: No, it's not, but if the city bought your house and then paid off the loan with the property taxes you pay, that would be a subsidy.

Um, I'm fairly ignorant of my finances, but I do believe the bank owns the title to my home. And to pay off my loan, I have to go out there in the world and make money, but in the case of the arena, the property itself is the revenue generator. A surer thing, it looks. From the standpoint of the taxpayer, though, we're talking about a distinction without a difference.

But don't ask me if this is a subsidy. We've already got a standard here. It's I-91, the Seattle iniative that codifies a ban on--drum roll, please--sports venue subsidies. And in fairness, it looks like that question could be headed for court. If a judge says the Hansen group deal violates I-91, fine by me. Then it's up to Hansen.
36
why is the stranger pro-arena? it makes very little sense
37
@35, it's not heading to court on I-91. Just as they did with the Storm lease, if the council thinks it complies with I-91 then they will exempt the deal from I-91, and avoid going to court.

Literally, any citizen could challenge the proposal, no matter how good it is, because that is how section 5 of I-91 was written. Any citizen would, some, Like Peter Steinbrueck are paid to slow it down or stop it. That just added cost to the city.

Fwiw, Field of Schemes says it is I-91 compliant.
http://www.fieldofschemes.com/news/archi…
38
MrBaker @37, thanks for the succinct explanation.
39
Mr. Baker, aka Mike Baker, aka arena shill for arena solutions = loser.


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