Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn and King County Executive Dow Constantine held a joint press conference this afternoon to announce…yet another new sports stadium for our region.
This one would draw both an NBA team (Basketball? Yyyyyyyyawn. More green Jell-o commercials? Wait…that’s right. I LOVE Jeremy Lin! I’m a HUGE fan…Always have been. This is GREAT!) and an NHL team (hey…that is cool!).
So…is this another fuck-the-tax-payers-for-wealthy-team-owners deal? Apparently not, at least if Goldy, normally a curmudgeon on such things, is to be believed:
Honestly, objectively, and not just because I’m a hockey fan itching for an NHL franchise, this really does look like a damn good deal for the region and taxpayers. Assuming it actually happens.
Goldy provides an overview of the deal:
Under the terms of the proposal…a private investment group led by Seattle-born Chris Hansen, would put up $290 million toward building a new sports arena just south of Safeco Field, matched by a joint city/county contribution capped at $200 million. The city/county would own the arena, with its debt service paid through a combination of taxes generated by the facility, and rent paid by both the teams and the facility operator. In years where revenue falls short of the debt obligation, the teams and operator would be required to pay additional rent to cover the difference.
The city/county would issue a 30-year bond to finance its portion of the construction costs, and the teams would sign a 30-year lease with a binding non-relocation clause.
If all the pieces come together, we get an arena, NBA and NHL teams, all with zero new public taxes. Sounds like a Lin-Lin deal.
Past experience shows that, especially with major-league sports franchises, if it looks too good to be for real, then it’s probably not for real.
Well, it certainly sounds like the OPPOSITE of the proposal by Clay Bennett to the City of Renton and King County, whereby he would pocket all the revenues and the city and county would pay all the costs.
Ironically, if the Clay Bennett deal HAD gone through, the 737MAX deal probably wouldn’t have existed, because too much industrial land would have been converted to retail use surrounding the arena. So Renton would have seen it’s resident and job base decline as Boeing gradually exited Renton over the next seven years or so, with the 737NG program winding down.
I’m not really a basketball fan, and any inclination I would have had in that direction pretty much went out the door with the Stern/Bennett crony deal to send the Sonics to Oklahoma. But if Stein promises to get down on his knees and kiss the rear end of each and every King County resident, and beg his forgiveness, I might be willing to go along with it.
By the way, the map in the Times story about the announcement gave a very small footprint for this “arena”. I know they don’t need anything as big as a football or baseball stadium, but it just seemed a bit too small. Parking is no problem for most of the winter, but are they really planning on having Safeco garage parking available for all their games?
Can you imagine the Seahawks in the playoffs in late January, playing on the same night as an NBA game, with the arena just on the other side of the Safeco garage?
By the way, that 30-year agreement not to move? All the NBA team would need is a couple of money-losing seasons, and it could file Chapter 11 (even with plenty of assetts), reject the lease in bankruptcy court, and it’s gone.
Remember that whenever a business offers you a “lifetime guarantee”, it’s for the lifetime of the business, not your lifetime.
If something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. Oops, @1 beat me to it — well, I second his motion. This thing has a fishy feel to it.
@2 “Well, it certainly sounds like the OPPOSITE of the proposal by Clay Bennett to the City of Renton and King County, whereby he would pocket all the revenues and the city and county would pay all the costs.”
I wonder what Oklahoma City ever saw in that guy?
So much attention is being paid to the financing of the deal (by people who are normally skeptical of such arrangements) and to the prospect of getting pro teams back (by sports fans) that almost nobody is paying attention to the huge caveat in all this: Hansen said today he doesn’t put a shovel into the ground until both the NBA and the NHL agree to locate teams here.
Let me blunt about this. Neither the NBA nor the NHL is about to expand. Relocation from another city is pretty rare – it only happens about every 5-6 years in a given league. Relocation of both winter sports (or any two sports at all) to the same city at the same time has never happened in the history of North American men’s pro sports. Getting both leagues to agree to move a team to Seattle at about the same time isn’t impossible – but it’s damn near close. It’s encouraging that things have gotten thus far, and that they’ve figured out a model supposedly using essentially private financing. But as outlined today, this deal isn’t happening.
@7: I’m not thrilled about Seattle getting involved with the NBA again, but evidently the Sacramento Kings, at least, are likely to be moving somewhere soon. Right now I guess the preferred destination is LA.
@7 I’ve gotta believe Hansen talked to the leagues before going public with this.
I fall to the floor, put my hands over my ears, start writhing around yelling NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!
Pardon me while I clean up the blood and drool. The thought of Seattle pitching in on yet another sports palace makes me froth from the ears.
The ‘No Move’ non-relocation clause is all well and good, but with the history of sports stadia around here what we really need to have in place is an ironclad “no major rebuild/remodel after 20 years when you decide that it’s no longer a world-class facility” clause. You want a rebuild or an upgrade – you pay for it.
correct me if I am wrong, but didnt the Seahawks and Mariners both expand into seattle at the same time?
me thinks so…..
Not only should there be no new arena in Seattle, I think the city ought to vote on an outright ban of professional basketball within the Seattle city limits as a kiss-off to Darth Stern. If he and his cronies want a new playpen, then they can go build the fucking thing in Bellevue or Redmond – let Kemper Freeman pay for it.
8:
The Maloofs moving the Kings to LA would be suicide.
12:
Not quite. The Seahawks (September 1976) beat the Mariners (April 1977) to the Big Egg McMuffin by eight months. And the original Seattle Sounders were there first, in April 1976.
sorry but….NO PUBLIC MONEY!!!!
i can get my hoops and hockey fix on TV thank you.
# 12: The Mariners expansion into Seattle was due to special circumstances. After the Pilots were moved out of town, Seattle sued MLB for breach of contract. The Mariners are a result of the settlement of that lawsuit, and they played their first season in the Kingdome in 1977.
The Seahawks came to Seattle by virtue of a league expansion which was in effect for the 1976 season (along with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers).
@7
Let me blunt about this. Neither the NBA nor the NHL is about to expand. Relocation from another city is pretty rare – it only happens about every 5-6 years in a given league.
There are league-owned teams in both the NBA and NHL (Hornets and Coyotes) that will likely be moving to another city if local buyers aren’t found. Seattle is the largest market in the United States without both NHL and NBA. In fact, every metro area larger than Seattle already has BOTH NHL and NBA with the exception of Houston, which only has NBA.
Both leagues would love to move here into a new arena and just because it’s never happened before means little.
The biggest issue here might be the logistics and the parking. You could conceivably have a Seahawks game, a Mariners playoff game (in theory, it could happen), and a hockey game all scheduled for the same October day. Have fun getting down there.
@9
I’m inclined to believe that Hansen’s discussions with the NHL are pretty far along. This news report came out 8 months ago, exactly when it’s now being reported that Hansen began working with the city leadership over his plans. My guess is that the announcement yesterday happened because the NHL deal is close to done and Hansen is optimistic he’ll have a deal with the NBA soon.
@17 The NHL part may be for real, but does anyone really see another NBA franchise here before David Stern’s been six feet under for a while? Something about all this still doesn’t pass the sniff test.
From the location and dimensions of Hansen’s sliver of land south of Safeco Field, I’d venture a guess that he picked it up in the fire sale following the demise of the Monorail project.
@18
I don’t see why David Stern’s living or dying has anything to do with it. The NBA has always wanted a team in Seattle, just with a larger arena. The next commissioner will almost certainly have the same opinion.
@19
He purchased the land in 2011. Interestingly enough, the CDC homebase is in one of the buildings that was bought, and the CDC has hired a lawyer to fight the existing building owner (long story).
@13
You are splitting hairs….fact is they both made agreements to move into the new dome at pretty much the same time..dome wasn’t ready for 76 baseball season.
My point is that both teams and leagues knew that they both were expanding into the seattle market at the same time…
And as usual, rhpee can’t grasp the obvious and gets lost in his own irrelevant comment. Rhpee moving up fast on the list of biggest ha idiot…although doubtful if he will ever catch rujaxoff, handout hernandez, or the rabbit….
@13
I don’t think the original sounders were relevant enough to rate on anyones radar…and yes, I know soccer was kinda sorta popular in the 70s……sorta…..
I could care less about the nba, its a joke anyway. I’m all for the nhl…only downside would be its impact on the seattle thunderbirds, of which I might be a season ticket holder…
@22
It’s possible that having the NHL in town will help the T-Birds, just by generating more overall interest in hockey.
@20 “I don’t see why David Stern’s living or dying has anything to do with it.”
A former long-time season ticket holder and Sonics fan from day one, I say they’ve got plenty to do with it. I say fuck the NBA. I only wish that Stern was burning in hell along with his buttwipe friend, Bennett. How clever, Stern making that lying, thieving bastard the head of the owner’s team relocation committee. To hell with them.
#21 “Islamabard” is pretty much the biggest idiot populating this board these days, by far. There have been others, but they seem to be gone for now.
Gee, “Islamabard” can’t even talk about professional sports without getting snippy. He made a general comment which was only partially correct, and we gave him the details. Then he calls that “irrelevant”.
School must have been hard for him – if he was still this dumb at the time, he would have insisted that 2 + 2 = 5, and when the teacher corrected him, he would claim the teacher’s commetns were “irrelevent” and called the teacher an idiot.
I bet he spent a lot of time in the principal’s office.
Heh. That moron practically boasted that he never went to college. And even if he did, he majored in mgd and 80 proof+.
Nah… He called the teacher [insert racist slur here].
@24
A former long-time season ticket holder and Sonics fan from day one, I say they’ve got plenty to do with it.
I’m not sure you understand my point. David Stern will not hesitate to bring a team back to Seattle because of what happened here in 2008 or because lots of people here still hate him. That’s irrelevant to him.
@23
I hope you are right, Lee.
@26
the comment was exactly correct, you dillhole….you just cant seem to understand the context – which is typical for you.
shouldnt you be looking for reepooblikan heelicopturs outside your house? or perhaps agents under your bed?
paranoid freak.
and how much college did you attend, in order for you to be 40-ish, living in a shithole, and driving/pushing your beat to shit Taurus around?
yep, sounds like a success story to me…..good role model..lol
Islamabard:
Fair enough about the timing issue.
And why no love for the Sounders? It’s okay if you don’t like soccer, but do recognize that Seattle and the Pacific Northwest as a whole have supported soccer quite well since the 70’s. Sure, it’s not up there with the Seahawks or Huskies, but numbers don’t lie – the original Sounders regularly drew in the 40 – 50k range back in the day, and the current Sounders have the best attendance figures in MLS by a country mile.
@32
Dude, I love the Sounders…will be at most of the home games this year…just saying, back in the 70’s there wasnt much interest that I can remember – but then again I was a kid.
Good on you then! I was maybe eight or nine when my uncle took me to my Sounders game back in the Kingdome back in ’78. IIRC, we had to leave early because my uncle had to get me to the Colman Dock so I could catch the ferry back to Winslow (my dad was waiting on the other side to take back home to Port Angeles), and we listened to Bruce King calling the game on the radio, and Steve Davies scored his second of the night late to beat Aztecs 2-1. The next summer, they played a preseason friendly against a team from Quebec in Port Angeles, and damn near the whole town showed up for the match.
But you had a point. Away from Cascasia, St. Louis, and NYC, I don’t think anyone ever really got soccer back then, other than “Hey, who’s that Pele guy?”
31 – LMAO! Have another drink dumbass!
You owned yourself as a racist even after using your kid as cover.
You have no legs to stand on around here. Never did.
WTF are you talking about, handout-hernandez?
shouldnt you be out working on that taurus?
wow, what a success story you are.
the only thing you are good at is being my marionette…
this and this and this
And FYI, I have a European surname (not Spanish either).
I dont give a fuck what your name is…you are still a loser.
now go fix that taurus, mr success story.
38 – LMAO! Don’t have a taurus..
Been fun.. Have a great weekend being the usual dumbass..
it must have been stolen then, no surprise considering the neighborhood you live in and company you keep.
40 – Wrong again.. Bought brand new in 2003 and paid off in 2004. Mortgage payment is annoying enough.
Neighborhood? What kind of neighborhood is that? Could this be more racism?
It sure sounds like it.