gavinshearer.com

« Jon Stewart On Ted Stevens | Main | Wanted: Visio Customers »

July 19, 2006

Nothing Lasts Forever

In case you missed the news, the Seattle Sonics and Storm were sold yesterday to an investment group in Oklahoma City for $350M.

At first, this felt like a sucker-punch to the gut.

I got the news while standing in line at the Houston airport, talking to Richard on the phone ("Where have you been? Have you heard the news?").

In a particularly cruel twist, I'd spent the bulk of my flight in to Houston reading (and thoroughly enjoying) Times reporter Jayda Evans' book, "Game On! How Women's Basketball Took Seattle By Storm", and it got me really pumped up about the league, the Storm, and the future of WNBA. The book is all about the history of women's pro ball, as told through the lens of the 2004 WNBA Championship run. I came off the plane with an incredible amount of optimism ...

...and then promptly saw it wash away.

So. I've been flooded with e-mail from friends who either a) want to know what the hell is going on, or b) are concerned about my mental state. I'll start with the latter, and say: I'm fine.

Here, in no particular order, what I think is going on.

• First, I think the sale of the team changes the entire debate on building the Sonics a new arena. There had been a contingent of people in Seattle who thought that Howard Schultz was bluffing, or was just toying around with us by threatening to take the team ball and go home. This was compounded by the fact that the Sonics never opened their books to any kind of public inspection, so it was impossible to tell if they had really lost $60M, or were just inventing the number to screw the city for a bit more profit. As of now, there's no more debate: if we don't make it possible for the new owners to make a profit in Seattle, they're leaving. Period, full stop, end of story. There's no bluff here.
• Second, having the current owners out of the picture changes the dynamics of the negotiations. A lot of my people (myself included) thought that the Sonics handled their request for the arena in a really inept way - they essentially dropped their demand for the new facility on the state legislature with less than two months left in the cycle ... and then took a hard line on negotiating. This amateur-hour behavior pissed off a lot of people, because it made it look like the Sonics were operating in bad faith (and frankly, given that they refused to even look at the city's counter-proposals, they probably were). Now that the new owners are in place, a deal can be reached between the city (or state - see below) without anyone losing face. The removal of Howard Schultz is actually a benefit, here.
• Third, now that we know it's Oklahoma, the ball is kicked up to the State level. This isn't about Seattle vs. Howard Schultz And His Rich Posse, this is about Oklahoma vs. Washington, and that means state pride. It also means that there will be a lot more pressure to make something happen, and potentially state dollars to fund whatever the group from Oklahoma wants.

The new owners seem to be playing to this by stressing that they want to stay in Seattle:

Howard Schultz, former Sonics owner, sat side-by-side with Clayton Bennett, Sonics owner as of this morning, at a news conference to announce the sale of the Sonics and Storm this afternoon.

They were flanked by the Sonics' and Storm's respective championship trophies and joined by their repeated desires to keep both teams in Seattle. They mentioned this over and over again until it became the theme. They want to keep the Sonics and Storm in Seattle. Key word: Want.

The fine print: Only the next 12 months are guaranteed in the $350 million deal. In the interim, the new ownership group needs to do what the former ownership group could not — negotiate a better venue and lease agreement at KeyArena or another local venue.

For the record, I stand by my earlier post on the subject ("Sonics: Let 'Em Go"). If the price of Sonics basketball in Seattle is a massive, $200M subsidy to the team, then I'm not sure it's worth it to keep them. The Sonics organization has serious cost problems - it's expenses are too high, relative to its income. The team's unwillingness to cut its costs - especially their payroll - to make their operation profitable is the problem.

That said, I still suspect that we will wind up building a new arena for them (and if we do, can we please build it down next to our other arenas, with the freeway access and light-rail infrastructure?).

But what about the Storm?

Well, I'm not as bitter/pessimistic as Patrick at Chasing the Title, and I've noticed that some Storm fans have already organized a Web site ("OK Is Not OK.com"). But I do recognize that the team I love is at serious risk of going to Oklahoma.

Or are they?

Evans' book makes a pretty convincing case that NBA fans are not WNBA fans, and vice versa. The two leagues serve very different markets, and appeal to very different people. Further, the towns that do well with WNBA franchises tend to be "Creative Class" cities like New York and Los Angeles and Seattle - and less so in markets like Orlando (the Miracle are now the Connecticut Sun) or Cleveland (the Rockers are now defunct).

I don't think the WNBA would have a very good time of it in Oklahoma City - it seems to be the wrong market, demographically and psychographically, for success. And given that the Storm operation - unlike the Sonics - is profitable (and has been since October 2005), it's entirely conceivable that the Sonics would move, and the Storm would stay. The Storm have a lot of their own infrastructure already, including their own lease with Key Arena.

And, barring the owners' decision to keep the team in town ... well, they might be persuaded to sell the WNBA team (again, as Orlando did to Connecticut) to a group of local investors. And given how passionate Storm fans are (and how many of them have money, or friends with money), well, I could see a pool of cash being raised pretty quickly.

Look, the future is uncertain, and nothing lasts forever. Evans' book reads like a chronicle of failed teams and broken dreams, from the Seattle Reign to the Portland Fire and a handful of other teams that never made it. It's heartbreaking when they go, but, at some point, it happens.

In the meantime, I'm going to every game I can. Go Storm!

UPDATE, December 31, 2006: One or more of the original hyperlinks on this page expired, and has been dereferenced. The hyperlinked text is now underlined.

Posted by Gavin Shearer at July 19, 2006 8:49 AM. Posted to Politics | Seattle Storm.

Comments

Post a comment

« Jon Stewart On Ted Stevens | Main | Wanted: Visio Customers »