When the City of Seattle allowed the Sonics out of the last two years of the their lease to leave for Oklahoma City, the City said it was giving up the Sonics now to ensure the long-term future of professional basketball at the Seattle Center.
I don’t care about the long-term future. I want the one game I missed last year when I was in the hospital. My kids were home for Christmas, and we had tickets to see the Sonics play the eventual champion Boston Celtics and the return of former Sonic Ray Allen, but I had to stay in the hospital and let my daughter give my ticket to a friend.
I missed my last chance to go to a game after eating in the food court and passing the International Fountain on the way to a game at the arena.
It’s an unmatched experience that I needed one last time.
Seattle made a bad deal with the Sonics
Usually when parties settle a lawsuit they get less than what they would have if they won but more than what they would if they lost.
Seattle settled for little more than the losing position.
If Seattle had lost its suit against the Sonics, it would have lost the team in exchange for some money.
Instead, it let the team go in exchange for some money and some vague promises that it might get a new team in five years but only if the Legislature passes a law next year to allow a publicly financed improvement of Key Arena. The agreement gives the city $30 million if it doesn’t get a team, but only if the Legislature approves public money for the arena within a year.
The city should have held out for three or four years for the Legislature to act and for the possibility of a privately financed upgrade or replacement.
If Seattle had won the case, it would have kept the team for two years, meaning the National Basketball Association’s approval of a move to Oklahoma City would expire, we’d have time to improve the arena, a court would have heard Howard Shultz’ suit to rescind the sale and the NBA might rethink leaving one of America’s top 15 media markets. More importantly, we would have sent an important message that cities expect sports teams to live up to the leases they sign.
This bad deal underscores two bad deals the city made with the Sonics’ former owners in the 1990s. One was settling for a 15-year lease on an arena built with 20-year bonds. The other was giving in to team demands for a small enough arena that the National Hockey League couldn’t come in but eventually making it the smallest in the NBA.
Evan Smith is Enterprise forum editor. Send comments to him at entopinion@heraldnet.com.
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