| Do Or Die Season For Sonics And City Of Seattle Authored by Jeremy Killey - October 26, 2006 - 8:37 pm
You might think all the rage on Seattle area sports radio talk shows is the long-term status of the Supersonics. With the pending sale to an ownership group with deep roots in Oklahoma City, the writing is on the wall that the city’s oldest professional sports franchise may be entering a lame duck season. No doubt, there must be loud public outcry from the sports media and fan base complete with grass roots efforts popping up to urge the new owners and city to come to an agreement that would keep the Sonics in Seattle. You might think this would be the case. Unfortunately, it is not.
The problems facing the Sonics and a future in Seattle is as much about apathy as it is finances. It’s true that the current arena lease agreement the Sonics have playing in Key Arena is not conducive to generating the necessary profits an NBA team needs to generate to be competitive. Long before Howard Schultz of Starbucks led a group to purchase the Sonics, an agreement was reached to play at Key Arena that gives far too much of the revenue dollars generated by Sonics games to the City of Seattle. The Sonics are always a respectable team, they draw a solid core of fans, and they sell beer and food as well as any other NBA team does in their arenas. The problem is, they have to turn those sales over at a disproportionate rate to the city.
Which brings us to apathy problem #1 – the City of Seattle. Schultz was forced to sell the team. The Sonics had been hemorrhaging money for years as a result of the lease and attempts by Schultz to work out a more favorable lease agreement with the city fell on deaf ears. The city has shown no interest in making an attempt to work with the Sonics organization to keep them in Seattle. In fact, some high-ranking city officials have gone so far as to come out and say that the Sonics bring no cultural or financial benefits to the city.
But perhaps even more damaging is apathy problem #2 – the people of the City of Seattle. One should hesitate to call them “fans” of the Sonics. To be sure, there is a tremendous core of solid Supersonic fans that root for the team through thick and thin and will be devastated should the Sonics relocate to the Midwest. However, for the Sonics to stay, it will be necessary for all sports fans to step up and work together to show their support for the team, not just the diehard fans. This is not happening for one very major reason – the Sonics are not the Seattle flavor of the month.
Perhaps it’s this way in other cities. But in Seattle, if you are not the trendy team on the good run at that moment in time, you are an afterthought. With their recent Superbowl appearance, the NFL Seahawks are that team now, of course. And you’d be hard pressed to find a single resident of Seattle that wouldn’t tell you they have been a life-long diehard fan of the ‘Hawks since the day they were born. Never mind that just a few short seasons ago, every home game for the ‘Hawks was blacked out on local TV, season after season as the Kingdome resembled a morgue more than a football stadium. Where were the diehards then?
Turn the clock back to the early ‘90s and take a peek at the MLB Mariners and their fan support. The M’s were routinely last in the league in attendance, topping 10,000 for a game was considered a great turnout. Then came the miracle season of 1995 when the Randy Johnson/ Ken Griffey Jr. Mariners overcame a huge deficit to the Angels to force a one game playoff for the right to play the Yankees. The M’s won that playoff and beat the Yankees in a thrilling five game series that won over the hearts of Seattle and made the M’s the trend du jour. The importance of this season can never be forgotten. Had the M’s not gone on that tear and won over so many fans, we’d be referring to them as the Tampa Bay Mariners now. That tear paved the way for Safeco Field to be approved and built. Why? Because the team had won the support of the people of the city and they were then willing to fight to keep their team.
Which brings us to today and the fragile situation involving the Sonics. The unfortunate reality is that most people in Seattle just don’t care what happens with the Sonics, from city officials to the fans braving the rain at Qwest Field to the average Joe sipping his double tall frappoccino at Starbucks. Letters written to newspapers and callers on talk radio tend to bear the same opinion – let the overpaid spoiled millionaires leave. Don’t let the door hit them on the way out. It’s unfortunate that sports fans’ memories can be so short. Would anyone in Seattle have said that in 1996 when the Sonics battled the Bulls in the Finals or in 1979 when they gave the city their only legit professional championship? Yes, the Sonics have had their moments of being the darlings of the city. The problem is, they are not now.
Which simply means that something very special must happen this season for the Sonics to win the hearts of the city one more time. The positive is that expectations are not high for the team, so if they succeed and make a deep run into the playoffs then maybe, just maybe, there is hope that they can become the trend. The negative is that they are not expected to approach playoff status by most prognosticators and perhaps even more daunting is the success that the Seahawks seem poised to maintain. In Seattle, there is historically only room for one professional sports darling and at a time the Sonics most need to be that darling, they may be as far removed from it as they have ever been. Maybe the Oklahoma City Sonics would stand a better chance of being a darling. After all, being the only professional team in town makes you the trend by default. |
