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Category: sonics (Page 2 of 2)

Dave Zirin doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about Re: Sonics

November 19, 2007 / / 0 Comments

Zirin in the PI:

Municipalization means turning the Sonics into a public utility; call it a kind word for expropriation. Basketball fans should press the state of Washington to sue for the right to buy the team back from Clay and his cronies. They should claim that the Sonics and Storm are the intellectual property — the eminent domain — of the people of Seattle, and therefore the city has far more of a claim on the team than the Bennetts of Oklahoma.

The Sonics should get their new arena, but instead of the proceeds going to build another wing on Bennett Manor, the funds would go to rebuilding the city’s health care and educational infrastructure.

Imagine seeing someone wearing a Kevin Durant jersey on the street and knowing that instead of draining the tax base of a city, it was paying for new textbooks in a public school classroom.

Does this seem far-fetched? Ask the city of Green Bay, where the beloved Packers are actually publicly owned. They are the only publicly owned team in the United States. It’s time to add to that list.

This is bigger than the Sonics. This is about drawing a line against the subsidizing of stadiums by which public monies are delivered to private hands. No more Mr. Flannel-Shirted Nice Guy. The Sonics stay in Seattle. They belonged to the Emerald City long before they belonged to Clay Bennett.

1. The Green Bay Packers aren’t the panacea that people always point to in these situations. They are a private company in a league with revenue sharing. They aren’t, as Mr. Zirin writes, owned by the city of Green Bay. They are public in about the same sense that Microsoft is public, they both sell shares to anyone who wants to buy. They are a for profit company owned by 40,000 share holders (who can own as many as 200 shares).

Yes, they’re a great example of fans having a hand in the team, but they are a far far cry from actual city owned teams like (until recently) the Harrisburg Senators.

2. Who is to say that the NBA would put up with that level of insolence? The NBA, and other leagues like it, aren’t straight up businesses. The courts don’t consider what they do “commerce” so they’re able to take part in anti-competitive tactics, like simply taking Seattle’s team away.

“Fine, don’t like how we manage our league? We’re leaving.”

All of the above isn’t to say that I hope the Sonics stay and that the NBA sucks. But, I’m thinking its more likely that the NBA is ripe for competition if they leave Seattle.

Who’s to say another ABA won’t show up?

Fan owned Seattle MLS?

November 13, 2007 / / 0 Comments

Goal Seattle:

Details were not made clear, but Carey was sold on the idea when Roth told him Seattle MLS would like to use ‘the Barcelona model’ of letting fans own part of the club and have voting shares. I am sure we’ll hear more about that soon.

Seattle PI:

And here’s another radical idea: Fans will be able to buy membership in the team, which will give them the power to vote out the general manager. That, too, came from Carey

Greg Roth on BigSoccer:

One of his stipuations is that the fans will own a small piece of the team very much like the current FC Barcelona model. The fans will have the opportunity to become members of the club. Fans can pay in (an mount to be detrmined). In return, fans would get T Shirts, discounts on tickets, special events etc. Every 4 years the fans or club members will have a vote on who should be the team chairman.

The Sounders would be the only major league team, outside of the famed Green Bay Packers, that have turned over any portion of the team to the fans.

List of Fan Owned Teams

In some ways, the way this entire thing is turning out, with the MLS coming to Seattle, with the announcement that the team will, in part, be fan owned, seems strange to me. While on one hand we have this caustic drama with the Sonics that is sapping the souls of any basketball fan in Seattle.

On the other hand, we have this hope-filled world opening up. Feels good.

What about other options regarding basketball in Seattle?

November 6, 2007 / / 0 Comments

From the PI:

We’re Seattle — we have options. We could pursue the Golden Baseball League model and form an independent basketball league, or, better yet, a league of smaller basketball teams. There are other sports to consider, like, say, hockey. It doesn’t have to be a National Hockey League team — how about supporting the existing Western Hockey League? If this is about keeping arena seats filled and giving people who love sports something to enjoy, then we could do worse.

The problem with the hockey thing, especially the WHL Thunderbirds, is that they’re already leaving Seattle. Not to say we couldn’t draw another minor league hockey team to Key Arena and have a great local derby between Everett/Seattle/Kent, but that’s going off in another direction.

I love this idea of a competing winter basketball league. Unlike baseball, and to some extent hockey, there is no organization top-to-bottom in basketball. All of the independent basketball leagues in the United States operate independently from the NBA.

List of minor league basketball leagues

Since the ABA merged with the NBA in the 70s, there has been little competition with top flight basketball in the United States. Taking the opportunity now to compete, I could see putting into play a handful of things that would strike at the heart of sports over here.

A new basketball league (or rather system) could involved promotion/relegation where good teams go up and bad teams down. In this way, you could invite teams from existing leagues to compete.

Community ownership could also play a role. The NHL supposedly played with this idea a few years ago, but outside of the Green Bay Packers and some other minor league teams, it is untried. Ask any fan if they’d buy stock in their team though.

Also, is it totally necessary to have a t.v. contract? This doomed the ABA… so, for now, despite internet and all that, I guess it does.

Fan owned Sonics

October 5, 2007 / / 0 Comments

False info from Save Our Sonics:

Q. Let’s buy the teams and have public ownership.


A. False: The situation in Green Bay is unique in sports. Leagues have rules to prevent it from happening again.

With NBA teams suffering operating losses it is imposible for a team to exist owned by the people in a city. Here, of course, it’s even worse because the City of Seattle can’t find the money to fix potholes, much less cover the operating losses of an NBA team.

Owners like Howard Shultz recover their losses when they sell the teams and that defeats the purpose of public ownership.

Of course that again assumes that the new owner would consider selling and that isn’t apt to happen.

Actually, the Green Bay Packers aren’t owned by the city of Green Bay, but rather individual stock owners. And, while every major sports league in the United States ban non-profit or government ownership of teams, only the NFL bans corporate ownership to prevent stock sales of teams.

But, the NBA totally allows stock ownership systems. Both the Boston Celtics and the Cleveland Cavaliers.

So, what’s stopping anyone from filing a corporation with the Secretary of State’s office and selling stock to try to buy the Sonics. Nothing at all.

How the Sonics can matter more: Sell us (Part of) the Team

March 24, 2007 / / 0 Comments

Back in Part 1: eridani said:

The Packers are owned by citizens of the town, and they give way more to their community than most professional sports teams. They don’t even have professional cheerleaders–high school squads from all over Wisconsin take turns at that function.

chadlupkes said:

Sports teams and franchises are for-profit organizations, whose mission is to earn money for their ownership teams, not to provide a good cultural experience to the public.

When the Sonics go non-profit, or allow anyone to own stock and be a stakeholder WITH FINANCIAL RETURNS, then the situation will have changed.

Back in the mid-90s sports owners across the country were heading to their local governments, hat in hand, looking for money to build new stadiums. Many citizens looked at the pocket books of their owners and thought “Wouldn’t it be great if we were more like the Green Bay Packers?”

The Packers, even though they’re a for profit corporation the same as any for profit corporation, are unique in professionals sports because they offer stock to anyone who wants to come along. The sort of person who is most interested in buying Packers stock, is of course, a fan of the Packers. This model has kept a highly successful sports franchise in a community, that frankly, doesn’t deserve one from the truly economic way of looking at the sport.

Even Green Bay’s Wisconsin Big Brother, Milwaukee, has had trouble holding onto sports teams: the the Hawks of the NBA and the Braves of MLB have all passed through and left Milwaukee in the time that the Packers have played. Turns out though that every other community interested in keeping an NBA, MLB, NFL or NHL team in town through some kind of corporate stock arrangement or non-profit ownership is pretty much out of luck. All four leagues outlaw non-profit ownership, with the NFL going as far as to ban any sort of corporate ownership, to prevent another Packers.

The New Rules Project points to several other non-traditional ownership models (in minor league baseball) and there are several non-profit examples in Canadian football (here, here and here).

New Rules also points to several legislative fixes that never actually came through during the high times of community ownership discussion in the late 90s. They go as far as condemning a sports franchise (in Minnsesota and New York) to simply building and running stadiums as a public agency, rather than handing them over to the teams (in Pennsylvania).

There are also examples of national legislation to rebalance the playing fields for locals: Sen. Paul Wellstone suggested removing baseball’s anti-trust exemption in 2001 and Oregon’s Rep. Earl Blumenauer sponsored the Give Fans a Chance Act, which would have opened the door for community’s to bid on their teams. Rep. Adam Smith was one of the original co-sponsors of the bill.

Simply that the four major sports don’t allow for ownership that would tie a team to their community is the most maddening part of this. Each league is exempt from anti-trust laws because their industry is not considered “commerce” by the courts, so they have the ability to ban non-profit ownership.

What I haven’t pointed out yet is that the NBA does not ban corporate ownership, just non-profit ownership.

So, a Packers solution, a for profit company that sells stock on an individual basis, is technically possible here.

The problem is history. Green Bay has always been an individual stock company, from its origins. Its been when the team needed to raise money that they sold more stock.

Huh, that gives one of thought though, doesn’t it? How would the Sonics feel if we told them that they could have all the money they wanted for a new arena if that money was raised by selling stock in a new ownership interest in the Sonics? We wouldn’t buy the Sonics outright, just a portion. Just to get something back for our investment. The people would finance this particular improvement in the Sonics, but for every dollar we put into a new arena, we would also get a dollar in the ownership of the franchise.

I don’t know why this wouldn’t work.

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