I'm not saying that Bennett and company are right -- I'm saying they are just as wrong as the city officials who acted like idiots the entire time. They treated Bennett badly from the very beginning -- all in the name of politics in order to look better in the community. I don't like either side.
My point really has little to do with Bennett and company -- my point is that the ballclub has done poorly in the past but it will do horribly in the future. There is so much ill will, at this point, with Bennett, Nichols and company, and the average citizens that there is no way to repair it even if you could find new owners. I have several friends who wouldn't renew their season passes next year if you offered it to them half off. They are just disgusted with the politics, the new owners and the team.
Leaving the team is Seattle is not an answer, IMO.
The Muckleshoot Indians would LOVE to have the arena built on their land but nobody really ever considered it. The traffic there is already a nightmare because of the casino (which really doesn't get that much traffic in and out). They just don't have the infrastructure there. There are two other proposed sights that were far better -- one in Redman and one in Bremerton but both of these areas also have huge traffic problems (they rank from worse to just bad from Muckleshoot to Bremerton to Redman). The traffic in and out of Seattle is already horrible -- the best real option is to put the arena outside of the traffic off of I-90 and build up the infrastructure in roads to handle the traffic. The problem is that nobody wants to do that because then they don't benefit from the arena as much.
I have a friend who is a lawyer in Seattle -- in one closed meeting Nichols basically said that if Seattle couldn't get the new owners to renovate the arena, then they would fight them building an arena anywhere else. When they started looking at the costs of a new arena and looked at fact that there isn't a way to change the arena to recoop the costs -- they realized that there would be no way that Bennett and the boys would pony up for those costs. So they begin to dig their feet in and make sure that the Sonics didn't stay in the area. My friend thinks that Nichols thinks his political career is over if the Sonics stay in the state but move out of Seattle. He has pulled in a few favors from the State legislature because the legislature was brought in on the issue.
The city won't pay for improvements to Key Arena -- and it really doesn't make sense to pay for them because the added profits garnered by the revisions just don't substantiate the cost. So, because Nichols knew this -- he was determined to make sure that the Sonics didn't stay in the area and he was determined to make everyone in the area grow to hate Bennett (not like Nichols needed a lot of help in this area -- Bennett was capable of that all by himself). So now everyone hates the Sonics, Bennett and Nichols.
Nichols is even trying to make it so that the Sonics have to play in Key Arena until their lease is up. Bennett was willing to buy out the lease but that's not enough for Nichols -- Nichols wants the team to be loathed in Seattle -- he has the idea that the more the Seattle people hate the Sonics and Bennett, the more they will love him. He wants to see Bennett take a huge loss until the lease is up.
It's a catch-22. I don't like Bennett but I'd hate to see the Sonics have to play in Seattle another year -- I'd also hate for Nichols to get what he wants too. The whole situation is messed up but I'm not sure how best to solve it. I sure don't think that blocking the sale is the answer -- that just hurts the Sonics and makes Nichols a happy camper. I'd hate to see that.
