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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Washington, D.C.

    Save the Cities from David Stern

    You folks pick up on David's most recent edict? No, let me catch you up. Seems that the citizens of Seattle were unconvinced by the owners of the Sonics that they absolutely could not live without a new stadium and would not be able to show their faces among other owners in professional sports, we're not just talking the NBA here, if they so much as put up a nickel for the project.

    Oh, the owners threatened that they would move the team to Oklahoma City if Seattleites didn't give them what they want, they made the ultimatum criystal clear. Seattle told em, toodles, hope those players of yours, not to mention the rest of the players in the league really, really enjoy them cows, but we ain't subsidizing your team, we got schools and such to bid.

    Fair enough, well not actually but that is another matter. But, then Sir David weighs in and tells Seattle that, if the Sonics move, Seattle will never again in the history of the world get another NBA franchise.

    Who does this guy think he is. Me, until they get rid of Stern, I'll take my basketball NCAA style. At least they pay for their own arenas, right?

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Skinker-DeBaliviere, Saint Louis
    Seattle's got an interesting history of opposing stadia on perfectly reasonable grounds (that owners stick the public with a charge they should foot) and then caving at the last minute.

    A movie is not about what it's about; it's about how it's about it.
    ---Roger Ebert


    Some questions cannot be answered
    Who’s gonna bury who
    We need a love like Johnny, Johnny and June
    ---Over the Rhine

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Quote Originally Posted by greybeard View Post
    You folks pick up on David's most recent edict? No, let me catch you up. Seems that the citizens of Seattle were unconvinced by the owners of the Sonics that they absolutely could not live without a new stadium and would not be able to show their faces among other owners in professional sports, we're not just talking the NBA here, if they so much as put up a nickel for the project.

    Oh, the owners threatened that they would move the team to Oklahoma City if Seattleites didn't give them what they want, they made the ultimatum criystal clear. Seattle told em, toodles, hope those players of yours, not to mention the rest of the players in the league really, really enjoy them cows, but we ain't subsidizing your team, we got schools and such to bid.

    Fair enough, well not actually but that is another matter. But, then Sir David weighs in and tells Seattle that, if the Sonics move, Seattle will never again in the history of the world get another NBA franchise.

    Who does this guy think he is. Me, until they get rid of Stern, I'll take my basketball NCAA style. At least they pay for their own arenas, right?
    I have absolutely no problem with David Stern's edict. Why?
    1) His job is to represent the owners. That's what a commisioner is; that's to whom he answers.
    2) Seattle's arena is woefully below NBA standards. The city built a beautiful new baseball stadium and a beautiful new football stadium. If the city doesn't want to do the same for basketball, so be it. But why should the Sonics stay if they can get a better offer elsewhere?
    3) If Seattle won't do what it takes to maintain its current team, why should the NBA put another team in the same situation?

    Stern's stance makes perfect sense. I'd hate to see the NBA disappear from Seattle, but I hardly blame David Stern for that situation.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Quote Originally Posted by Jumbo View Post
    I have absolutely no problem with David Stern's edict. Why?
    1) His job is to represent the owners. That's what a commisioner is; that's to whom he answers.
    2) Seattle's arena is woefully below NBA standards. The city built a beautiful new baseball stadium and a beautiful new football stadium. If the city doesn't want to do the same for basketball, so be it. But why should the Sonics stay if they can get a better offer elsewhere?
    3) If Seattle won't do what it takes to maintain its current team, why should the NBA put another team in the same situation?

    Stern's stance makes perfect sense. I'd hate to see the NBA disappear from Seattle, but I hardly blame David Stern for that situation.
    Agreed.

    David Stern has one job and one job only: protect the league from a profits standpoint. He's gotta play hardball in this instance with the city of Seattle, and he's doing it well.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Quote Originally Posted by Jumbo View Post
    I have absolutely no problem with David Stern's edict. Why?
    1) His job is to represent the owners. That's what a commisioner is; that's to whom he answers.
    2) Seattle's arena is woefully below NBA standards. The city built a beautiful new baseball stadium and a beautiful new football stadium. If the city doesn't want to do the same for basketball, so be it. But why should the Sonics stay if they can get a better offer elsewhere?
    3) If Seattle won't do what it takes to maintain its current team, why should the NBA put another team in the same situation?

    Stern's stance makes perfect sense. I'd hate to see the NBA disappear from Seattle, but I hardly blame David Stern for that situation.
    Can Stern even carry out this threat? The NBA has no antitrust exemption, right? So while the NBA might be able to prevent an expansion team from being located in Seattle, it could not stop a team from moving there.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Quote Originally Posted by Duvall View Post
    Can Stern even carry out this threat? The NBA has no antitrust exemption, right? So while the NBA might be able to prevent an expansion team from being located in Seattle, it could not stop a team from moving there.
    Oh great. Here come the lawyers.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Quote Originally Posted by Duvall View Post
    Can Stern even carry out this threat? The NBA has no antitrust exemption, right? So while the NBA might be able to prevent an expansion team from being located in Seattle, it could not stop a team from moving there.
    A team's move has to be approved by the league's Board of Governors. No move can go through without league approval.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Washington, DC

    Stern may be right, but he's also being disingenous

    Stern can do whatever he wants to do and say whatever he wants regarding Seattle's refusal to build a new arena for Sonics, but his statement that the NBA is gone forever from Seattle is just stupid.

    You never say never, and you never say always. The idea that in 5,10,15 years that Seattle and the state of Washington won't build another arena, or some wealthy citizen doesn't choose to buy a team, and that the NBA won't come back to a city that is a gateway to Asia is ridiculous

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Quote Originally Posted by dyedwab View Post
    and that the NBA won't come back to a city that is a gateway to Asia is ridiculous
    Interesting. Is Seattle more of a gateway to Asia than, say, LA?

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Washington, DC
    Quote Originally Posted by feldspar View Post
    Interesting. Is Seattle more of a gateway to Asia than, say, LA?
    No. Still, Seattle is a growing city in a part the country particularly important because of its high tech industry and its proximity to Far East...It just seems silly to state unequivocally that Seattle will never have an NBA team again.
    Things change.

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Washington, D.C.
    I'm old so maybe this don't count, but I think Stern has lost his fast ball.

    Who cares if there is an NBA team in your city? The rich guys, and I ain't one of them. Kids of rich guys too. Otherwise, in my town at least, you can get into a real non-interest game on the day before Thanksgiving at Abe's largesse if you're willing to sit about as high in Washington as is legally permissible and watch the game on the TV screen. Then you can pay 10 bucks or something. Otherwise, you want to go to a game with your kids; chose between that and Xmas presents.

    So Abe, the mensch that he is, built his own #$% arena, and by gosh, he deserves to charge what the traffic demands. And, he was known in the city as a righteous man, ever since he built the MCI Center on his own dime years ago. Now, in the interceding years, I can only believe that Abe has gotten, well, richer, and also much older. His arena has gotten older too. But, now, under peer pressure I presume, he has asked the city for a handout. Yeap, he wants the city to foot the bill to put in new and better luxury boxes so the rich guys will be able to insulate themselves even more from the littles. Let the littles eat franks and drink beer; Abe wants the really, really rich guys to feel completely at home, you know, to watch the game in the same type of environments in which they and he and his players live, that is, in obscene decadence.

    Now, I ask you, what does going to a ball game mean if you are eating prime rib and drinking some fine bottle of wine, and whatever else they do in those elite boxes have anything to do with me and why in heavens name is a Mensch asking me to pay so really rich guys can do that?

    Some will say Stern is only doing the owner's bidding in Seattle but I say the man has no shame and is overplaying his hand. I say that he is a disgrace to the game, whose roots lied in equality. You had a pair of sneakers, you were in, you could play. Didn't need no equipment, didn't even need your own ball. Maybe a snow shovel. That was a beautiful game; Stern's is anything but.

    Here's a little epilogue for you. Anthony Williams, an accountant turned politician turned consultent to big businesses who want to do business with the city (now there's a freakin surprise) forced the #$% city to pay to build a baseball park in a part of the city that is primed for development along the Anacostia River. Said it would be good for the city because it would lead to the development of that waterfront land.

    Nobody has ever tried to explain to me why businesses would want to be located next to a baseball stadium, much less middle class home owners or apartment dwellers, or why, if the site was so primed, we needed to build a couple of multi millionaires a stadium in order to attract other developers there. I'll put that one aside for the time being, the long and the short of it is that Tony twisted enough arms and made enough false promises and used enough funny math (you read about the tax scandal that has taken place under Tony's hand picked guy) to get the stadium through.

    Yeap, the Lerners and their partners did not have to put up a dime and were getting a brand new stadium. Then baseball and the Lerners came back and said to his honor, Oops, we forgot for a second, we need parking; you gotta allocate land and build 15,000 parking spots to make this thing fly. Even Tony the pencil man could not sell that one. The city counsel told the Lerners and baseball that parking was their problem.

    Did the Lerner's build parking? Not exactly. They have recently come to Anthony the now agent-for-hire's successor and asked him to make the parking that surrounds the old stadium available on all 80 game nights to fans from Virginia and Maryland for, now here me real good here, free. That's right, because of the inconvenience caused by Tony's failure to deliver, the Lerner's say we owe em and can't collect a dime from these outlanders who come to our stadium from which we also don't get a dime (please don't tell me about taxes on hot dogs, I couldn't bare it) for parking on our freakin land. And, they also want the District to throw in for good measure free of charge bus service to and from the RFK parking lots to the new stadium so the Lerners can be sure that their fans are happy.

    Me, I say enough with these sports teams. I do not care about steroids, I do not care if an NBA referee bet on games, I don't want no more federal investigations into none of that nonsense, and I do not want the cities in this nation held hostage by these new age robber barrons and the leaders of their gangs.

    And, if I see one more pandering add by the NBA touting how whateverhisname is in a particular city really gives back to the community by giving free bicycles to a bunch of kids I might really get mad.

    Personally, I hope that the Sonics move to Oklahoma City and win championships for the next dozen years, playing their arch rivals the Spurs. Hope David likes cows, who I'm sure will enjoy his company. He is after all, in my mind at least, oh so full of bull.
    Last edited by -jk; 11-14-2007 at 12:43 PM. Reason: potty mouth

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Jumbo View Post
    I have absolutely no problem with David Stern's edict. Why?
    1) His job is to represent the owners. That's what a commisioner is; that's to whom he answers.
    2) Seattle's arena is woefully below NBA standards. The city built a beautiful new baseball stadium and a beautiful new football stadium. If the city doesn't want to do the same for basketball, so be it. But why should the Sonics stay if they can get a better offer elsewhere?
    3) If Seattle won't do what it takes to maintain its current team, why should the NBA put another team in the same situation?

    Stern's stance makes perfect sense. I'd hate to see the NBA disappear from Seattle, but I hardly blame David Stern for that situation.
    I don't know how true this is, but there have been more than a few rumors saying the Sonics owners have been pretty much set on moving to Oklahoma City from the get-go. If that were true, I could certainly see why Seattle would be reluctant to build a new stadium for a team that might still leave at the first available opportunity.

    I should read Stern's letter, because right now, it really does sound out of line to me. It's one thing to support the Sonics moving, it's another to *threaten* Seattle for trying to hold onto them for a few more years.

  13. #13
    1) Aren't the Sonics new owners from Oklahoma City?

    2) I agree with graybeard that municipalities building stadiums for wealthy professional sports team is absurd. On the other hand, allowing universities to operate multi million dollar football and basketball program and spend 8 and 9 figures on their own arenas is absurd, too, and for the universities, it is all tax free.

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