Good stuff I’ve found on teh Interwebs today:
→ July 8, 2008
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The collected thoughts of sportswriter, bookworm, & food critic Keith Law
Good stuff I’ve found on teh Interwebs today:
Copyright © 2011 Curtail Theme on the Genesis Framework
Should the Rays win it all Chuck is advised not to wait up for that World Series ring.
As someone who is living in central Oklahoma (only two years, so don’t blame me), I’m surprised at the lack of national stories looking at it from this angle.
You can tell by all the comments that the nation generally looks on OKC as a hick-town. Well, this hick-town is pretty fired up about being a “big league city.”
Did you know that in 2005-2006, the first season New Orleans played in OKC, the team had the 11th-highest attendance in the league (Seattle was 23rd)? And in 2206-2007, even though everyone in OKC knew the team was not staying (and eight games or so were played in New Orleans) the team had the 15th-highest average attendance (Seattle was 25th)?
Yes, a lot of this can be attributed to the fact that the NBA was new here. but that was a rented team. OKC will have its own team and you can expect attendance to still be in the top-half of the league for the first season. And if Seattle gets the first pick in the draft and takes OU center Blake Griffin, it will be in the top-10 in 2009.
Face it, Seattle, your beloved Starbucks let you down long before it announced it was closing 600-stores. The owner sold the team and sold it to a bunch of “hicks” from Oklahoma knowing full well (or if he didn’t, he was stupid) that OKC was on the short list to get a franchise and the city wanted basketball.
The folks in OKC were willing to pay an extra penny in sales tax to build the Ford Center several years ago and they were willing to keep that penny going for an extra 18-months to bring it up to NBA standards. Maybe that’s stupid. But they were willing to do it and it paid off for them.
Pi$$ing off Mark Cuban in the deal was just an added bonus.
Generally I agree with much of your economic ideals, but if Basketball has an anti-trust exemption (like baseball) then they are similar to a public utility and the public should get some say.
I have no idea if Basketball has any exemption though as I consider the sport to be inherently communist.
Sports are a part of a city’s cultural identity. The fact that it’s a business does not make it less newsworthy. Hell, when flagship businesses move HQs or are sold, that gets a lot of media attention as well (See the takeover attempts of Anheuser Busch by InBev, for example)
It’s not really a great article from Sheehan at all, because he misunderstands Sabathia’s market value. Doug Melvin has already said that the trade package offered now wouldn’t be available if the Brewers were aquiring Sabathia at the end of July.
Keith, would you care to expound on why you are happy for Seattlers(?) in turning down a publicly funded stadium? You intimate that you are against public funding, but I can’t be sure.
Personally, I believe that a state or local government should never fund a stadium or convention hall. One, because I believe in low taxes, so theoretically by not paying for a stadium taxes could be lower. Secondly, it subsidizes a private corporation, which is a recipe for corruption and corporatism. And thirdly, it kills the immediate surrounding area. As teams have smartened up they now see how much money can be made in having these huge pavilions for pre-game food and drink. Some places even have shopping centers—see Patriot Place. So you can wipe out established businesses by giving preferential treatment to a sports team.
I take this back if you are anti-publicly funded stadium.
Mike- Keith is a hard core fiscal conservative, often straddling the line between being a man of logic and a socially irresponsible sadist.
Mike: Phill’s right. I ferociously oppose any use of public money to pay for sports facilities. That includes the Olympics. Especially the Olympics. What the hell are they going to do, hold them in Russia every year?
Eric: Why take Melvin at face value? I wouldn’t. Melvin’s motivation to get Sabathia only disappears if the Brewers fall out of the race, or if he acquires a different starter. Otherwise, his motivation stays the same or increases.
Keith, will you be doing a write-up on the Cubs trade for Harden similar to what you’ve done with the Sabathia deal? I’d love to know what you think. High risk, high reward?
I”m glad Seattle stepped up and said no to publicly funding a stadium. Especially one that was grossly overpriced in a vague attempt to show “effort” in staying in Seattle. There’s no reason we should help fund billionaires with our tax dollars. In any market only a small percentage of the people actually will utilize the stadium and the rest of the people are forced to pay for something that’s not as important as things like education, public transportation, etc. There’s no such thing as an owner that can’t afford to build a stadium and be profitable. They just choose not to because they know cities won’t stand up to them.
This doesn’t take away from the fact that I’m not glad the Sonics are leaving. While OKC might be a viable market, Seattle is one as well (if not a better one). Research has shown that teams need to be winning in order for attendance to be high, and the Sonics haven’t been a winning club in a long time (one fluke season withstanding). In addition with the NBA so enamored with the Chinese market and Seattle being a huge portal to that market, I’m surprised they would think this is a good decision.
I guarantee if the Oklahoma City-ers (or whatever nickname they take) are awful then the fans won’t go see them either. Luckily they’ve been blessed with a pretty good GM and a franchise type player that fell into their lap. The last time the Sonics had a #2 pick they got Gary Payton and that worked out pretty well for them financially for the next half decade.
Anyway there’s a lot of blame to go around, but ultimately I’m not mad at Clay Bennett at wanting to move, I’m just mad at him for lying to Seattle that he didn’t want to leave. It’s his team he can do what he wants with it, but don’t mislead us please.
Mike- Keith is a hard core fiscal conservative, often straddling the line between being a man of logic and a socially irresponsible sadist.
Ah, I thought so!
My Klaw fandom has risen.
Looking forward to hearing your take on some of the younger guys the Cubs shipped to Oakland. At first glance it doesn’t seem like much of a package, but then again Rich Harden isn’t much of a pitcher when he’s on the DL.
Keith, I would very much like some analysis of the Mets starting pitching. I can’t find a complex enough database to get the info I want, but it would seem that the Mets starting pitching has gotten RADICALLY better over the past 3-4 weeks. The only week points being a shaky return by Pedro (recently righted?) and string of Perez being “perez” (again temporarily righted?).
I guess, it seems to me that Santanna, Maine, Pelfrey have been really good and could lead a Mets resurgence. Coupled with occasional brilliance by Perez and Pedro, this seems like a top rotation performing accordingly.
No one is talking about this. No one is dissecting this. Sure the end results are shaky, largely due to a crappy bullpen. However the bullpen should be the easiest thing for the Mets to correct with their limited chips.
Is this all BS? Have I just fallen into a classic Mets trap of hope and should once again prepare for disappointment and dispair?
stixx23: Did you know that when New Orleans played in OKC, their ticket prices were subsidized? Let’s wait and see what happens when OKC tickets are $100 each before insinuating which city has better fans. Besides, if OKC has such avid NBA fans, why are they just now getting a team? They couldn’t beat out the likes of Memphis or Charlotte, and even Vegas would have gotten a team first if not for the local sports book issues. I’m not saying OKC can’t be a good NBA town, but it pisses me off when people misrepresent the facts.
Anyway, Keith is right. Bennett isn’t really the villain here, even though he’s slimy and rephrehensible. This mess is Stern’s fault; the only reason the Sonics are moving is to protect NBA teams’ ability to prey on cities via corporate welfare.
What saddens me the most is that not one person in a position of influence had the balls to stand up and say, “Hey, this isn’t right. We can’t allow this to happen.” Stern could have made himself a hero in the eyes of the fans, even if the whole thing were a contrived PR stunt. The person who most disappoints me, though, is OKC’s mayor. He could have blocked the move and dealt the NBA’s shitty economic model a devastating blow. Instead, he greedily allowed this debacle to continue.
Re: Sabathia/Harden, I really don’t think the Indians/A’s could have done better. Teams are getitng smarter–the days of teams purging their farm system for .5-1.5 years of a pitcher’s services are over. Even a single top prospect is an unlikely haul… unless you’re trading with the Mariners. Forget about calling the Bedard deal the worst trade in M’s franchise history, the context might make it the worst trade in MLB history, or at least in this era.
Didn’t the city of Seattle give the Seahawks and Mariners partially publically funded stadia ten years ago? The economy has changed and they didn’t want to give the same to the Sonics.
Chief – Seattle also paid for the Arena that the Sonics are playing in now; the new ownership stated that they wanted about $300mil in renovations to stay, and Seattle balked (rightfully so, in my opinion).
I say this all the time, but I’m amazed that people like me (far leftist), and people like Keith (fiscal conservative) can agree that publicly financed stadia are just plain wrong, yet it still happens every damn day in just about every damn city. Washington got fleeced by the MLB in the Nationals’ new stadium, but they’re still contemplating financing a new soccer-only stadium on the other side of the Anacostia river. Not to mention they are blind to the fact that most of the fans filling the seats are from the suburbs, and not even part of their tax-base. Even the privately financed stadia in New York are getting heavily subsidized to the tune of about $400mil EACH, and the city won’t even own the new palaces, in contrast to the current facilities.
i didn’t read through every comment above, so i could be just repeating someone else’s point here. to me, it would seem one of the main issues with the sonics is that clay bennett bought the sonics saying essentially “i’m going to try to keep the team in town.” however, it’s been shown he had no intention of keeping them in seattle.
it just seems like there’s a bitter taste of betrayal in some people’s mouths after being told one thing and finding out later there was no chance the team was staying in town.
but that’s just my outsiders’ view on things.
Using public financing for sporting facilities is a horrible, and lazy habit. It has been too easy in recent years for team owners to just tap into tax payers, instead of being creative and finding new ways to finance new stadiums. One of the most successful Olympics ever was the 1984 LA Olympics, in which Ueberroth refused to use public financing. So it is possible it’s just that owners are lazy, and end up bullying the populace into paying.
Dan,
I wouldn’t call the owners lazy as much as I’d call them greedy. Why should or would you expect the owners to pay out of their own pockets if they can blackmail the municipalities into paying for them?
H, how about we call them lazy and greedy?
I agree public funds are wrong, but if you want a team, then pay the money. If you don’t, then don’t get mad if said team leaves.
As Keith said, “it’s a business” first, so if the Sonics (or whatever they’ll be called) got a better offer from OKC, then they should go to a city that wants them more.
Not hard.