Want To Avoid Getting Screwed On Arena Deals Look To Seattle. Nine years ago, Seattles sports scene was in about as dire circumstances as a city can get. Free CSS has 2629 free website templates, all templates are free CSS templates, open source templates or creative commons templates. Nine years ago, Seattles sports scene was in about as dire circumstances as a city can get. The owner of the SuperSonics, Starbucks mogul Howard Schultz, had. October 2007 Latest. Its all over for Aladdin SafeNet Inc. Released by EDGE are the following commercial emulators. SoftKey. Solutions. HASP. Hardlock. Emulator. The owner of the Super. Sonics, Starbucks mogul Howard Schultz, had thrown a hissy fit over Washingtons refusal to gift him 2. Oklahoma City hedge fund mogul Clay Bennett, who relocated them to Oklahoma City to become the Thunder. Then NBA commissioner David Sternhad declared, If the team moves, theres not going to be another team there, not in any conceivable future plan that I could envision. It seemed like either Seattle fans were going to be bereft of basketball for the foreseeable future, or Seattle taxpayers were going to have to cough up big time for a replacement teamjust as Cleveland had for the new Browns, and Houston had for the Texans,and on and on in recent sports history. Today, while much remains uncertain about Seattles hoops futuremore about that in a minutethings are looking somewhat brighter on the getting ripped off by sports barons front. In coming weeks, the city council is set to decide between two plans for new or refurbished arenas, both of which would involve some public money, but in either case far, far less than the 7. Whatever happens, Seattle is not going to get royally hosed, and as things go these days, thats a not insignificant accomplishment. Whether youre a sports fan forever holding in the back of your mind that your team owner could threaten one day to up and leave, or a taxpayer worried about being forced to cough up tax money for some rich dudes new playpenor, as is likely, bothyoure probably asking What did Seattle do, and how can my city get some of that backboneThe answer a combination of luck, citizen activism, and understanding the leverage that a city has against team owner blackmail. Its not necessarily easily replicable, and not an unmitigated victorySeattle will still likely be on the hook for some public cash, and a replacement NBA team still isnt guaranteedbut it wouldnt hurt for other towns citizens and elected officials to read up on the Seattle arena saga, as part aspirational model, part cautionary tale. By the time of the Sonics departure, Seattle had been battling for more than a decade over the use of public money for private sports stadiums. A list of over 1700 LBIs plus other GE related files. Or, more specifically, ESPN was afraid that someone might notice Lee was calling the game, and then. That partthe exact outcome ESPN was trying to avoid. Latest trending topics being covered on ZDNet including Reviews, Tech Industry, Security, Hardware, Apple, and Windows. CuyBJoSVlAU/hqdefault.jpg' alt='Using Ida Pro To Crack On With' title='Using Ida Pro To Crack On With' />Way back in 1. Mariners were in the midst of an end run around a public vote against stadium subsidies the team appealed directly to the state legislature, and ultimately won 3. Safeco Field, three local residents,Chris Van Dyk, Nick Licata, and Mark Baerwaldt, founded the memorably named Citizens For More Important Things. During the brief interregnum after. Bennett bought the Sonics but before he consummated the move to Oklahomainsisting publicly all the while that he still wanted to pursue a new arena in the Seattle area, even while privately emailing his fellow owners of a move that I am a man possessed Will do everything we can to relocate the teamthe new group used. Seattles robust public initiative process to launch a preemptive strike against any arena funding demands. But rather than, say, requiring a public vote on any sports venue funding, as other cities had done, Initiative 9. Any sports spending by the city would have to generate a positive return on investment greater than the city would earn on U. S. treasury bonds. It turned out to be a clever move. Not only did I 9. Having an initiative that basically said, were not opposed to stadiums, we just want a fair return on any public fundsthat changed the conversation, says Licata, who went on to serve 1. Even when Hansen came in, he had to acknowledge that and deal with it. Hansen was Chris Hansen, a Seattle raised hedge fund manager who soon set out to prove that he could bring back the NBA within the strictures of I 9. Hansen proposed building a new arena near the Mariners and Seahawks stadiums in the citys South of Downtown Sodo neighborhood, using a combination of private borrowing and public bonds that would be repaid with an intricate assortment of rent, ticket taxes, and kicked back business, property, and sales taxes on the arena. On the surface, this was a common public funding dodge Incremental tax revenues are generally pooh poohed by economists as a subsidy by other means, since all evidence shows that entertainment spending in one part of a metropolitan area just ends up being cannibalized from somewhere else. Still, the dollar figures were low enough that if Hansens plan didnt create a treasury bond level ROI as it turned out, I 9. My own back of the envelope analysis at the time showed that Hansens arena would at least be close to break even for the city, assuming that at least some neo Sonics fans were encouraged to spend their money within city limits rather than out in the suburbs. The council approved the Sodo arena plan in September 2. Licata was one of two councilmembers voting no. And then everyone waited for Hansen to land an NBA team, which he insisted was a precondition of building the arena. He came close. The Maloof brothers almost moved the Sacramento Kings to Seattle in 2. Sacramento city council and the arrival of tech mogul Vivek Ranadiv to buy the Kings put the kibosh on that. Hockey might have been an easier get for Hansen, and will still presumably follow the return of the NBA before long, but by all accounts his main motivation was sating his sports jones, and his game was hoops. The Sodo plan trundled along, though, right up until May 2. Seattle council unexpectedly voted down a small but key piece of legislation, denying Hansen the right to close a one block stretch of a public street that he needed to make way for his arena. Arena backers griped, with some reason, that council had only rejected the street closure at the behest of unions representing workers at the Port of Seattle, who had long opposed anybody building an arena on their damn lawn. Some also griped, far less reasonably, that the councilmembers who voted down the street vacation would never have done so if theyd been in possession of penises, and presumably done their thinking with them. But the deed was done, and the Sodo arena was back to square one. At this point, attention began to turn back to the old arena that Schultz had been seeking to get taxpayers to renovate before he sold out to Bennett. Key. Arena originally the Seattle Center Coliseum before a bank naming rights deal had been built in 1. Down the road, we hoped thered be a bidding war, says Licata, who helped arrange the Key proposal before leaving the council. But I think the major thrust still was the Sonics played in the Key. Arena, they made a profit in the Key. Arena, Key. Arena is a public facility. We had something that workedwhy are we going somewhere else Incredibly, it did worksort of. Two competing companies, AEG controlled by Philip Anschutz, owner of the Los Angeles Lakers and Kings, as well as the Staples Center and Oak View Group run by Anschutzs estranged former lieutenant Tim Leiweke, in partnership with Madison Square Gardens arena management arm, put forward a pair of convoluted financing plans that didnt quite meet the citys no public money pledge, each demanding kickbacks of incremental taxes la Hansen Oak View asked for about 4. AEG, which eventually dropped out, sought closer to 1. Oak View additionally asking for 5. Welp, ESPN Shot Itself In The Dick. By now youve seen the news and shaken your damn head over the idiocy ESPN switched broadcaster Robert Lee this guy off of calling the University of Virginias home opener, because the violent white supremacy rally in Charlottesville earlier this month was spurred by threats to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee this guy. Or, more specifically, ESPN was afraid that someone might notice Lee was calling the game, and then. That partthe exact outcome ESPN was trying to avoidis painfully unclear. Heres the statement As USA Today noted after speaking with an ESPN spokesperson, the network feared Robert Lee, a young, new play by play announcer assigned to the Virginia William Mary game on opening weekend would show up in Twitter memes and posts on Web sites like Awful Announcing or Deadspin. And in our own phone conversation, a very animated ESPN spokesperson repeatedly emphasized to us that the decision was mutualthat the network approached Lee, asked him how he felt about it, that neither side felt particularly strongly about it either way, and that he was ultimately moved to a different game. That can be interpreted a few different ways, but even in the flacks version, it was ESPN that first decided Lee calling a game in Charlottesville could be a potential issue it was ESPN that initially approached Lee about it and it was ESPN that switched broadcast teams even though Lee didnt feel that it would be an issue. This is dumb. As. Shit. Afraid this might show up. Deadspin, were they What would have been nothing but a quirky screengrab or more likely nothingno one was going to notice, and even if they did they wouldnt have cared, and even if they pretended to care it would have been forgotten by kickoff is now a full blown media controversy in the right wing chudosphere, and ESPN finds itself rightly criticized by everyone on all sides of the political spectrum. Which is ironic in its way, because this decision is as apolitical as decisions get. ESPN is not liberal, and its not conservative its a massive company with no political beliefs beyond damage control. Someone had the idea of switching Lee off the UVa game not because they thought it would be offensive, but because of the prospect of some hypothetical viewer being offended by seeing an Asian American broadcaster with a hyper common name similar to that of the Confederate general. Whether this hypothetical viewer exists or not they dont is almost beside the point true corporate cowardice requires a bland, compulsive aversion to controversy so strong that it loses touch with reality. And as so often happens, the blowback winds up being much, much worse than the nonexistent scenario ESPN hoped to avoid. I think ESPN deserves all the scorn its going to receive. This decision, at whatever level it was made, betrays total contempt for and condescension toward the movement against Confederate monuments. This decision is that of someone who cant possibly begin to grasp what the movement is actually about, or why so many people are offended and willing to march in the streets. Its the decision of someone who doesnt have a strong opinion about Confederate monuments, but wants to put on a show of understanding that some do. Lars And The Real Girl High Quality Aac3 Sirius. This type of performative leftism is red meat for, among others, the disingenuous right, whose worldview and ability to sell gold and boner pills to old people collapses unless it can portray all activism as performative. This story is going to be in the news for days to come, and long after will be ammunition for idiots and racists seeking to denigrate the sincerity of protestors and those who support them. Nice work, ESPN You did more harm to this cause than even you thought you were capable of.