So, So, Sorry Seattle
‘And then they were gone…’ (Terrence Vaccaro - NBAE/Getty Images)
Dear Seattle,
As a city you are one of my favorites, in fact I do enjoy you slightly more than my home town. As a sports town you have had a roller coaster ride with the Mariners, Seahawks, and Super Sonics hovering just below greatness at varying points in their lives.
And now… here we are….
You seem to have lost something; have you been dieting? Maybe it was all the exercise you’ve been doing? No, that’s not it either. It seems to me that you got caught between a rock and a hard place. The fans came out and supported and screamed, but somewhere along the ride Capitalism got in the way - Money Money Money.
It’s a sick society that we live in today when you think that everything is driven by the greenbacks; gas prices rise much more than necessary - protecting their profit lines they say. Season ticket prices rise for your favorite sports team; inflation of salaries, and operating costs go up. What really happened behind closed doors with the stadium deal though? The conspiracy-theorist in me wants to ask if there were even meetings, or if this move was why the team was purchased in the first place.
Money. Some say it makes the world go round, and now it’s just making the Sonics… go. After 41 years, dozens of playoff games, several hand-fulls of All-Stars, and 10’s of thousands of fans, they are gone. And what of the employees of the Sonics? Will they be relocated? Will they have the opportunity to be relocated? What a tough move that would be, from Seattle (the emerald city) to Oklahoma City (the … city of the OK Corral?).
Change is imminent, will it come back and bite us in the butt after an owners legacy has moved on to the next of kin? Will it be for the sake of family business when it happens? Perhaps foreign investors will purchase the team and move them back to Vancouver.
So tonight Jazz fans, when you go to sleep put that lucky Utah jersey under your pillow for good luck and remember it just takes a little bit of money to move the team from the Rocky Mountains to the Appalachian trail - where the new nickname can be the “Appalachian Blue People” or something.
Sincerely,
Empathetic Jazz Fan
1 Comment to “So, So, Sorry Seattle”
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It was apparent long before the team was sold, that the city and state were going to do absolutely nothing, as opposed to all their other major league sports, where they bend over backwards to accommodate them.
Perhaps basketball holds none of the excitement for them that football or baseball does, but the public government support was definitely lacking for the Sonics.
The new OK owners, I’m sure realized, even before they purchased the team, that support would not be forthcoming, which made it easy to go through the motions and then move the team to OK.
It’s hard for a nonbasketball fan to justify the economic load they are asked to bear. However, the OK fans are excited and willing to pay the price, just as we were when the Jazz moved from NO to SLC.
OK will be a small market, one team town, just like UT. I expect them to make a go of it and wish them luck.
Jazzaholic
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