Chargers can learn from Seattle’s situation

As San Diego waits for the Chargers' answer, Seattle waits for a miracle
By Brandon Stone
San Diego Stadium Watch


Imagine this scene two years from now: at a hotel lobby in downtown Miami, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell steps out from behind a curtain. As a backdrop of Super Bowl XLIV hangs behind, he steps to the podium. A San Diego beat writer raises an arm, pointing a pen at the commissioner. He nods at the reporter.

“Do you have any hope left?” the reporter asks.

The commissioner breathes deep, looks out into the sea of press, and answers.

"It's apparent to all who are watching that the Chargers are heading out of San Diego," Goodell would say. "I accept that inevitability at this point. There is no miracle here."

A potential nightmare scenario in San Diego is still a nightmare – a middle of the night fright that would awaken anyone sleeping in their favorite Tomlinson jersey.

But for the citizens of Seattle, those words are not fun. Those words are reality.

The imaginary comments of Goodell mirror what David Stern told the media during the NBA’s All-Star Weekend a couple of weeks ago. In the midst of buyouts, stadium woes and new ownership, Stern publicly admitted his loss of faith that basketball could remain in the state of Washington.

Seattle’s struggle has been in the news ever since the team changed ownership in 2006. The new group, Professional Basketball Club, LLC, is headed by Clay Bennett. The group wants to move the team to Oklahoma City, where Bennett’s business is. Bennett has attempted to buy out the team’s lease, but Seattle would not accept the terms, leading to the current standoff. Bennett may break the terms of the lease and move, which would incur a lawsuit from the city of Seattle, or he can wait until the lease runs out in 2010 to move to Oklahoma City.

According to Bennett, the team’s current arena, KeyArena, isn’t good enough to generate profit and the organization would be more successful in a better arena. He said that the Sonics lost more than $15 million the previous season, and the arena played a part in that number.

KeyArena, formerly known as the Seattle Center Coliseum, was built in 1962 and then underwent a $100 million redesign in 1995. The Sonics have been there for all but nine years, and in most of those nine seasons split time with the Kingdome.

A new stadium in King County has been proposed in the nearby city of Renton. The $500 million project would create a center viable for multiple sports and conventions, unlike the basketball-locked KeyArena. The land the proposed stadium would be on is owned by Boeing, and the aerospace corporation supports the facility. While the stadium would bring jobs and exposure to the region, there are concerns over traffic and public safety, as well as the stadium not being located in the city it is named for.

Financing would come from private sources, as well as tax increases that are directed to those outside of the county, similar to plans that brought stadiums to the region for football and baseball. The different tax plans center on hotels, restaurants, rental cars and other ‘visitor’ taxes. The plan promises to enact no new taxes that hurt King County like there were in previous stadiums, but certain post-stadium taxes may have a longer shelf life than previously thought.

San Diegans most likely find this very similar to the situation they face now. A new stadium in Chula Vista would increase exposure, but traffic, safety and other issues are also major concerns. But unlike Seattle, the threat of moving doesn’t hang over the city’s head … for now.

In this situation where hope is bleak for Seattle’s Sonics, Steven Pyeatt fights on. The Kirkland, Wash. businessman is the co-founder of Save Our Sonics and Storm, a group dedicated to keeping the Sonics in the Seattle area. His group helped push a citywide initiative that led to Seattle keeping its lease, and the group is currently is working with the proposal for the stadium in King County.

“People have been turning the direction of this thing,” Pyeatt said. “We stopped the mayor’s office from taking the buyout last summer. Right now we’d be in a lame-duck season if we hadn’t been able to do that. It’s up to us to go out there and try and put up … redevelopment plans because the leaders around here have no leadership skills whatsoever.”

Steven Pyeatt and Brian Robinson put together the group when Clay Bennett bought the team in 2006, and have been pushing policy ever since. His group has gained national recognition for their efforts.

“I have a little background in politics and Brian was part of the media … so it was meant to be,” Pyeatt said.

San Diego residents have been critical of the government’s Chargers policies, including the ticket guarantee and the renegotiation of the team’s lease. Seattle residents would share their concern.

Pyeatt’s main criticism of how the Sonics have been handled falls on the local government. He points at the inactivity of the leaders, the structure of the government as a whole and their reluctance to work with private citizens who want to build.

“It started out with Barry Ackerly, [who] wanted to build with his own money a state-of-the-art convention center to bring the NHL and other stuff here,” Pyeatt said. “The city was afraid of the Seattle Center dying, so they stopped private money from building a stadium.”

The city would use 74 million dollars to upgrade the Seattle Center instead. It lead to a better basketball ambiance, but no other comfortable avenues for KeyArena to take.

“They made a conscious decision to build a more intimate facility which was geared for basketball and would give the fans the best viewing situation,” Pyeatt said. “You had to work within the existing footprint of the building, and that botched it into this situation where now you have a place that is good for very little except for basketball. The NBA doesn’t like it, the team doesn’t like it, the lease is horrible, and the city and the team are being done a disservice.”

For Pyeatt, it is this political unrest that opens the door for Bennett.

“The challenge right now is the lack of leadership and the political structure,” Pyeatt said. “We kind of have a perfect storm in this region of all the factors that give him the capability of even considering relocating this team.”

Pyeatt’s understanding of the Sonics situation comes from working with the Seahawks. Pyeatt oversaw a group of more than 900 people over a 14 month campaign that eventually led to the creation of Qwest Field in 2002.

“I like telling people [who get scared] that in the Mariners situation they were selling tickets in Tampa Bay,” Pyeatt said. “For the Seahawks, they were practicing in the L.A. Rams’ practice facility and preparing to play in the Rose Bowl that next season. We stopped both of those situations. And here, the moving vans haven’t even been put on order yet.

“We’re probably in the third quarter right now, and it’s a while before we’re in the two-minute drill.”

Seattle and San Diego are both port cities that heavily rely on technology and manufacturing for their economy. From a sports perspective, San Diego and Seattle are not far off as well.

The Sonics started in 1967, only seven years after the Chargers moved to San Diego. Seattle and San Diego both have only one championship between them – the Sonics’ championship came in 1979 and the Chargers’ AFL Championship in 1963. Both cities feature Hall Of Fame players – San Diego has Dan Fouts and Tony Gywnn, Seattle has Lenny Wilkens and Steve Largent.

The other quality they used to share that is fading away is older stadiums. San Diego Sports Arena was built in 1967, only a few years after KeyArena. Qualcomm Stadium opened in 1967 as well, and the Kingdome, which is now demolished, opened a few years later. But as Seattle turned away from their older stadiums in favor of Safeco Field and Qwest Field, San Diego remained in what they had created.

Pyeatt has seen what new facilities have done for Seattle, both in the economy and on the field.

“It’s because we built them a state-of-the-art facility," Pyeatt said, “it gave them the tools they needed to have the most wins in a season ever in baseball and it gave the Seahawks the tools they needed to be competitive and get to the Super Bowl for the first time in the city’s history. And you’ve got the Sonics, who have been here 40 years, who are our first team … it’s like having your oldest son -- sure he lost his job, went through a divorce, had some hard times, but it doesn’t mean you throw the guy into the mud.”

And now, as Seattle moves forward for their teams, San Diego stands still with the Chargers. The Petco Park project almost fell after six years of struggle and many years of negotiation before that before baseball moved downtown, and now the Chargers must fight as well.

“I remember growing up when we got the Sonics and you guys had the Rockets,” Pyeatt said, “and then eventually the Chargers and we got the Seahawks. At those times, the cities had the same size and a bunch of similarities.”

The days of the Rockets and the other San Diego basketball teams are gone now, as San Diego lost all their teams by 1984.

“We have people who say ‘Go ahead and let the Sonics go, we’ll get a better team,’” Pyeatt said. “I tell them they should go talk to the people of San Diego, who had ... teams and lost them both. Go talk to the people in Kansas City that have been waiting even longer. That is a dangerous game of Russian Roulette you are playing.”

Pyeatt doesn’t want basketball in Seattle to end up the way it has in San Diego. Many people in San Diego don’t want to see football end up the way basketball may end in Seattle.

And if the Chargers and the county can’t come together, David Stern’s words can become Roger Goodell’s sooner rather than later.