NBA- Come Play At KeyArena For Your Own Good

“Why relocating to Seattle’s Key Arena would be beneficial to struggling franchises”

Many teams around the NBA are struggling mightily financially. Player salaries and expenses are at highs where teams are crunching numbers finding ways to generate more dollars. Arena deals are another aspect that is really hurting franchises.

Key Arena is a marvelous venue when watching an event. The problem is everything else associated with it. When walking the concourses or backing up media and tour trucks to the loading dock, that is causing some huge issues. Though, the benefit of having the arena right now compared to the past is one huge reason – the building is debt-free. All paid off. The Sonics were paying in the neighborhood of $9 million per season in rent and loan payments. They were sharing revenues generated from Suites, club level seating, and various revenue sources. By having the arena all paid off, it eliminates many of these hardships franchises deal with on a daily basis.
Coming to Seattle would immediately put a team such as the Kings, Hornets, Grizzlies, Bucks, and Pacers in a larger metropolitan area with a larger base of corporate businesses and populations of people. In an arena agreement where any team that comes to Seattle gets free rent until a new facility is built or the Key is re-built could be a huge luring tactic for struggling billionaires.

Seattle would benefit as well. The city would re-claim an NBA franchise, putting them in a bigger market with a sweetheart arena deal. Having an arena sit empty for weeks at a time is doing the city no good either. Empty dates mean no revenues and no revenues hurt the bottom line. In this economy anything helping the bottom line is viewed as a good thing. It is no secret the Lower Queen Anne area has taken a huge hit with the Sonics and Thunderbirds out of town. Many businesses in that area depended on those events to pay the bills and keep business going. Take a drive down by the arena now and there is a former restaurant and bar boarded up – straight across the street from the arena entrance doors. This extends all over the neighborhood. By having a franchise return, people will begin coming back, spending money at these establishments and helping them pick up their bottom lines. Fans will be piling into the arena spending money on tickets, concessions, merchandise, etc. which all creates sales tax revenues. Not to mention, the more the businesses make that people stop at to have dinner, enjoy a beverage, conduct some business meetings at, generate higher revenue which also creates higher tax revenues based on business earnings.

Here is my proposal on what to do:
-Offer an existing franchise FREE rent until a new building is built or the KeyArena is rebuilt
-Offer the team tax breaks.
-The city will cover expenses for providing staff to work and maintain the facility before, during, and after events.
-The franchise keeps all ticket revenues, no splitting revenues as previously done by the Sonics
-All revenue generated by the Sonics at Sonics events goes to the franchise.

Why would Seattle do this? Well the reasons above should be enough. Why shouldn’t the team split revenues with the city on revenues generated during events? Because without these events, the revenues wouldn’t be generated anyways.
If the Sonics had this deal back when they were here, Schultz never would have sold out of market. Now, the arena is debt-free and the biggest obstacle with KeyArena has been removed.