Wilkens says there are groups with Eastside ties that are discussing coming together to make another run at the legislature, with the intention of buying an existing team and moving it to a new arena in Bellevue. He acknowledges that he doesn't even know all of the players, so nascent are the plans -- "I know some of them, and I know they're pretty solid," Wilkens says -- but that a plan is coalescing.
This is the point where I want everyone to pause and go ahead and back the eff up. While Aldridge cites the reasons Bellevue would make a good landing spot for a new team—most notably the fact that Bellevue is full of rich people (mostly from Microsoft money) to build the new arena the Sonics would demand—I'd like everyone to think about the reasons a team in Bellevue wouldn't work. None of the following is really about basketball, I don't think. The primary reason it wouldn't work is simple: traffic. Only in the dreams of anyone living in the Seattle Metro area is Bellevue 15 minutes away from anything. Sure, it might not look that far on a map, but if you've ever driven on I-90 or the 520 floating bridges (the two main routes connecting Seattle and Bellevue), then you know it can take hours (yes, plural) to drive those 10 or so miles to Bellevue, especially between 5 and 7 p.m., when people will be driving to the games. A proposal to build a light rail system connecting Seattle to Bellevue has been on the table for years in order to combat the traffic, but I don't see that as a real solution. Not only would it take years to build because it would necessitate construction on one of the existing floating bridges, but the proposal has been continuously met with opposition from the same rich Bellevue-ites who don't want a fancy rail system decreasing their property values. I also don't believe the light rail would combat the culture of driving in the Seattle Metro area, especially when the markets of Everett (north of Seattle) to Tacoma (south of Seattle) and the other Eastside areas are accounted for.
The cultures of the two cities is another problem. Bellevue has been on the rise for years. To call it a suburb is a disservice in a way: it has grown to become its own city—a smaller, more compact version of Seattle. I would say a minor rivalry has been brewing since Bellevue began its ascension, and I don't think Sonics supporters would claim a team in Bellevue as their own, even (or especially) if it was still held on to the Seattle forename. I would predict a brief honeymoon period where the Bellevue Supersonics would be embraced by most of western Washington, only to see attendance decline as fans stop braving the stop-and-go traffic to see a team that would still belong to a city other than their own. Then the Sonics could find themselves in the same position that led to their departure in the first place (minus the owner publicly making the team worse so he could pack it up and skip town).
Yes, I'm getting ahead of myself, just like everyone else. I want a team to return Seattle as much as any Seattlite, but I want it to succeed.
P.S. Any Sonics post is reason enough to link to the Presidents of the United States of America song, "Supersonics" and Sir Mix-A-Lot's "Not in Our House."
2 comments:
I think Aldridge's point, though, is fairly good: A large percentage of the Sonics' fanbase was/is from Bellevue and the East Side. I remember seeing westbound traffic on 520 all jammed up before every Supes game. There's at least a reasonably good line of logic in saying that Bellevue is a good location because that's where a lot of fans are.
True. I read somewhere that one of the SonicsGate guys claimed Bellevue had 60% of the season ticket holders. I didn't include it because it was kind of a crappy interview and sources weren't referenced at all. I still think my point stands about Bellevue as a legit city: Seattle's population alone is about 5x times that of Bellevue (2009 Census), and Seattle is the real identity of the area (such as Burien, Tacoma, Everett, Lynnwood, even Issaquah). Like I said in the post, I think if Bellevue got the team, those markets wouldn't buy in unless the team went gangbusters right off the bat, but if a team were to end up in Seattle proper, it would still include Bellevue and the Eastside. I know there will still be 520/90 traffic to deal with in that case, but the size of the population of Seattle Metro should help.
How bad is Seattle traffic that I really do feel like it could to a large degree determine the success of a potential NBA team?
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