Cheering for a professional sports team is a fundamentally stupid thing to do.  From a cost/benefit analysis, it doesn’t make any sense.  You are putting in ridiculous loads of time, money, and emotion into an organization that owes you nothing.  There is an implicit agreement to be sure.  Buy tickets to the team and the team will put forth its best efforts to put on a good show (aka, a winning effort).  But as any Buffalo Bills or Cincinnati Bengals fan can tell you, that’s not always the case.   Pro teams owe their fans nothing.  And if fans vote with their pocketbooks… there’s always another city, another community.

This post is about the Seattle SuperSonics, who recently left Seattle for Oklahoma City.  The 15th largest TV market in the nation traded places for the 45th.   I’m a Seattle Sonics fan, or rather, I once was. 

I’m not going to get into all the hairy legal issues of specific performance of a shitty lease, or bag on OKC and its group of seedy oilmen who ruthlessly plundered a team of its best and popular players and then used the subsequent nosedive in attendance to justify a move.  This isn’t a post about the hand-wringing ineffectual political leadership in Washington State who chose to do nothing while the state’s oldest professional team slipped away for peanuts.  As for Seattle’s leaders, who let the team go away for $45 mil and a non-binding promise; this isn’t about them either.

This is a post about loss. 

The Seattle Sonics were stolen and the NBA encouraged it.

And that’s a fact.  As established prior, cheering for a professional team is an illogical act, so I’m under no obligation to view this logically.  But fact is, the new owners of the OKC Thunder (which is more fitting for a WNBA team name) overpaid for the team, and immediately crowed about moving the team to OKC (as evidenced via internal emails).  There was never a commitment to the Seattle metro area, nor the surrounding areas.   Their one proposal for a new arena was for a $500 million dollar palace in Renton, which would have required a $400 million buy in from the state.  Oh, and this would have made it the most expensive stadium EVER in all of pro sports.  For a team that, aside from a miracle playoff run (after which the coach was run out of town), SUCKED.  And for some reason, city/state leaders and prior ownership didn’t seem to grasp this; the new owners had every intention of bolting as soon as possible.  But the fans knew.

The Seattle Sonics were stolen and the NBA encouraged it.

My love for the NBA ran deep.  I remember, in 1996, running around with circles with my brother (a Trailblazers fan), as we saw the Sonics win game 7 for the privilege of getting crushed by the Bulls in the Finals.  Every summer, when I visited family in the Phillippines, watching the NBA Playoffs was a ritual.  I realize everyone mentions this at some point, so blah blah blah old Pistons teams blah blah blah Clyde the Glide blah blah blah Gary the Glove and the Reign man.  I’m 28; I’ve been watching basketball for a while.  The Lakers faced the Celtics this year, in a historic matchup featuring some of the NBA’s best players.  And for the first time, I didn’t watch a single minute.  My once burning passion for professional basketball is now replaced by a profound apathy.  

The Seattle Sonics were stolen and the NBA encouraged it.

People look at this and shrug.  They say, “that’s business”.  No it’s not.  It might be a business to the owners and players, but it is not to the fans.  Business is impersonal.   A typical business doesn’t rely on a sense of civic pride to make money.  It doesn’t rely on people to constantly buy in to see an inferior product under-perform again and again and again.   However, it sometimes relies on the government to bail it out.  But, if Toyota were to ever go out of business or if Ford moved to Japan, I would shrug my shoulders and go to another brand.  I wouldn’t gnash my teeth and vow to never buy another car again.  To a typical fan, a professional sport is more than just a business.  It is the personification of your history and local pride.  When I cheer for the Mariners, the Seahawks, the Sonics; it’s more than just cheering for the team, I’m cheering for my city.   I’m cheering for the memories of that 16 year old kid, who turned off his Genesis to get his heart ripped out by that sonuvabitch Jordan.   I’m cheering for that epic Sonics vs. Blazers match in NBA Jam, after which my brother and I didn’t speak to each other for days (cheap bastard kept shoving me, it was BS.  Then again, so was my blatant goaltending).    I’m cheering for that 25 year old, who yelled out of his balcony that the Super Bowl was a fix, and got several responses in agreement (and one to shut the fuck up).

Once I saw Clay Bennett announce “We did it” during his OKC press conference, it was like something snapped inside of me.  But it wasn’t rage, it was resignation.  I stopped obsessively checking Seahawk preseason reports.  I stopped seriously following the Mariners’ abysmal season.   My passion for ALL professional sports has taken a dive.  

If you want to view things as a business, that’s fine.  The NBA showed poor customer service.  They showed complete disregard for its lifeblood, the fans.   The NBA chose short-term profits over long-term growth.  If the NBA doesn’t particularly care about a 41-year working relationship, then I don’t particularly care about the NBA.  

Go Sounders.

Last 5 posts by Derrick

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