The undeterred vision for those in Seattle that have pushed relentlessly for years for an NBA basketball franchise to return to the Emerald City received a huge boost last week. The NBA Commissioner, Adam Silver, gave an interview when he was asked about the expansion of the league in the future.
The response to the question, I am paraphrasing here, that the expansion of the NBA due to the huge growth in revenue and popularity of the sport is inevitable. He added that when the league begins to the expansion process that Seattle is on the short list of cities that they will consider.
This should come as no surprise to many basketball fans because the Sonics had a deep history and still have a loyal fan base that long for a return of the franchise to the city. The NBA would be wise to expand to Seattle because the most difficult component for a new expansion team in a new market is to establish loyal fans.
The expansion to Seattle would put a franchise in a market that has very good demographics for television/new media, has a reputation for supporting their teams, and has the nostalgia factor from the first version of the Sonics.
The second most difficult task for a newly minted expansion team is to move merchandise and corporate sponsorships. The placement of an NBA expansion team in Seattle would clearly be a positive for the league because Seattle retained the rights to the name and colors of the Sonics and will sell a ton of merchandise based on the previous support those products enjoyed. The corporate business community will embrace the return of the wildly popular Sonics to the region.
The community and the government are supportive to bringing basketball back to Seattle. The NBA left because the arena was seen to be outdated and a new arena has remained the biggest hurdle to the city gaining a team to return. That hurdle, at times seemingly insurmountable due to a variety of factors, is moving closer to being cleared.
Seattle recently announced that they have reached agreement with a developer to begin a privately financed renovation of the old Key Arena at Seattle Center. The developer will keep the historic roof of the arena and other architectural elements that the public wanted to remain intact.
The renovation project will completely renovate the interior of the building by constructing a new concourse and other elements underground below street level. It will then reconstruct the entire interior of the existing facility as well. The newly renovated arena would be designed to meet all the specifications for the NBA as well as the National Hockey League (NHL) in the hopes of gaining an expansion hockey team for Seattle.
The city is about to enter negotiations on the actual MOU of the development project, so the city council retained the services of a firm that specializes in negotiating terms of these types of development and construction projects for major entertainment and sports venues.
It should come as no surprise that the NBA is interested in a return to Seattle because that city has a captive audience of fans that are nostalgic for the return of the Sonics. The NBA will gain new fans with younger people who have parents who told them about the Sonics, and they can attend games together as a family.
The NBA has a know entity in the Sonics and that is the key to both sides eventually getting this done. The arena renovation will be the last component in what has been a long saga, and then the path should be cleared for Seattle to finally get their basketball team back again.