Wow- Supersonics leaving Seattle.

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by 8ballrollin

Also I believe pro teams are of cultural benefit to a community. Because of this benefit, I don't have a problem with some public financing of arenas, but the lion share needs to be the burden of the franchise. There are also numerous examples of privately financed stadiums (i.e. AT&T Park in SF). It a great example; privately financed with some re-development loans from the city.

I dispute that an NBA team is a very big part of a city's civic culture. If it is, what a poor excuse for a civic culture such as city must have. There are about 15,000 hard core fans out of millions of people, and those hard core fans are not big contributers or very interesting contributers to the city, in general.