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02-01-2007, 11:15 AM
Seattle PI

Will the puck stop here?
A new arena would be more viable with an NHL team -- if Seattle can get one

By DAVID ANDRIESEN
P-I REPORTER

Hockey is an afterthought in most discussions of a new arena for the Sonics, but America's least-watched "major" sport could be key to keeping such a facility afloat.

The Sonics' 41 regular-season home dates won't be enough to sustain the $500 million arena proposed for either Bellevue or Renton. Its owners would work to fill the calendar with concerts and minor sporting events, but having a National Hockey League team as an anchor tenant would do much to fill the schedule and pay the bills.

"In order for a new arena to work, it's important for it to be more than just the home of the Sonics," said Jim Kneeland, spokesman for the Sonics ownership group. "With costs as high as they are now, it's important to have as many event days as possible."

Sonics principal owner Clay Bennett, a longtime friend of NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, has not been given any assurances about landing a hockey team. The ownership group has been so busy working the arena deal that it hasn't even done the research into whether hockey would fly here. But basketball and hockey coexist successfully in metropolitan areas of similar and smaller size, so there's no reason to believe it would be a tougher sell in Seattle.

"People who do these deals are not in the basketball business, they're in the fill-the-arena business," said Terry Lefton, an editor for Sports Business Daily. "The NHL gives you a lot of full arenas."


Hockey history

Seattle has had many professional hockey teams. The Metropolitans, playing in the 2,500-seat Ice Arena, were the first U.S. team to win the Stanley Cup. Representing the Pacific Coast Hockey League, the Mets beat the National Hockey Association's Montreal Canadiens in 1917. The Mets also were involved the first time the Stanley Cup was not awarded, in 1919, when their series against the Canadiens was abandoned when many Montreal players were stricken -- one died -- by an

outbreak of Spanish influenza.

Over the years Seattle has hosted the Eskimos, Sea Hawks, Americans, Bombers, Ironmen, Totems and Breakers, who became the current Thunderbirds in 1985.



Seattle was awarded an NHL franchise in a planned expansion for the 1976-77 season. But Vince Abbey, part owner of the Totems of the Western Hockey League, couldn't get the money together and the deal collapsed, as did Abbey's attempts to buy and relocate the NHL's Pittsburgh Penguins.

Abbey didn't engender good feeling from the NHL when he sued the league on antitrust issues, a suit that dragged on before finally being thrown out of appellate court in 1986.

Any recent hopes for the NHL were dashed by the 1994-95 rebuild of the Seattle Center Coliseum, the Sonics' home that was renamed KeyArena.

Then-Sonics owner Barry Ackerley, afraid of competing with an NHL team for sponsorship dollars and favorable dates, was adamant during the planning stages that the layout be basketball-specific and not facilitate hockey. Ackerley got his way, but for logistical reasons. Queen Anne residents insisted the arena not grow any taller, which meant the playing surface had to remain underground. The arena's footprint wasn't big enough for the underground portion to grow significantly, so it was all but impossible to create an arena that would be big enough for NHL standards.

In its hockey configuration, KeyArena can't seat more than about 10,000; the Thunderbirds seat fans only in the lower bowl and list their capacity as 6,324.


Who plays? Who pays?

If the proposed arena is built, there would be nothing to stand in the way of Seattle finally becoming an NHL city -- except for the small matters of finding an available franchise and someone to put up the money.

NHL expansion isn't going to happen, as the league already is considered bloated. That leaves the relocation of an existing franchise, and Seattle would be at the end of a significant line of suitors.

The Penguins appear to be on their way out of Pittsburgh, and Kansas City is the most likely destination. The city has the $276 million Sprint Center set to open in October, an owner ready to write a check, and an offer on the table for free rent.

Oklahoma City has an available building and has pursued the Penguins. Houston; Portland; Winnipeg, Manitoba; and Tulsa, Okla., have been reported to have interest.

It's hard to say what franchises might be available when and if Seattle has a facility ready (if the new arena deal passes, an NHL team could probably begin play there for the 2011-12 season). The Florida Panthers, Atlanta Thrashers and New York Islanders have varying degrees of trouble to work through.

It has been presumed that Bennett would own a Seattle NHL team.

"It's not necessary that he would be the owner," Kneeland said. "A number of different groups in the Northwest have expressed interest in the past, and a couple of those have contacted us in recent months."

Kneeland wouldn't disclose those groups, but Seahawks/Portland Trail Blazers owner Paul Allen might represent one -- he tried to bring the Phoenix Coyotes to Portland in 2000.


Game on thin ice

Had Allen bought the Coyotes, Blackhawks owner Bill Wirtz would have been among those wondering why. In 2000 he told the Chicago Tribune, "If you put a gun to my head, I wouldn't buy any team, including the one I own."

Thanks, ironically, to the most damaging event in league history -- the lockout that wiped out the 2004-05 season -- NHL ownership now isn't as bleak a proposition. But all is not well.

"Hockey there (in a new Seattle-area facility) may pencil out nicely, but that's without regard to the status of the game of hockey," said David Carter, executive director of the University of Southern California Sports Business Institute. "By any metric you measure by, it's pretty soft."

According to Forbes, salaries take up 54 percent of league revenues; prior to the lockout it was 66. Before the lockout the average team was worth $163 million and lost $3.2 million a year. Now the average team is worth $180 million and makes an operating profit (before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) of $4.2 million.

Small-market teams in particular have benefited, with 11 low-revenue teams receiving money last season from the league's 10 top earners.

"The lockout was about getting a lesser and more predictable and controllable cost," Lefton said. "Who wouldn't want controllable cost if you're in any kind of entertainment business where salaries are unpredictable?

"It's a better on-ice product than pre-lockout. It's a much easier cost of entry and with much more sustainable and predictable overhead."

Carter isn't convinced the picture is as rosy.

"They stopped the bleeding, but that doesn't mean the patient is better," he said. "They saved themselves, but they're nowhere near a point where they can thrive. There are too many issues."

Chief among those is a miserable national television situation. The primary deal, with the little-known Versus cable network, nets each team only about $2 million a year. A smaller package with NBC leaves the NHL with almost nothing after the network subtracts production costs. The NHL doesn't exactly have room to ask for more, with NBC games drawing a 1.0 rating and Versus a 0.2.

Major League Baseball and NBA teams, meanwhile, net $30 million apiece, and NFL teams make more than $100 million each from television.

Of course, sports ownership these days isn't about turning an annual profit. It's about turning a profit when you sell the team. That's still happening in the NHL, driven by new arenas such as the one hoped for in Seattle.

"When people ask me why anyone wants to buy a professional sports team, I usually tell them the first 25-50 reasons have to do with ego," Lefton said. "But beyond that, the next thing is usually asset appreciation. Is there a reasonable expectation of asset appreciation for an NHL team in a decent market? Yeah, I'd say there is."

That could bring the NHL calling -- as soon as there's a building to play in.