Kinda shitty to rattle the cup when they could pawn one player.

Here are several:

http://www.thetoptens.com/cities-need-mlb-team/

to all sports franchises. You want it, you pay for it.

. . .if expensive stadia made a lot of extra money, the owners would build them on their own. They could get a loan with a phone call.

But they don't. Things that make you go "Hmmmm".

These leagues are multi-billion dollar industries. The franchises are luxuries, both to the owners and the city, but they're also synonymous with the city. Maybe not Arizona as much, since most of their teams are relatively new, but cities like having people think of the city when they think of the team in the city.

is that MLB is not covered by Anti-Trust Laws. Whenever there is talk in Congress about legislating MLB, MLB dangles expansion teams in front of Congressman. There is a basic "don't vote for this and we'll bring a team, to your city/state. That's how you got the Diamond Backs, the Marlins, etc.

So once the team is there, MLB then tries to extort money from their city for stadiums, etc. In my city the Pirates have been here for over 100 years. They wanted a new stadium and voters said NAY, however the City found ways for taxpayers to pay for it. The same with old 3 Rivers stadiums, when they demolished it, there was more money owed on it, than what it cost to pay to build.
MLB & the NFL are extortionists of the extreme.

I like baseball & love football, but I as a taxpayer shouldn't be paying for organizations that are worth millions. I have not problem with government offering loans & grants for start ups & other types of businesses, but once an organization is worth millions or billions they should not be pick pockets.

so your tax dollars are promoting religion!

I'd love to see all demands handled the same way:

"Give us money or we'll leave."

"Forget it. Bye."

Shortens negotiation time considerably.

I think the town in general misses the Supersonics, but it's surprisingly easy to ignore the NBA.

Because we didn't.

Bwahahahaha,
Sacramento

PS You guys can have Kevin Johnson though.

In fact, it's always been the most expedient way - ask the Utah Jazz. Ask St. Louis how it feels to get their stolen Rams stolen back.

Hell, remove the splinter from thine own eye: your town stole the Kings from KC, who stole it from Cincy, who stole it from Rochester.

My point stands: refuse the arena/stadium extortion, and you lose your team. Sac paid up. Seattle didn't.

And after the 5 women on the Seattle City Council refused to vacate a meaningless 2-block section of an industrial street, we're unlikely to ever get a new arena built in this town. It will have to be in a suburb like Bellevue.

A friend dragged me to see them play the Sawx while we were in the area for a convention. The only good thing I can say for the game was that it was an absolute drubbing and was over mercifully fast.

Nice little stadium, though the DBacks fans were outnumbered 5-1 at home.

better than any other team - in Seattle it will be half and half. Yankees and White Sox fans show up, too. Big cities, lots of expats.