Seahawks Can Always Count On Spokane

Seattle doesn’t seem too keen on keeping the Seahawks.

Spokane does.

In a poll 10 days ago, Washington state residents were asked how they would vote on a plan to build a new stadium to keep professional football in Seattle.

Seattle voted 45 percent yes, 47 percent no.

Spokane voted 51 percent yes, 45 percent no.

I think Spokane is more of a pro football town than Seattle.

We wear more stuff with pro sports logos. (About half of Spokane households have at least one hat or jersey vs. only 45 percent of Seattle households.) We are quicker to get tears in our eyes when someone like Mark Rypien or Drew Bledsoe or John Friesz makes it from the small towns to the big time.

Even when it comes to buying tickets for Seahawks home games, Spokane and the rest of Washington fill more seats than Seattle fans.

A 1995 Seahawks survey found only 15 percent of the fans at any given home game come from Seattle. The survey concluded 48 percent of the fans come from the rest of Washington.

And when the team plays on TV, the Seahawks are as big as it gets here in the Lilac City.

In 1996, in the midst of the team’s losing season, more people in Spokane spent more time watching the Seahawks on TV than doing anything else on Sunday afternoons.

On Nov. 3, 1996, for example, fully 92,000 Spokane area households watched the Seattle-Houston game according to ratings by KHQ-TV.

An estimated 175,000 Spokane-area fans stood and cheered in their living rooms when Michael McCrary blocked a Houston field goal and Robert Blackmon ran it back for the winning Seahawks touchdown.

In Seattle, by contrast, only 36,320 fans showed up for that game. Because the Kingdome wasn’t sold out, the game wasn’t on Seattle TV.

So, on Nov.3, and on many other Sundays in recent years, the largest block of fans watching the Seahawks were to be found in Spokane and Eastern Washington.

For these reasons, Eastern Washington has a particular interest in the efforts under way to build a new stadium for the Seahawks so the team doesn’t pull up and relocate to California.

In a very real sense, the Seahawks are our team.

By April 3, if our team is to stay in the state, the state Legislature must approve a financing package for a new stadium and put the issue to the voters.

Initially, many Eastern Washington legislators have opposed a new Seahawks stadium.

The legislators should think again.

The Seahawks’ popularity in Eastern Washington and Spokane suggests political points can be scored by helping keep the Seahawks.

The key to the success of any stadium financing plan will be the details of how to pay for it.

Luckily, the proposal now being discussed looks better with each amendment.

Funds for building the $352 million stadium now would come primarily from these sources:

Six new sports lottery games ($85 million).

Taxes on sports clothing and memorabilia ($177 million).

Sale of permanent seat licenses to fans ($55 million).

In addition, Paul Allen, the Microsoft billionaire who also has an option to buy the Seahawks, has agreed to pony up the remaining $45 million from his own pocket. Allen also has agreed to pay all costs of a statewide vote on the plan.

“In a nutshell, this plan is designed so that fans pay for the new stadium,” said Bob Whitsitt, president of Football Northwest Inc., the organization trying to get the stadium built. “The people who don’t like football never have to go to the facility, never have to buy a lottery ticket, never have to buy any merchandise.”

Put another way, the people who like the Seahawks, who wear their hats, watch them on TV, go to the games, will be the ones who will pay most of the bill for the new stadium.

Still, no plan has yet emerged from the Legislature. No vote is yet scheduled.

All of which suggests Spokane and Eastern Washington Seahawks fans need to get active.

The Seahawks, chastened by their drop in fan support during the recent lean years, have already announced they are moving their training camp back to Eastern Washington University in Cheney.

The Seahawks, it seems, know who their friends and fans are.

Eastern Washington and Spokane legislators can help save the team.

Could we build the stadium in Spokane and put money into a light rail system across the state so Seattle could make a road trip?

Unlikely. But Spokane legislators could get on the sidelines with the Seahawks in the Legislature.

Along the way, maybe our legislators could find some money for a couple of Spokane projects, like the health sciences building for the Riverpoint higher education campus, and funds to expand the Cheney Cowles Museum.

To the average Joe Football fan here, and to his son, the Seattle Seahawks are probably more important.

At the very least, we need a chance to vote on whether we want to keep the Seahawks our team.

, DataTimes