Behring Sees Need To Stir Waters
Having descended the stairs at the debutante ball, albeit with a broken strap, garish mascara and droopy nylons, the Mariners have Seattle’s attention.
Did you expect the Seahawks to simply smile adoringly?
Of course not. That’s because you’re a wise fan and you know that the sports franchises are a notoriously catty group, united only by a common desire to extort local municipalities with multiple suitors.
That’s why the Seahawks last weekend offered up a figurative pout and a toss of the curls. A report in the Boston Globe said Seahawks owner Ken Behring, at the NFL owners’ meeting in Jacksonville, Fla., practically fell over the table diving at a chance to move the Seahawks in with the Los Angeles Raiders in a proposed new NFL stadium at Hollywood Park.
The predictable spasm of dread ran through Seattle, forcing King County executive Gary Locke to ponder National Guard help with the hordes of panicked TV reporters gathering on his lawn during a slow-news holiday weekend.
Turned out to be sound and fury signifying next to nothing, as is usually the case with these stories. The Seahawks have a lease with King County through 2005 and the chance of a move is neither greater nor lesser than with most NFL franchises.
But as the bankrupt burghers of Orange County (Calif.) discovered, the threat is not utterly idle. St. Louis offered the owners of the Los Angeles Rams inducements equivalent to the gross assets of the Third World. The team is now the St. Louis Rams. Amazed at the breadth and depth of such civic prostitution, NFL owners realized they sit atop a commodity even hotter than dreamed.
Additionally, the Rams’ move created a void in the nation’s most glamorous market, a void that has owners sucking toward it as if it were an airliner door opened at 30,000 feet.
Frankly, if Behring had not stood up for the chance to hook up with Raiders owner Al Davis in a grand new building with enormous revenues, he would be a larger chump than some fans already believe.
The killer part of this deal: Davis hasn’t said yes.
Davis will use the proposal to increase his leverage for a better deal in another city. If he finds a city as shameless as St. Louis - Oakland, Calif., Baltimore, San Antonio, Memphis, Tenn., and Toronto make the list - he will leave and create a void that would have owners selling their children wholesale to get to L.A.
To keep the Raiders from leaving L.A., and thus forcing rebates to the TV networks, the league has proposed building with Hollywood Park racetrack owner R.D. Hubbard a stadium that will offer football’s first tickets with incentive bonuses. The season tickets, likely more than $10,000 each, will contain the option to buy tickets to two Super Bowls that are promised to the new facility in the next 10 years.
Davis and Hubbard also have demanded $20 million from the league to build the stadium, a matter still being debated.
The deal is extraordinarily complex, and still has many chances to fall through. Even if it does happen, Behring may lack the clout to be the one to climb into bed with Davis.
In the likely event of failure, Behring’s ploy nevertheless advances his other agenda - the $120 million Kingdome spiff-up that has been all but lost in talk over the Mariners’ proposed retractable-roof stadium.
“I think the historical sense the Seahawks have is that they have been a good and quiet tenant and haven’t had the attention the baseball team has,” said Kevin Raymond, Locke’s chief of staff.
Behring’s tactic may well be the start of the traditional sports-franchise campaign to create enough crisis to prompt governmental capitulation. But the Seahawks are a distant second in the local crisis-creation race.
“There’s some truth to the back-burner thing,” said Mickey Loomis, the Seahawks executive vice president. “I wouldn’t say, though, that we’ve been forgotten.”
In fact, county staffers and the Seahawks met Friday, a talk long-planned and unrelated to the NFL meetings, to discuss a framework for improving the Kingdome for football. Hovering over the discussion is the Seahawks’ contention that the lease with the county is breached because the Kingdome isn’t a “first-class facility” as stipulated.
“I think it would be unwise to read much into statements like that,” Raymond said. “It’s not a theme that dominates our discussions with them. We know they have reserved the right to argue that the county has not met its obligations - if everything else fails.
“But their tone and tenor is that they want to stay here. I have no reason to think we won’t be successful, or that the team will be going anywhere.”
That doesn’t mean that King County taxpayers won’t be going for another ride.
xxxx Seahawks tickets Single-game tickets for the Seattle Seahawks’ 1995 regular season went on sale Saturday through TicketMaster Northwest outlets for $19 and $28. TicketMaster also charges a handling fee. Tickets can be purchased in Spokane at DJ’s Sound City, in both the NorthTown Mall and University City shopping center. They’re also available by phone from TicketMaster in Seattle at (206) 628-0888.