Nfl Comes To Seattle To Discuss Desire For New Stadium

The Mariners are getting a new $320 million baseball stadium. The Sonics are playing in a renovated $133 million basketball arena.

To keep up, the Seattle Seahawks deserve a better football field than the 20-year-old Kingdome, NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue said Friday in a letter to King County executive Gary Locke.

Three league representatives are arriving Monday to discuss the issue with county officials, Tagliabue said. They are senior vice president Roger Goodell, stadium management and club administration director Joe Ellis and Carolina Panthers owner Jerry Richardson, chairman of the owners’ stadium committee.

Key subjects, Tagliabue wrote, include “a schedule for determining whether a major renovation of the Kingdome is a viable alternative to construction of a new stadium; where in the Seattle area a state-of-the-art stadium might be constructed; funding mechanisms for each alternative; business community support for whatever alternative seems to be the most sensible long-term ‘investment,’ and lease arrangements for any facility that are competitive with those in other new or renovated stadiums.”

Earthquake safety concerns raised by Seahawks owner Ken Behring in his attempt to move the franchise to the Los Angeles area are of relatively little concern to the league, Goodell said.

“Your community just allocated $320 million for a new baseball stadium and has a new basketball arena,” Goodell said. “We think that’s terrific, but the NFL doesn’t want its teams operating at a competitive disadvantage.”

Last week the league ordered Behring to halt player workouts and conditioning at the old Los Angeles Rams complex in Anaheim, Calif., and return to the club’s old complex in Kirkland.

“Rather than enduring the costs and distractions of litigating with the National Football League at this time, I have chosen to ask our players and conditioning coaches to return to our facility in Kirkland for the rest of the off-season condition program,” Behring said in a statement.

If Tagliabue had found the Seahawks demonstrated “conduct detrimental to the league,” the team could have faced $500,000.

“I’m pleased the NFL has been able to get the Seahawks back to the Pacific Northwest for at least their practices,” said Locke. “We’re not going to be satisfied until the Seahawks play their regular-season games in the Kingdome.”