Allen Presents Five Stadium Options

Potential new Seattle Seahawks owner Paul Allen has an open mind about a long-term stadium solution for the franchise.

He’d consider a renovation of the Kingdome, a new stadium near the Kingdome, a new stadium on another site within King County, a shared arrangement that would put them in Husky Stadium or a new stadium built on the site of a demolished Kingdome.

Those were the five options Bob Whitsitt, president of Allen’s Northwest Football Inc., presented Friday to 15 members of the Seahawks-Kingdome Renovation Task Force. In his first appearance before the group since Allen purchased an option to buy the Seahawks, Whitsitt told the task force that Allen would be a partner in working out the solution to the team’s stadium problems.

“The single biggest item for Paul to make a decision whether or not to purchase the Seahawks is a long-term stadium situation,” Whitsitt said. “In the long term, you have to look at it from the revenue point of view.”

Under the Seahawks’ current arrangement in the Kingdome, they net less than $3 million per year in stadium-related income, which is exclusive of the individual sale of tickets. The Dallas Cowboys have around $40 million of stadium income. The average teams are in the $20 million to $25 million range, according to Whitsitt.

The task force authorized a $300,000 initial study, looking at all five Whitsitt options. Allen agreed to fund half the study. The task force will use $100,000 from the Kingdome reserves and ask King County for $50,000.