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[Seattle Times] 15 years after moving Sonics, now it’s the Thunder asking for publicly funded arena
(www.seattletimes.com)
this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2023
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To me it’s pretty simple. If the city pays for it then the city should get a portion of the stadiums profits until the money is paid back.
The city owns the stadium and the Thunder pay a lease to the city to use it. All stadium profit/revenue goes directly to the city. It is publicly owned
Except the Thunder, like many teams, get a sweetheart lease deal. The last one had them paying 1.6 million a year with the team keeping the naming rights. How does this come close to being a good investment?
Ultimately it’s not gonna be a good investment from a pure numbers base lol. But the $50m upfront plus the lease agreement should get them somewhere on recouping costs plus the revenue from other activities at the stadium.
Then factoring in jobs for building the stadium, jobs associated with the Thunder and stadium activities, the impact the Thunder has on broader economic activity in the city and raising the profile of OKC nationally etc. Arguably it’s still not a good deal but it’s at least fairly close if not net positive when considering all impacts and obviously it would be preferable if the Thunder would pay fully for the stadium. But the truth is that the city has absolutely no leverage in this situation and that the deal is not what a lot of people itt are making it out to be - where taxpayers are just gifting a stadium and all it’s revenue to a billionaire