Local 19 members had reason to celebrate on May 15 when the NBA Board of Governors voted down a plan by wealthy investors to relocate the Sacramento Kings basketball team to Seattle’s SoDo (“south of downtown”) area near the docks. Local 19 members worried that the new stadium would increase congestion and threaten good industrial and waterfront jobs.
Immediately after the NBA decision, Local 19 President Cameron Williams sent a letter to local elected officials, asking them to “step back, take a deep breath” and consider other locations, including Memorial Stadium and Key Arena as possible options for an NBA arena – if those locations meet environmental standards.
Williams urged the wealthy investors “to do what is right for the community.” The NBA decision probably wasn’t based on compassion or concern for protecting good waterfront jobs in Seattle. It likely came down to pleasing the wealthy tycoons who own NBA teams – and that may leave Sacramento residents on the hook to pay for an expensive new stadium.
Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, himself a former NBA player, promised owners that Sacramento would somehow pay for a new stadium, as he lobbied against the Seattle investors who offered to pay most of the cost for a new stadium. That approach probably offended NBA owners who have grown accustomed to blackmailing taxpayers to pay for the cost of new stadiums. “Give us a new publicly financed stadium or we’ll move to Seattle” is a threat that works as well in any city with a sports team, according to Matthew Yglesias, business and economics correspondent for the online publication, Slate.