Sports Center Northwest

What would it take to make Seattle a premier town for sports and all the business that comes with it?

By Bill Virgin |   February 2010   |  FROM THE PRINT EDITION

Photographs by Hayley Young

Is Seattle finally back in the game?

For a while, it appeared as though Seattle was not only uncompetitive in the sports business game, but also barely aware there even was a game.

That perception wasn't just the result of the litany of woeful on-field performances by Seattle sports teams, although those certainly didn't help. Among recent lowlights: the 100-plus loss season for the Mariners and the 0-12 record for the University of Washington football team, the prime economic driver for the school's athletics department.

But of greater concern were the long-term trends off the field and away from the playing court: the lack of big-time, high-profile national sporting events that used to fill the local sports calendar; the regional paralysis on facilities projects like Husky Stadium's renovation or remodeling or replacing KeyArena; and most stinging of all, the move of the Seattle SuperSonics, a 41-year franchise with one of the city's two modern-era major-sports championships, to Oklahoma City. (The other was the WNBA Storm's 2004 Championship victory over the Connecticut Sun).

Hanging over all of it was the pall of the economic recession and the loss of corporate headquarters; pinching budgets for advertising, sponsorships, ticket and suite sales; and event attendance.

Seattle, a major-league city? Not figuratively, not with a record that poor.

But now there are a few signs that the cycle is turning, that the long winter of Seattle sports is tentatively giving way to spring. It's an optimism powered by more than just improved on-field performances in the most recent season for the Mariners and Huskies, important though those are.

Sounders FC, the city's first-year entry in Major League Soccer, is proving to be a resounding success on and off the Qwest Field pitch, setting attendance records and establishing fan-favorite "traditions" including the lime-green scarves and the March to the Match.

The Sonics' departure notwithstanding, the region is turning into something of a hoops hotbed, with the collegiate-level success of the men's basketball programs at UW, Washington State and Gonzaga (the latter two making occasional visits to Seattle). Meanwhile, in what may be a case of Gonzaga envy, Seattle University is making the move up to Division I basketball, a level at which it once competed years ago. And while the Sonics blew town, the WNBA Seattle Storm's status seems much more secure with a local ownership group that bought the team in early 2008, and who hired Karen Bryant as CEO shortly afterward. 

The Storm, which celebrated its 10th anniversary last

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