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Everyone has a love story. If not with a person, likely with a sports team. Perhaps their love started at a young age, watching their team score more points than the other. Or maybe their love developed later in life after a cross-country move. For the lucky few, sports mean National Championships, elite players, and an exciting stadium atmosphere. For others, the risk of horrible trades, poor management, and relocation looms over them. In the United States, a sports team relocation happens at a jarring rate. No team is safe, no city is safe, no fan is safe.
Last month, I wrote about the day the NBA decided to relocate the Seattle SuperSonics to the Oklahoma City Thunder in a move that hurt fans and caused a revolt against the lies politicians and the NBA told. Through my research, I found a phenomenon in which sports teams in the United States can pack their bags, their players, and worse, their history, and relocate to a completely new city that has no connection to its old city. Seattle isn’t the only victim of team relocation– Cleveland, Hartford, and even Brooklyn fit in this category, too.
I had some doubts about touching on this topic. The NBA brings up the idea of bringing a team back to Seattle what seems like every six months only to say: sorry, check back next time! Why rub salt on the wound without any intention of healing it? In short, because people care about preserving the legacy of their favorite sports team. While I may not fully understand why people stay loyal to defunct sports teams, I spoke to some people who can. Sports team relocation is an emotional, economic, and cultural disruption to a city and unique to the United States. To understand more deeply, let’s look at two cities that experienced the pain of relocation: Seattle and Hartford.
The Seattle SuperSonics
The relocation of the Seattle SuperSonics to Oklahoma City Thunder was a disappointing but unsurprising move for many fans and players. Just two years before, then owner Howard Schultz sold the team to a group of Oklahoma City men after he was done dealing with the NBA, Sonics players, and the ongoing issues regarding the Key Arena lease. I spoke with Jason Reid, director of Sonicsgate, to further understand the events of the relocation and why he decided to film this documentary.
Born and raised in Seattle, documentarian Jason Reid is a diehard Seattle fan. In the late 80s, he turned to Sonics basketball and it’s been his favorite sport ever since, even if the city doesn’t have a team. Reid began filming before he ever had plans to make a feature length documentary, by publishing web videos for the Seattle Weekly.
“As it became clearer and clearer the team was going to leave, I started recording more press conferences and things that were happening in local government,” Reid said. “My thinking wasn’t necessarily, ‘I want to make this feature documentary that’s going to expose everybody…’ but if the team leaves, I have this footage of these guys lying their asses off!” Reid refers to NBA staff and politicians who promised to keep the team in Seattle, when in reality, they were attempting to relocate as soon as they could.
Reid began editing Sonicsgate as soon as he got back from China, where he was filming another documentary. They launched it for free online before CNBC and ESPN asked for a TV version to put on air. For Reid, the documentary was a way to give voice to Seattleites who felt they had been cheated by politicians and the league. For a city with a rich basketball history to be stripped away of its team and culture was wrong.
But, why do some cities feel they are more ‘deserving’ of a sports team than others? Simply put, “it’s a community institution,” Reid said. “The thing about Seattle is that it’s really gray and really dark and really rainy for the exact time period of basketball season– from October until May and June… so we always had this amazing indoor sport you can go to two or four times a week,” Reid said. “When… you remove that… it changes entirely how you feel about the sport,”
Culture isn’t the only thing that’s changed in Seattle. Businesses were heavily impacted in the area in the years following the relocation, according to Reid. “The area surrounding the arena, which is a neighborhood, had tons of great bars and restaurants that got packed for… at least 40 nights a year or more. Those businesses were relying on the team and they were relying on the events happening there,” Reid said.
The problem with analyzing the economic impact of the Sonics leaving is that, you really can’t. The 2008 financial crisis happened right around the time the team moved, so while Seattle suffered, the team leaving wasn’t the only reason it did.
There’s some discourse surrounding the actual economic impact that the Sonics gave Seattle. According to Lon S. Hatamiya, economist arguing for the side of the Sonics during the relocation, nearly 1,300 jobs would be lost as a result of the relocation. The city would also lose $188 million that the games generate in downtown action. But, an article published on Forbes.com back in 2008 argued that these numbers were inflated and those jobs would be recovered in different areas of the city.
When asked if the team has a chance at ever coming back to Seattle, Reid remains optimistic. “We have billionaires in our city… we have a community that’s ready to support it.” Seattle also has an arena that underwent a $1.15 billion renovation recently. The truth is, Seattle is lucky it’s ready. Smaller cities in the United States, like Hartford, Connecticut, although once supported professional sports teams, don’t have the physical space to house a new team, but they do have the fans.
The Hartford Whalers
That song is Brass Bonanza and it’s a song you would have heard if you’d gone to a Hartford Whalers game nearly 30 years ago. The song, like the logo, is an iconic part of Whalers and Connecticut history and one you can still see and hear to this day.
Christopher Price, a journalist at the Boston Globe, is one of those fans who still has a memory of that song. Price has deep New England roots, having grown up in Hartford County before moving to Massachusetts. In 2022, he published Bleeding Green, a book that Price called “a passion project.” The idea for the book came from his wife, and it took Price about 15 seconds to think before committing to the idea.
Price grew up a devoted Whalers fan, although he jokes the team wasn’t that good that didn’t matter to him. The important thing was that it was Connecticut’s team and didn’t have to choose between Boston or New York. “This was the first team that was uniquely special to us. That resonated with a lot of kids like myself,” Price said. “That sense of possessiveness, that sense of regionalism, we finally had our team.”
Regardless of performance, if the team won or lost that night, community mattered more. “You could see one of the [Whalers players] with his family at Wendy’s, at the supermarket… they were very much based in the community… it was one of the secrets of their success,” said Price.
When the Whalers moved, there were two types of emotions, explains Price. First, there was a feeling of inevitability, especially regarding finances. The other feeling was frustration. For Price, and many other fans, the whole thing felt rigged with the NHL trying to embrace warmer weather markets, the underappreciation of Hartford because of its closeness to major cities and its naturally smaller market, and the Connecticut politicians who didn’t handle the situation well.
Like Seattle, rumors about a potential NHL return to Connecticut resurface the media every few years. Price believes that if a team were to come back, it wouldn’t necessarily have to play in Hartford, but a new stadium would be essential. Adding to the challenge is the overwhelming popularity of UConn basketball, which plays at the XL Center in Hartford a few games out of the year. Still, Price is glad the conversation continues. “It [reminds people] that the Whalers did indeed exist at one time and they were a great team,” Price said.
One of those people keeping the memory of the Hartford Whalers alive is Mark Anderson, president of the Whalers Booster Club. Anderson and the team go way back, and he fell in love when he attended his first game at nine years old and was hooked from the first team goal. Like Price, what Anderson loved the most is that he didn’t have to support a team all the way in Boston or New York– a city that could have been 2,000 miles away for all he knew at nine. He had a team right at his doorstep.
Like the many relocated sports teams, businesses in the Hartford area suffered when the team left. According to a New York Times article published in April 1997, 75 jobs were expected to be lost in the Whaler organization alone. This, paired with the number of businesses expected to suffer in downtown Hartford, meant that losing the team meant more than losing a piece of Connecticut culture.
Anderson believes that “the city never recovered.” Instead of downtown Hartford getting nearly 16,000 people for every Whalers game, they got just a few thousand people every so often for concerts, Hartford Wolf Pack games, and UConn events. Not only that, but Anderson said that the dynamic in downtown Hartford changed, too.
The Whalers were also attractive to fans because of the cheap ticket prices. According to the same New York Times article, Whalers tickets back in 1997 cost about $11, compared to other NHL teams costing up to $40. That equates to $22 and $80 in today’s cash. While $80 is still a hefty price for NHL tickets, it doesn’t compare to the price you’re paying for tickets today. It’s possible to see the cheapest tickets running up to $100 or $120 for games in the New England or Metropolitan area.
That’s a sentiment that Anderson knows all too well. Alongside foundation work, the Whalers Booster Club also organizes trips to watch NHL games in Boston, New York, or New Jersey. The only problem is that tickets for good seats are out of the organization’s budget, a recurring problem in modern sports and a factor that deters many fans from watching their favorite sports team.
At $20 per ticket, Whalers fans got what they paid for. Boasting an even win-loss record, the Whalers were never the best team. But, for many fans, that factor didn’t matter when the team left nor when the team was in Hartford. What mattered was that Connecticut had its own team and fans had an organization they could call their own.
Why Sports Relocation is Uniquely American
There are many flavors of American sport team relocation such as mergers between two teams that reside in the same city or in some cases during war; it’s also common for teams to rebrand within the same city. As we’ve seen, it’s common for teams to completely move, take on a new identity, and even steal the history. In the United States, the first major relocation occurred when the Brooklyn Dodgers moved over 2,500 miles to become the famed LA Dodgers.
When asked why relocation seems to only happen in the United States, I got varying answers. “No billionaire could ever move Manchester United out of Manchester. It’s not even an option,” Reid said. And that’s true. The history that’s ingrained in Manchester is so deep rooted that to even consider relocating would cause massive revolt. “The reality is, America is built on these private businesses that essentially can do what they want,” added Reid.
But, England does experience relocation in a different way. Some team names are changed due to mergers with nearby cities. Similarly to the United States, some football clubs have relocated due to stadium or funding issues but, in my research, have only relocated up to 17 kilometers away from their original location. These cause grief to fans, but no relocation has ever had such immense protest as the 2004 Wimbledon F.C. relocation. In this case, Wimbledon F.C. was moved to a city nearly 95 kilometers away. The team took on a new name, got a new stadium, and new fans. The relocation caused so much protest and anger that a group of fans created a new team, AFC Wimbledon.
One of those life-long fans who participated in the protest against the relocation is Niall Couper, author of three books on the club and CEO of Fair Game, an organization dedicated to bringing fairness to football.
A sports journalist at the time, he had a front row seat to the news of the relocation.
Couper believes that the difference between American sports and English football lies both in its culture and business decisions. Couper compares English football to college sport. It would be unheard of if Ole Miss relocated to Utah or if UCLA moved to New York just because of the possibility of a better market. Professional sports teams, in Couper’s opinion, are run like brands with entertainment value. Couper believes they’re not based in the community or city, unlike in England where football teams have deep community roots. There might be some fans who disagree with Couper’s sentiment, but history will show that many iconic teams– like New York and Los Angeles, have relocated at one point in their history.
That difference in perception of sport is why American ownership of English football is a tricky and sensitive subject for football fans. There are fears that they don’t exactly know what they’re getting into and see the sport as a cash cow. But there are others, says Couper, who have “fallen in love with the history and culture” of the sport. Currently, 50% of Premier League teams are majority or partly owned by Americans. The number of people who will say they’ve made a positive impact on the club will depend on who you ask– and where.
For the past four years, Fair Game has been attempting to pass a bill that would change football in the United Kingdom. The bill would address issues such as fan engagement, equality, and financial divides in the English football pyramid. “I think I can get a doctorate in law now,” Couper jokes. It hasn’t been an easy journey, but Couper is dedicated to “giving a voice to the voiceless.”
Couper isn’t ignorant to what some football executives, politicians, fans, and even players might think of Fair Game. “We are a disruptor… we are an alternative to those who follow the status quo.” For some fans, it might take them a while to understand the meaning behind Fair Game, but once they’ve realized it’s focused on developing real and strong solutions, they’re on board. Fair Game is not friends with everybody, but they say things with authority and believe in themselves, Couper said.
What it all means
The stories of the Seattle SuperSonics and Hartford Whalers are more than tales of lost teams, but a reflection of the cultural and economic system of sport in the United States. What makes American relocation unique is not only the sheer rate that relocations occur, but the lack of authority that fans have to stop the occurrence. That’s where people like Price, Anderson, Couper and Reid come in, to continue to provide awareness and set up a chance for change for the future.
This isn’t just a story about relocation, it’s about what happens when business decisions overpower community and culture. While owners might promise new opportunities and a better market, the human connection with sport is lost in the move. Until change occurs to put an end to this, old fans reminisce about the history, the songs, the jerseys, and the hope that one day, the team might come back home.