The Seahawks better learn from the Mariners

[JSeahawks]

Some of your don’t seem to remember the 90s when the Seahawks were playing to a half empty stadium. Op is right that if they become a perpetual loser again they will lose many fans. The rest of you are correct that the current ownership most likely won’t let that happen.

You may not remember the reason for that at the end, we were going to be the Los Angeles Black Hawks TILL Paul stepped in.

It was Feb. 2, 1996, that then-owner Ken Behring announced his plan to relocate the Seahawks -- which makes the 10th anniversary of the franchise's darkest hour seem even more surreal in light of the Seahawks' appearance Sunday in Super Bowl XL.

There were a whole lot of empty seats way before that was a thing.

Umm No there wasn't.

I originally got my season tickets in ‘92. $10 a seat. They weren’t that cheap because the stadium wa getting filled up.

 

[chris98251]

You may not remember the reason for that at the end, we were going to be the Los Angeles Black Hawks TILL Paul stepped in.

There were a whole lot of empty seats way before that was a thing.

Umm No there wasn't.

I originally got my season tickets in ‘92. $10 a seat. They weren’t that cheap because the stadium wa getting filled up.

I have been here from the beginning, up until Behring bought them there was always a wait list.

In 1988, Behring and partner Ken Hofmann purchased the NFL's Seattle Seahawks football team for $79 or $99 million (both numbers have been reported).[4][10] They transferred the team's operations to Anaheim, California in 1996, a widely criticized move, although the team continued to play in Seattle. They sold the team to Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen in 1997, for $200 million.[10]

The slide didn't really start until we seen him trying to play Al Davis in both GM roles and then on camera, so from about 90 on things wen bad to worse until 96. Him threatening the Fans and City was smoked out well before 96 however and the anger at him and his dismantling of the team ALA Bennett with the Sonics and then complaining about revenues and then the tiles in the Kingdome began to fall.

 

[SoulfishHawk]

Nope, Football town.

 

[CPHawk]

Griffey and The Big Unit both wanted to leave, what the hell are you talking about? Griffey wasn’t old either. At the time he was traded, he was the best player in baseball in his prime. He made it pretty clear he was not going to resign in free agency with the Mariners.

Please stop this garbage.

Exactly. Anyone else saying anything different, is just giving fake news and revisionist history. Besides the key to the Mariners slide was pissing off Lou and running off Pat G. Oh and having a part owner who had his head up his ass while making one wrong move after another

 

[Steve2222]

Griffey and The Big Unit both wanted to leave, what the hell are you talking about? Griffey wasn’t old either. At the time he was traded, he was the best player in baseball in his prime. He made it pretty clear he was not going to resign in free agency with the Mariners.

Please stop this garbage.

Exactly. Anyone else saying anything different, is just giving fake news and revisionist history. Besides the key to the Mariners slide was missing off Lou and running off Pat G. Oh and having a part owner who had his head up his ass while making one wrong move after another

Not to mention those trades netted us solid returns in Freddy Garcia, Carlos Guillen, John Halama, and Mike Cameron and freed up cash to sign John Olerud, Mark McLemore, Arthur Rhodes, and Kaz Sasaki. All key cogs in the 116 win 2001 season. ARod leaving the next year allowed us to sign Ichiro, Bret Boone, and Jeff Nelson. Again, more key cogs in 2001. It was actually a blessing in disguise those three guys wanted out.

OP is clueless lol. We should hope what happened to the Mariners in 99 and 00 happens to the Seahawks. We might end up with an 19-0 team. The more I think about it, this thread should be a sign of encouragement to Seahawks fans.

Thanks OP for making me feel better about unloading our former stars.

 

[getnasty]

This is laughable, as long as Paul Allen is the Owner we will never go to long in the dump.

 

[sdog1981]

Not forever.

You don't remember the "Go Mariners....and take the Seahawks with you" bumperstickers?

It was a Husky town, until they started losing.

It was a Sonics town (actually even during some down years)

It was a Seahawks town when at least the team started at least being competitive (Beast Quake).

Sure people were in the stadium during the 2 win seasons but lets not pretend this love affair lasts forever.

This town like winners and does not tolerate losers.

I get it, dude, you are having a bad week. Do you want a hug? You forgot the Seahawks ownership group has built two different SuperBowl caliber teams in 6 years with two different GM's and two different head coaches. Every example you gave can be traced back to bad owners. The Mainers have a for-profit only ownership group. UW constantly changes their AD and the Sonics had an owner who sold the team Oklahoma.

 

[chris98251]

This has been a Seahawks and Husky town forever, only time there was a wavering was during the Behring era and that was because he went out of his way to piss off the fans, the Huskies were top Dawg as well until Neuheisel and Willingham screwed the pooch and Hedges messed with everything. Thankfully that was the time that Lou and Gillick got things moving in the right direction, prior to that we had players we liked on the Mariners but no real threat to do anything, I mean there was a few ownerships that threatened to move the team twice, Lenny Wilkens and George Carl had the Sonics winning for years, but they were always the second fiddle compared to Football, but loved here very much.

It took Football to get the Kingdome Built and threat of never getting a MLB team here as long as we had Sick Stadium, remember we had Sick Stadium prior and the Pilots that played there and the MLB didn't want that.

It was touted as a do everything facility which it was for years.

 

[ZagHawk]

I actually was falling out of love with our players as they made it more about them than the team. So no..this does not apply.

 

[anonFAFA]

The town was already upset with this team going 9-7 and that was WITH Bennett and Sherman on the roster. I don't see how keeping them around makes things better.

The NFL is not MLB where the prime for players is late 20s thru mid 30s. Prime is mid 20s thru MAYBE late 20s. Bennett is out of his prime and Sherman is about to be.

 

[AgentDib]

This is almost as good as the NY fans who think the Seahawks could emulate the Jets if only our media was more like the NY media. I'm sure this kind of thing makes sense when you are writing the supporting arguments, but then you never stop to think about the subject line and just how silly it makes the whole argument.

Personally, I'd manage to cope even if we do lose the bandwagon fans.

 

[WilsonMVP]

There was a time that the Mariners were beloved here.

The stadium was packed. People had flags and T-Shirts.

Every business had the radio or TV turned to the games. And everyone stopped everything they were doing when Griffey was batting, Edgar was up or Randy was pitching.

Eventually Randy started to get 'old' and they got rid of him. But the fans watched him literally carry (with another pitcher) a borderline expansion team to the playoffs and win it for them.

It pissed a lot of people here off, especially when Griffey got dealt and the excuse was guys were getting older and we had to replace them.

We did replace them, somewhat. We got Hernandez eventually and people got a little excited about that occasionally when he pitched. But for the most part, getting rid of aging stars just got us average players that were soon forgotten.

And that crazy love this city had for the Mariners, so strong that literally barely making it into the playoffs on that Joey Cora hit (not even to get into the World Series, just to get to the next playoff series which we lost) became a seminal moment. That same love vanished overnight.

You could not give away Mariner gear then.

When people say they love the team, they really love the players. When you release those guys, you better find something good for people to cling to afterward or they will get bitter.

If Bennett or Sherman ends up being some difference maker on a team that makes it to the SB? People are going to hold it against the Seahawks and they are going to desert the team. Not for lack of loyalty but because they will feel bitter & burned.

That SB built a lot of goodwill up but that SB loss, combined with how it was handled and the years of underperforming steadily chipped away at it. If this team misses the playoffs even a few years while its former stars go on to help other teams win them? People will drop their 12 flags quickly.

There better be a sense of urgency with whatever changes they are making.

Didnt the Mariners do better right after that period? From like 2000-2004. They won like 116 games a few years after having those 2 players mentioned..I dont see what the point in this thread is? The 4 highest wins in Mariner Franchise history literally came right after those 2 guys were gone

 

[TwistedHusky]

Randy took the Diamondbacks to the World Series and I seem to remember a lot of fans tearing up their tickets then.

Mariner stuff was on clearance everywhere. You must not have lived here then.

Think what you want. I am starting to notice it is a lot easier to find Seahawks gear because it seems to be on clearance everywhere. A lot less 12 flags flying too.

Sure its the offseason and we will see what happens when training camp starts.

But I am sure that things will pick right back up, even if we miss the playoffs for a few years.


We will see how that goes.

Let's hope all of your unbridled optimism gets rewarded.

 

[SpokaneHawks]

I'll take an off year or two if it means re-sale ticket prices will drop from the stratosphere! In all sports you've got to take the good with the bad. The year we played N.O. in the playoffs 2011, I was able to buy South end zone seats on ticket master the Thursday before the game for my wife, myself and 2 other buds for something like $80 a seat. That's 4 seats in a row and guess what, it was glorious, I saw the Beastquake and the rest was history! Drop the aging stars and find more, period. If you cheered for this team in the 90's like me, you know, what comes around goes around and our ownership will not allow this team to stay down for long!

 

[SpokaneHawks]

Winning sells seats even when you've been losing for a while. History has proven that. The kingdome was rocking in the 80's, fans left in the early 90's but they came right back in the 2000's.

 

[Uncle Si]

Sports in the US is entertainment for the most part.

People will watch if they are entertained. If they are not.. they will spend their money elsewhere. This happens to every team in every sport.

Not sure what the concern is...

People think Pats fans are going to keep selling out Gillette when Brady and Bill move on?

 

[Hawks46]

OP must be one of those bandwagon fans. :sarcasm_off:

I remember when the Seahawks were terrible. I remember it going on for years.

I also remember our family driving up to Olympia to watch those games in the pos Kingdome. I remember watching Elway beating us at Husky Stadium when ceiling tiles were falling off of the roof of the Kingdome.

Know what I don't remember ? Seeing a lot of empty seats. Or hearing a quiet game.

 

[bmorepunk]

They get rid of Bevell, and where does the energy from TwistedHusy go? All over the place.

The manifesto development level is up to 100, but the focus is bizarre.

 

[TwistedHusky]

Except in all these 'manifestos' everything I warned about has come to pass.

When we traded Unger, I warned that is was a stupid trade. We wouldn't be able to use Graham anyway and our run game would be destroyed.

That happened.

When we brought on Harvin, I ripped him mercilously and pointed out that he was a problem everywhere else. I also was very clear that it would lead to the loss of Tate.

No. no. It will be different here came the chorus. You are just being Eyore was the response.

But Harvin not only lost us the draft picks and Tate, he caused the problems with Kam holding out.

Then I was assured the loss of Golden Tate would not matter. But I pointed out all the reasons we needed him.

The loss of Golden Tate probably cost us 2 trips to the SB and at least one SB victory.

Several years ago, I pointed out that we weren't going to make another SB with Bevell. EVER.

I was pilloried. It happened.

I pointed out the issue with the drafts and how JS was likely over his head and just living on Scott's production (when Scott left)

That happened.

Not including the Cary Williams, Lacy and all the rest.

All of this is being accused of being 'doom and gloom' but maybe some of us are just seeing what is blatantly obvious. And sure enough, almost everything we saw that we were pretty clear was a stupid move by the FO, which is clearly overrated and prone to idiotic moves that our HOF roster built from 2011-2013 has simply offset in many instances, has come to pass.

Not saying I deserve a job in the FO. I am saying these are obvious observations that should have been clear to someone in the FO who does this professionally. That they keep missing on these bets is a pretty clear sign they are overmatched. Will their luck change? Not looking likely if they are not good at their jobs.

So yes, people are going to start dropping the Seahawks when they start missing the playoffs. Which they will do because Carroll has a tired and outdated philosophy that will not work with the strengths of his roster and because our OC has not produced much anywhere else, the expectation he will produce is unlikely.

Carroll is gone in 2-3 years and we will have to rebuild anyway. Not sure how ripping the team apart now helps anything when our QB is actually in a productive window with if we got a good OC.

We will see who the bet is on but I'm betting I see a lot more Eagles jerseys and even 49ers jerseys up here in a year or 2.

And for the record, I had season tickets from the time in the Kingdome, to the time in Husky Stadium, and only sold them off when we lost that BS SuperBowl.

 

[Seymour]

The loss of Golden Tate probably cost us 2 trips to the SB and at least one SB victory.

I hated letting Tate walk, and it was a bad move....but Dude......you need to step away from that ledge and quiet that storm going on between the ears.