text: Although I heartily agree with the article, it is a game of chicken that a city can lose. The NBA chose to make an example of Seattle when it refused to provide a new venue for the Sonics (now the OKC Thunder). Seattle taxpayers had just 10 years earlier, paid for a major renovation of the existing facility. When the renovation was finished, and the doors re-opened, the NBA heralded the new space as "state of the art" and "what all basketball venues should aspire to", and yet one short decade later, it was "obsolete" and "unable to provide the necessary revenue possibilities necessary to sustain an NBA franchise". The team was purchased by out of town owners and moved within a couple of years. Since, it has been a very convenient and lucrative gambit to use the vacancy in Seattle as leverage for the NBA to induce reluctant NBA cities to pony up tax dollars for new venues or "well, Seattle is looking for a franchise". Calgary would likely play that role in the NHL.