Why sometimes it's not all about the money

The debate over whether it's worth it to keep the Sonics so often centers around the economic benefit a professional sports franchise provides to a community -- something that pretty much has been proven to be negligible.

Seth Kolloen over at Enjoy the Enjoyment eloquently shows us that's not the point.

"Even if the Sonics are a drain on the economy, that doesn't mean we shouldn't keep them.

"Economic benefit analyses can't show everything. ... It's an intangible quality-of-life thing -- like playgrounds and opera houses and dog parks. What would be more 'economically beneficial' -- selling Magnuson Park to a developer and turning it into a giant corporate campus, or keeping it as a place to hold surplus library book sales and roller derbies?

"And what's a more compelling argument? Whether you'll be taking your kid to watch Kevin Durant play for the next 15 years or not, or whether we'll have a 4.2% (or whatever) increase in hotel revenue or not? Man, I'm asking lots of rhetorical questions here, but the point is that the debate about the Sonics' arena shouldn't be about economics alone."

Here, here. Couldn't have said it better myself.