Sonics Trial Day 2: You too can be a sports economist

After paging through transcripts of the first two days of testimony in the Seattle v. Oklahoma City Rat Bastards case, I realized I was in the wrong business. Actually, I’m probably overqualified to be Mayor of Seattle or even an expert sports economist.

The transcripts detail how on Day 1 of the trial Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels threw up all over himself during his bumbling testimony. Day 2 brought us another “expert witness” for the city that took the stand and was systematically dismantled by Sonics lawyer Paul Taylor.

Turns out, hot shot sports economist Andrew Zimbalist, who was hired by the city to show the economic benefits professional sports have on Seattle, had a copying party at Kinko’s. The report he did for the city contains whole passages of content plagiarized from a similar report he did for the Anaheim Angels.

Are you fucking kidding me? Did he not learn anything in college – you always rewrite your roommate’s essays before turning them in. This is Cheating 101 stuff here.

Tell you what city of Seattle, if you ever need another sports economic analysis, I’ll do it for half the price. For an extra grand, I’ll write it in Haiku.

If you were ever thinking of getting into the sports economist business, now is the time. Zimbalist’s credibility is shot and there isn’t a municipality in the country that is going to touch this guy.

Luckily, Clay Bennett proved he had no intention of keeping the team in Seattle and did little except go through the motions to get a new arena built. He was shocked (shocked, I say!) that state and local government wanted a financial commitment from him before they moved forward with an arena plan.

It also would have helped if Clay actually put pen to paper and created a plan and proposed legislation. Not sure how it’s done in Oklahoma, but one is expected to actually come up with an honest-to-goodness plan before the state hands over half a billion dollars. Charcoal drawings on the front porch steps over a couple a jugs of moonshine ain’t gonna cut it, son.

Bennett will continue his testimony today and then we get to look forward to another star witness for the city taking the stand. Douche bag Seattle city council member Nick Licata will be filleted by Sonics lawyers as he tries to back peddle from his remarks to Sports Illustrated that the Sonics have “close to zero” cultural value for the city. Thanks for your help, Nick.

It’s a good thing that Sonics co-owner Aubrey McClendon is also slated to testify this week. It’ll balance out the stupid scale between the two parties.