Brian Robinson 2
RE: A Show of Force!
Monday, March 22, 2010 7:29 AM
From: "Brian Robinson"
To: "Commando Dave", "Russell Pompea" , "Sonicsgate Movie"
Cc: "live4health@gmail.com", "Jason Reid" , "Camp Jones"
See Dave this is where you always lose me.
These guys spent hundreds of hours, dozens of press releases, thousands of their own dollars. They hit multiple states and received national coverage for Sonicsgate in an effort to keep the movement alive. They've put on a concert, Adam was a critical guy in an event of 100 plus bodies less than a month ago. In November we secured statements and meetings with every single substantive political candidate. We dramatically impacted the mayoral election. In the last 2 weeks they have met with multiple political leaders, are encouraging people to meet Sally Bagshaw on Thursday and have arranged lunch with Dow Constantine this month.
Never before has someone kept the legacy of a departed sports team alive in the way the Sonicsgate crew has. They've gotten thousands of people to come out to a variety of events. You come at them with an "I have to do something because Sonics fans have done zero" approach. Instead of attending the Bagshaw event or supporting the movie when they were making it you're going to plan something else. I actually do think you're a good guy with good intentions and I don't think you are so dismissive of what other people do on purpose but unintentionally the theme is always so consistent. You always have a "tip of the hat" comment or a disclaimer of how much you appreciate others right before the meat of your comments in which you dismiss the efforts and talk big game like you can do better. I always wind up just waiting to see what you can put together before I judge you they way it seems like you judge others. I don't feel the need to defend my own efforts but I can stand up for Sonicsgate all day long. They have been absolutely tireless. Nobody has worked as hard as they have.
You've been at this a long time. You should have a massive e-mail list. You should have volunteers. Get them to work. After you begin to produce results is when people will start joining up to support you. If you make even moderate progress you can count on SOS jumping behind because we need the help.
The minimum cost for a county wide initiative is about $200,000. It is much bigger than a city initiative because it is spread over so much larger of a geographic territory. It requires way more votes. I-91 got about $100,000 in funding from SEIU. We budgeted $40,000 for our shoestring I-93 city initiative and frankly the biggest reason we caved is because nobody did anything to help us pay for it. There does come a time when you have to put up the money or realize that you are going to go down in flames. We couldn't get the donations we wanted and I was looking at personally getting stuck with the tab. We had shelled out about $7K just in printing the ballots, paying submittal costs and having the attorney review our draft. When the city council came to us with an alternative that was pretty strong, allowed us to claim victory, and took that big bill off our hands it was a no brainer. We didn't think it was likely that the city council and mayor would screw us that badly that publicly by just flat out betraying us and going back on their word. Had we ben able to raise another $20K we may have made a different decision and held the team here. We went to games with the thought that "We have 20 volunteers and there are 14,000 people in attendance. Surely some people will donate a $5 or a $10. If we can average $1/person that is $12,000 per game and we can do this." Out of our 20 volunteers we would come back with like $45. Gathering funds was really, really tough despite the fact that we had a really big media presence and what I consider to be real legitimacy. It was a learning experience.
I think the facebook group is a wonderful thing. There has to be some way to use it. I've personally pushed it before a whole ton of legislative members, the NBA Players Union and the NBA itself. They don't give a damn about facebook. At the end of the day people in politics don't really believe that sports fans represent a substnative voting block. They know we can be loud and I thought for sure that when we brought 2,500 people to the rally and 400 people to Olympia that it would make a statement. They look at us as the "vocal minority" who just yell and scream and cause noise but at the end of the day don't have a legitimate voters block. If we got 3,000 people at that rally they don't believe that more than 300 of them really vote. They use loud and obnoxious behavior and sports radio commentary as support for this concept that somehow it is just a few drunk fans causing a stir. They legitimately believe that the best way to silence the vocal minority is to get as much distance between themselves and the issue as possible and they know that 2 years out from the teams departure they have almost succeeded. That is the biggest reason they don't do anything. It sucks but it is a reality that sports fans have to overcome if they want to be politically active. The renton event was a failure because it represented a fractured and impotent base that justified this behavior. It gave the politicals an excuse to do nothing and provide no leadership. It showed them that "If I do nothing the worst that will happen is that 2 dozen people will show up in a bar to drink beer and bitch about it."
To get true political legitimacy you either need big numbers who are organized or you need business support. Businesses are scared to death of unruly sports fans that meet in bars. They just don't think it is a good group to be associated with. It is why I have gone so far in the "lets be conservative" camp. It may be why I have gone too far that direction and guys like you will present a good balance. If we could get the restaurants and bars signed up behind an idea of yours it would be a major difference maker.
When we spoke previously I thought you had a great idea that our databases all needed to be sorted by district, zip code, etc. Get more district information on the base and make them more politically relevant. I do think that would make a difference but one of the real issue for us has been that that when we start going down that path it begins to look more and more like the politicos are right about our constituents. We can't get them to organize that way without committing more time and money than we really have. When we try to we realize that the ones willing to go even that far are so few, and spread so far that they are not really relevant to 1 district. Russel got 57,000 people to sign up on Facebook partially because facebook is such an amazing medium. As recently as 3-4 years ago when we were fighting this battle it did not have the distribution factor it does today. Part of the other reason he got it done is because facebook is relatively anonymous and quick and easy. It doesn't require you to do anything but click a button and suddenly you're a member. If you put a .25 charge to be a member you would get virtually nobody. If you had a 3 minute sign up sheet in which you were required to enter your mailing address and phone number you would have the same problem. If when you signed up there was a pop-up that said "By joining this group you may be solicited in the future" there would be a major decrease.
You may have found different. You may have a good database by now of people who've given you mailing addresses, etc. How many Sonics MIA shirts have you sold to date? To me that should give you a decent indicator of how many people will actually make some sacrifice or take some effort to support you.
If after 11 years on the job you have district and organizational information for a substantive group of sports fans in the PNW then by all means do it. I would caution however that you remain realistic about what you are going to accomplish. The politicals are not going to be intimidated by 10 people from 1 district and 20 people from another in a group of 100 total. It's just not substantive enough. They will resent your intrusion more than they respect your force.
Somewhere in this thread the actual idea itself did not get passed on to me. I'd be happy to comment on it
The guys who put on the Hood Classic are putting on a benefit game this summer and have asked me to participate. The game will include Jason Terry, Jamal Crawford, and Nate Robinson. Interest has been expressed or tentative commitments have been made by Spencer Hawes, Brandon Roy, Stephon Marbury, Ron Artest, and Lamar Odom. So we have real serious NBA talent. We have been in negotiations with the Key to rent it out and next week are having followup meetings with them as well as Hec-Ed. The game will have a strong "bring back the Sonics" theme with a press junket as well as a series of before and after events with the players.
It is a big deal to pull off and I don't think I can guarantee that it will even happen at this time. The other guys are going to be the driving force. If we do it though it will be the major hoops event of the summer.
There is some limited action in terms of bringing back a team but it is not at the grass roots level. For the most part right now any type of political rallying is very difficult because business leaders are scrambling to keep their heads above water. My ability to commit time and money has virtually disappeared compared to a year ago. The Chamber of Commerce is struggling, it is really tough times. Still the Seattle Sports Commission has been more involved, Jeanne Kohl-Wells and Ed Murray have been trying hard. Ross Hunter has been working his ass off and Steve Ballmer has made a comittment to be much more visible when the time comes. Bellevue has gotten really aggressive and honestly I think they could have a package done pretty quickly.
Overall though this is going to be a slow and incremental process. IMO my feeling for the last 2 years has been that there is no rally or event that anyone can do that will push this thing faster than Steve Ballmer is willing to push it. He knows when he can get a replacement team and is more interested in fighting an effective battle at that time than he is a long drawn out one during one of the most difficult business climates in history. It makes it hard for me to ask people to put in time and energy when I legitimately believe that time and energy is pretty much wasted until Ballmer starts his action. There has been some "negotiation" with that group about the timing of the action and what we feel we need to maintain momentum until then.
I think everybody needs to do what they can do. I totally encourage you to work hard at it and building on what the Soncisgate guys are doing. It is a good avenue for all of you guys and the awareness really does help. I'm also a lot less worried about failed showings than I was a couple of years ago. There is always the excuse that the team has just been gone and there is only so much people can do. My main worry now is that SOS as an organization has only so much pull. We assume that people are going to get tired of being solicited and stop showing up. We may need 500 people at some event this summer but if we've had four 100 person events through the year we won't have people willing to come out for the 2nd or 3rd time. On the flip side if we have zero events in a year we not have an audience left. It is a tough balance. If you're not doing this under the SOS banner then it doesn't impact me at all. I will post links etc. on my website but we won't distribute anything to our list if we have worries about them being asked to buy merchandise of be followed up with solicitation of any kind. We've been offered good money for that e-mail list from political candidates but we try to protect our members.
Assuming my business gets straightened out I am going to work this summer hoops game and continue to meet with people politically. Jan Drago is very willing to go to bat on this. I have to touch base with Ballmers people after the session, and McGinns people are mulling over whether he wants to do anything. Now it looks like we need to get back with the convention center people to see if we can peel off some of the money legislature is giving them this week.
Camp Jones is Camp Jones. He's not Steve Pyaett.
I know you're not asking for permission and I'm not pretending to grant or withhold it. I really wish you the best of luck. If you feel like any of my prior experience can help you out please always feel free to ask for input.
Monday, March 22, 2010 7:29 AM
From: "Brian Robinson"
To: "Commando Dave"
Cc: "live4health@gmail.com"
See Dave this is where you always lose me.
These guys spent hundreds of hours, dozens of press releases, thousands of their own dollars. They hit multiple states and received national coverage for Sonicsgate in an effort to keep the movement alive. They've put on a concert, Adam was a critical guy in an event of 100 plus bodies less than a month ago. In November we secured statements and meetings with every single substantive political candidate. We dramatically impacted the mayoral election. In the last 2 weeks they have met with multiple political leaders, are encouraging people to meet Sally Bagshaw on Thursday and have arranged lunch with Dow Constantine this month.
Never before has someone kept the legacy of a departed sports team alive in the way the Sonicsgate crew has. They've gotten thousands of people to come out to a variety of events. You come at them with an "I have to do something because Sonics fans have done zero" approach. Instead of attending the Bagshaw event or supporting the movie when they were making it you're going to plan something else. I actually do think you're a good guy with good intentions and I don't think you are so dismissive of what other people do on purpose but unintentionally the theme is always so consistent. You always have a "tip of the hat" comment or a disclaimer of how much you appreciate others right before the meat of your comments in which you dismiss the efforts and talk big game like you can do better. I always wind up just waiting to see what you can put together before I judge you they way it seems like you judge others. I don't feel the need to defend my own efforts but I can stand up for Sonicsgate all day long. They have been absolutely tireless. Nobody has worked as hard as they have.
You've been at this a long time. You should have a massive e-mail list. You should have volunteers. Get them to work. After you begin to produce results is when people will start joining up to support you. If you make even moderate progress you can count on SOS jumping behind because we need the help.
The minimum cost for a county wide initiative is about $200,000. It is much bigger than a city initiative because it is spread over so much larger of a geographic territory. It requires way more votes. I-91 got about $100,000 in funding from SEIU. We budgeted $40,000 for our shoestring I-93 city initiative and frankly the biggest reason we caved is because nobody did anything to help us pay for it. There does come a time when you have to put up the money or realize that you are going to go down in flames. We couldn't get the donations we wanted and I was looking at personally getting stuck with the tab. We had shelled out about $7K just in printing the ballots, paying submittal costs and having the attorney review our draft. When the city council came to us with an alternative that was pretty strong, allowed us to claim victory, and took that big bill off our hands it was a no brainer. We didn't think it was likely that the city council and mayor would screw us that badly that publicly by just flat out betraying us and going back on their word. Had we ben able to raise another $20K we may have made a different decision and held the team here. We went to games with the thought that "We have 20 volunteers and there are 14,000 people in attendance. Surely some people will donate a $5 or a $10. If we can average $1/person that is $12,000 per game and we can do this." Out of our 20 volunteers we would come back with like $45. Gathering funds was really, really tough despite the fact that we had a really big media presence and what I consider to be real legitimacy. It was a learning experience.
I think the facebook group is a wonderful thing. There has to be some way to use it. I've personally pushed it before a whole ton of legislative members, the NBA Players Union and the NBA itself. They don't give a damn about facebook. At the end of the day people in politics don't really believe that sports fans represent a substnative voting block. They know we can be loud and I thought for sure that when we brought 2,500 people to the rally and 400 people to Olympia that it would make a statement. They look at us as the "vocal minority" who just yell and scream and cause noise but at the end of the day don't have a legitimate voters block. If we got 3,000 people at that rally they don't believe that more than 300 of them really vote. They use loud and obnoxious behavior and sports radio commentary as support for this concept that somehow it is just a few drunk fans causing a stir. They legitimately believe that the best way to silence the vocal minority is to get as much distance between themselves and the issue as possible and they know that 2 years out from the teams departure they have almost succeeded. That is the biggest reason they don't do anything. It sucks but it is a reality that sports fans have to overcome if they want to be politically active. The renton event was a failure because it represented a fractured and impotent base that justified this behavior. It gave the politicals an excuse to do nothing and provide no leadership. It showed them that "If I do nothing the worst that will happen is that 2 dozen people will show up in a bar to drink beer and bitch about it."
To get true political legitimacy you either need big numbers who are organized or you need business support. Businesses are scared to death of unruly sports fans that meet in bars. They just don't think it is a good group to be associated with. It is why I have gone so far in the "lets be conservative" camp. It may be why I have gone too far that direction and guys like you will present a good balance. If we could get the restaurants and bars signed up behind an idea of yours it would be a major difference maker.
When we spoke previously I thought you had a great idea that our databases all needed to be sorted by district, zip code, etc. Get more district information on the base and make them more politically relevant. I do think that would make a difference but one of the real issue for us has been that that when we start going down that path it begins to look more and more like the politicos are right about our constituents. We can't get them to organize that way without committing more time and money than we really have. When we try to we realize that the ones willing to go even that far are so few, and spread so far that they are not really relevant to 1 district. Russel got 57,000 people to sign up on Facebook partially because facebook is such an amazing medium. As recently as 3-4 years ago when we were fighting this battle it did not have the distribution factor it does today. Part of the other reason he got it done is because facebook is relatively anonymous and quick and easy. It doesn't require you to do anything but click a button and suddenly you're a member. If you put a .25 charge to be a member you would get virtually nobody. If you had a 3 minute sign up sheet in which you were required to enter your mailing address and phone number you would have the same problem. If when you signed up there was a pop-up that said "By joining this group you may be solicited in the future" there would be a major decrease.
You may have found different. You may have a good database by now of people who've given you mailing addresses, etc. How many Sonics MIA shirts have you sold to date? To me that should give you a decent indicator of how many people will actually make some sacrifice or take some effort to support you.
If after 11 years on the job you have district and organizational information for a substantive group of sports fans in the PNW then by all means do it. I would caution however that you remain realistic about what you are going to accomplish. The politicals are not going to be intimidated by 10 people from 1 district and 20 people from another in a group of 100 total. It's just not substantive enough. They will resent your intrusion more than they respect your force.
Somewhere in this thread the actual idea itself did not get passed on to me. I'd be happy to comment on it
The guys who put on the Hood Classic are putting on a benefit game this summer and have asked me to participate. The game will include Jason Terry, Jamal Crawford, and Nate Robinson. Interest has been expressed or tentative commitments have been made by Spencer Hawes, Brandon Roy, Stephon Marbury, Ron Artest, and Lamar Odom. So we have real serious NBA talent. We have been in negotiations with the Key to rent it out and next week are having followup meetings with them as well as Hec-Ed. The game will have a strong "bring back the Sonics" theme with a press junket as well as a series of before and after events with the players.
It is a big deal to pull off and I don't think I can guarantee that it will even happen at this time. The other guys are going to be the driving force. If we do it though it will be the major hoops event of the summer.
There is some limited action in terms of bringing back a team but it is not at the grass roots level. For the most part right now any type of political rallying is very difficult because business leaders are scrambling to keep their heads above water. My ability to commit time and money has virtually disappeared compared to a year ago. The Chamber of Commerce is struggling, it is really tough times. Still the Seattle Sports Commission has been more involved, Jeanne Kohl-Wells and Ed Murray have been trying hard. Ross Hunter has been working his ass off and Steve Ballmer has made a comittment to be much more visible when the time comes. Bellevue has gotten really aggressive and honestly I think they could have a package done pretty quickly.
Overall though this is going to be a slow and incremental process. IMO my feeling for the last 2 years has been that there is no rally or event that anyone can do that will push this thing faster than Steve Ballmer is willing to push it. He knows when he can get a replacement team and is more interested in fighting an effective battle at that time than he is a long drawn out one during one of the most difficult business climates in history. It makes it hard for me to ask people to put in time and energy when I legitimately believe that time and energy is pretty much wasted until Ballmer starts his action. There has been some "negotiation" with that group about the timing of the action and what we feel we need to maintain momentum until then.
I think everybody needs to do what they can do. I totally encourage you to work hard at it and building on what the Soncisgate guys are doing. It is a good avenue for all of you guys and the awareness really does help. I'm also a lot less worried about failed showings than I was a couple of years ago. There is always the excuse that the team has just been gone and there is only so much people can do. My main worry now is that SOS as an organization has only so much pull. We assume that people are going to get tired of being solicited and stop showing up. We may need 500 people at some event this summer but if we've had four 100 person events through the year we won't have people willing to come out for the 2nd or 3rd time. On the flip side if we have zero events in a year we not have an audience left. It is a tough balance. If you're not doing this under the SOS banner then it doesn't impact me at all. I will post links etc. on my website but we won't distribute anything to our list if we have worries about them being asked to buy merchandise of be followed up with solicitation of any kind. We've been offered good money for that e-mail list from political candidates but we try to protect our members.
Assuming my business gets straightened out I am going to work this summer hoops game and continue to meet with people politically. Jan Drago is very willing to go to bat on this. I have to touch base with Ballmers people after the session, and McGinns people are mulling over whether he wants to do anything. Now it looks like we need to get back with the convention center people to see if we can peel off some of the money legislature is giving them this week.
Camp Jones is Camp Jones. He's not Steve Pyaett.
I know you're not asking for permission and I'm not pretending to grant or withhold it. I really wish you the best of luck. If you feel like any of my prior experience can help you out please always feel free to ask for input.
posted by Commando Dave at 7:29 AM
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