SAN JOSE, Calif. – The picture surely had to be a favorite of the late Paul Allen.
Blue and green confetti flutter in the background, the Seahawks owner, in a black puffer jacket, is holding aloft the sterling silver Lombardi Trophy.
His team had just won its first Super Bowl, February 2014.
He is at the center of attention, a place he never seemed comfortable. His smile doesn’t seem exultant, more of reserved satisfaction.
His glasses reflecting the stadium lights, eyes focusing into the distance, we may wonder what’s going through his mind.
There’s a lot of room up there … algorithms, outer space, Jimi Hendrix riffs? Unless you scored 1600 on your SAT, you’re probably wasting your time speculating on his thoughts.
And then he gives you evidence what he was thinking. “This is for the ‘12s’,” he said as he held the trophy toward the fans.
It wasn’t just rich-man puffery. Empty symbolism. It’s easy to see the truth in the statement because he had long made it clear that he never really wanted to own a football team.
So, this actually was for the fans.
He only stepped up to prevent the team being relocated by the previous owner, Ken Behring, who had become the region’s main pariah and had squandered the goodwill created by the solid initial ownership by the Nordstrom family.
It is now an appropriate time to remember Allen’s part in all this, as the Seahawks prepare for Super Bowl 60 just as news stories report that the franchise, held by the Paul G. Allen Trust since his death in 2018, are to be sold at an undefined, and somewhat vague point in the future.
The “12s” to whom Allen symbolically dedicated the Lombardi Trophy, have every right to be wary about this.
Having rooted their team to four Super Bowls in the last 20 years – under the Allen ownership – no fan should be eager to risk all the ways in which a change in ownership might alter that competitive trajectory.
It is fairly axiomatic around the NFL that bad ownership leads to a weak product.
Coach Mike Macdonald this week addressed questions about the prospective sale.
“From our perspective, nothing has changed from two weeks ago,” Macdonald said. “Nothing has changed since I interviewed for the job with Jody (Allen, Paul’s sister and trust executor) two years ago.”
Paul Allen’s will held that the majority of his holdings should be liquidated with proceeds dispersed to philanthropic causes.
Nothing, specifically, has changed. But the timeline is being questioned.
“Jody is a fantastic owner, supportive and steadfast in what she believes the Seahawks should be and what it should mean to our community,” Macdonald said. “It’s very clear what her expectations are.”
Fan expectations are fielding a winner. Allen made that possible.
By 1996, the team had risen from terrible to middling, but Behring had whittled away the connection to the community fan base, the Kingdome was deteriorating, and the disaffection reached the pinnacle when Behring started the franchise relocation process to southern California.
Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, reluctantly stepped in to keep the Seahawks in Seattle.
The cause and effect was undisputed: Either Allen buy the team or it would be moved.
No Super Bowls, no new stadium, no 12s.
Keeping a reasonably low profile, Allen’s ownership led to the passing of a stadium referendum. They built a new headquarters on prime Lake Washington property, when they could have built it somewhere else in the county for a fraction of the cost and put up money-making developments on the lake instead.
No. A headquarters on the lake could be an effective free-agent recruiting tool.
Green Bay Packers coach Mike Holmgren, the hottest coach in the NFL, made it clear that he came to Seattle on the power of Allen’s hiring pitch.
Holmgren gave the Hawks a marquee coach, one who got them to their first Super Bowl, after the 2005 season.
Later, Pete Carroll said he would have never left his job at USC if it hadn’t been for Allen’s ownership.
All have been grateful for Allen’s steady support and full capitalization.
But what’s next?
Value of the franchise has been estimated at somewhere around $7 billion.
Who can swing that kind of purchase?
Will that new principal owner be as connected to the community and as committed to the production of a competitive product as Paul Allen?
Or will it be someone interested in personal aggrandizement and time in the spotlight?
Seahawks fans have seen what that type of ownership can lead to.
And it’s not a pretty picture.