Relocation Rumors
For several years the Mariners had been dogged by rumors that the team's ownership group led by Jeff Smulyan had been considering selling and/or relocating the team to a different city. This was primarily due to low attendance and revenue, the team's losing ways (prior to 1995, they only had two seasons with a winning percentage over .500), and the Kingdome's drab baseball environment.
In 1992, Smulyan's ownership group sold the Mariners to the Baseball Club of Seattle, a consortium led by Hiroshi Yamauchi and later Nintendo of America. As of 2010, they are still the Mariners' owners. Almost immediately, the new ownership group began campaigning with local and state governments to gain public funding for a new stadium.
In an election held on September 19, 1995, the residents of King County voted against a 0.01% sales tax increase to fund the building of a replacement stadium. As a result, the ownership group set an October 30 deadline for local leadership to come up with a plan to finance a new stadium, or they would put the team up for sale.
Read more about this topic: The Double (Seattle Mariners), Background
Famous quotes containing the word rumors:
“And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that you are not alarmed; for this must take place, but the end is not yet.”
—Bible: New Testament, Matthew 24:6.