Flynn’s Harp Top Stories of the Decade Laud Art Harrigan for his role in Saving Seahawks and Mariners From Leaving Seattle
Earlier this month, Flynn’s Harp ranked its most important stories of the 2010 decade. Coming out on top are two stories about HLFT founding partner Art Harrigan. Flynn writes:
The story that may have been the most impactful on the Seattle area in several ways was about Seattle attorney Arthur Harrigan, Jr., who had key legal roles in saving two of Seattle’s professional sports franchises.
Harrigan’s low-visibility legal maneuvers forced absentee owners Jeff Smulyan of the Seattle Mariners and five years later Ken Behring of the Seattle Seahawks to be pressed into allowing time for local buyers to be found rather than being permitted to move the teams.
The legal confrontations with the owners of the two professional sports teams came about because Art Harrigan’s law firm, now Harrigan Leyh, long represented King County on its legal issues. And the owners of both the Mariners and Seahawks came into conflict with the county because they sought to abandon the county-owned Kingdome and their leases there.
Because the Mariners’ decision occurred in arbitration session rather than court battles, there was no media visibility for Harrigan’s victory that required Smulyan to not only allow an opportunity to find a local buyer but had the arbitrator set a “local value” $35 million below market value for the franchise. No visibility, that is, until Harrigan shared the stories with me nearly four years ago (search Flynn’s Harp: Art Harrigan).
And five years after the Mariners were saved, a series of Harrigan legal maneuvers that ended up before the State Supreme Court and eventually NFL owners, left enough uncertainty about Behring’s likely ability to move the Seahawks to LA that he sold the team to Paul Allen.
Harrigan’s arbitration victory with the Mariners allowed the high-visibility work of then Sen. Slade Gorton and John Ellis in landing Nintendo as the new lead owner to unfold and Paul Allen to emerge as Seahawks owner. But Harrigan deserves a moment of thanks as each Mariner season opens and when Seahawk fans gather for the first game of the year.
The full story is available at Flynn’s Harp.
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