Editor's note: Seth Kolloen (@sethkolloen) is a sports blogger at The SunBreak. He also has a web site.

When I read Richard’s Conlin’s position on the arena--“I have seen no evidence that justifies making a public investment”--I had one thought. Has anyone shown Richard Conlin this picture? That’s Downtown Seattle on June 4, 1979, when 300,000 people jammed the streets with one goal--to cheer on the victory parade for the newly-crowned NBA Champion Seattle Supersonics.

Look at the photo. Or this one. You see people young and old, fancy and grubby, black and white. All of them smiling, and all for the same reason. Usually when a group of people come together downtown for a common purpose, it’s to smash the windows at Niketown. But professional sports teams make a positive mob possible.

Professional sports are a valuable part of the civic experience--just like the other things the city makes public investments in, like parks, libraries, and P-Patches. In some ways, in fact, sports are better, since they bind a community together in ways that those other things don't. You can't root for a park or library, and you don't have a downtown parade for a particularly excellent crop of tomatoes.

The library has tried to create a common civic experience; every year, they pick a book that the whole city is supposed to read. Can you remember what last year’s book was? I thought not. Even if you’re not a sports fan, I’ll bet you know who Ichiro is.

Are sports an important part of civic life? Pick up a newspaper. You’ll notice that every day, there is an entire section of the newspaper devoted entirely to sports! We think of Seattle as a music town, a food town, a coffee town, a books town, a gardening town--none of those pursuits warrant comprehensive, daily coverage. Sports does. Why wouldn’t we support it the way we do those other things?