Minor-League Music Goes the Way of Minor-League Sports

I'm not much for the modern music, but in my capacity as editor of Seattlest I had reason to pay attention to the fact that the Crocodile Cafe, the legendary Belltown music club, closed abruptly this week.

The music people at Seattlest weren't too concerned, since they'd mostly stopped going to the Croc.

Other clubs book better-known bands, bands that they've read glowing reviews about and want to see.

The Crocodile booked mostly unknowns bands they'd never heard of, and music people didn't want to spend money and an evening on a band that might turn out to be crap.

Seattle music fans are getting more discerning.

This is a trend that should be familiar to Seattle sports fans.

In 1975, a standing-room crowd of more than 12,000 packed Memorial Stadium for the city championship game.

These days, high school games at Memorial aren't quite standing-room, they're more like sitting-room. No, more like lying-down-room. No, more like running-around-in-circles-with-your-arms-windmilling-room. To put it in a nutshell, nobody goes.

That city championship game between Garfield and Blanchet is often called the best city high school football game ever. It was certainly the last city football game of any consequence, and I don't think it's a coincidence that the last game anyone remembers came the year before the Seahawks played their first game.

With an NFL team in the city along with a major college team, people presumably decided that they can probably only watch football two days out of the weekend, and they'd rather watch NFL Sunday afternoon than high school ball on Friday nights.

Minor league teams are finding that they can't make it in the big city either. The Seattle Thunderbirds have played 30 years here, but they're moving to Kent next season. The Seattle Sounders were considering a move to Kitsap County before their owner got in on MLS.

With three major pro sports teams and two major college teams, local sports fans have so much quality sports to choose from, they aren't going to "waste" their entertainment dollar or their evening on pre-big leaguers.

It's sort of sad, in a way, and I suppose it's part of the overall nationalization that controls most of our spending.

When your money goes to high schools, it is supporting local people and athletes. That's true of minor league sports, too, to a lesser extent.

When you pay for an NBA or MLB game, though, you're largely paying to support a corporate enterprise and players who are no more likely to have a tie to Seattle than they are to any other city.

That said, I spent probably $500 on Mariner tickets last year, and I went to three Sounders games. I want to see quality, too.

It's not just a matter of dwindling support--in fact, I'm sure as many people go to Tbirds games now as did in the 80s, and the Crocodile certainly didn't suffer from patrons--. It's also that rents are higher and they'd have to charge more than patrons are willing to pay to survive.

High-school sports aren't going anywhere, which I'm happy about. Soon they'll be the only minor league experience left.