The sale of Seattle's pro basketball teams, the NBA Super- Sonics and the WNBA Storm, to Clay Bennett's Oklahoma City-based investment group in July, and the implicit challenge for the Seattle metro region to either pony up big bucks or lose the teams, seems to be all about cash flow.

But listen. Push aside this distraction. Ultimately, it's not about the money. It's generally accepted now among economists that sports teams don't bring measurable dollars into a region. But don't fool yourself into thinking there are no benefits.

"Any time a city has a variety of cultural resources, it is becoming a livelier, more flexible place," says Roger Sale, a retired professor at University of Washington who wrote the classic on regional history, Seattle, Past and Present, and once covered the Sonics for the Seattle Weekly's predecessor. "But if you want to calculate which of these pieces is the crucial one, you can't do it. The zoo, the Pike Place Market, our teams - they're world-class treasures and there's no way to measure their return in dollars."

How did it come to be that a Seattle landmark that was a league flagship in 1994, that was "setting the gold standard for the NBA fan experience in 2002-03," according to the NBA commissioner, is now, according to the Sonics, the worst lease deal in the league? Because of two factors: the NBA's regulated cartel-like business model, and because time changes everything.

In pro sports, "The Talent Is The Product," as Tom Peters would say. So competing successfully depends on finding and acquiring the most useful talent and applying it in optimal ways. But the NBA, instead of being a crucible of competition, has shifted its model to something more like a cartel. Teams pool most forms of revenue. A Bible-length series of agreements establish complex rules for paying players and institute a minimum and maximum amount teams can choose to spend on talent.

The result is that business success has as much to do with making money teams don't have to share as it does with attracting talent. Unshared earnings come from sources such as suites, restaurants and retail.

That's why what makes a good arena design has changed radically. The once commonsense idea that smaller is more intimate and fan-friendly (the main reason the NBA's commissioner raved about the Key) has been nudged aside. New arenas average 750,000 square feet, twice the size of the Key, and as Sonics' CEO Wally Walker says, "bring experiences to fans who are paying a premium - a private club for dining before or after the game, and experiences such as proximity to the players beyond watching the game, like customers parking where the players park."

The Sonics agree with a Seattle Center subcommittee's recommendation to spend $220 million to expand the Arena and tweak the leasing deal so it would be competitive, they assert, with those of other NBA teams. The subcommittee suggests the new arrangements would bring the Sonics an additional $20 million in annual revenues. About $8 million would come from the Sonics keeping some of the income the existing lease has them sharing with the Center: money from suites, concessions and sponsorships.

The subcommittee guesses the redesign would add $12 million in sponsorship revenue potential for the team. The new design would support better food and beverage service to premium seat holders, something like what second-deck attendees get at Safeco Field.

While committee member Bryce Seidl says the report does not specify how much investment would come from public money and how much from the Sonics, nor how the two would share the new revenues, critics say that any changes in the arena that benefit the Sonics will come at the expense of the city. "The KeyArena doesn't provide enough income to the Sonics because they can't capture it all," says City Council president Nick Licata. "Dollars bleed off into the local business district."