Seattle Seahawks: Remembering Paul Allen, a Seattle visionary
Seattle Seahawks owner Paul Allen passed away over the weekend. Our Andrew Durant pays tribute to a great team owner and more importantly great person.
Paul Allen, a Northwest business and sports giant died on October 15th. Co-founder of Microsoft and owner of both the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks and the NBA’s Portland Trailblazers. The contributors at ECS would like to dedicate this post to Mr. Allen. His dedication to the people of Seattle and Seahawks fans across the world will not be forgotten.
Before the Seahawks
Alongside Bill Gates, Paul Allen Co-founded the company of Microsoft in 1975 became a leading giant in the technology world. Microsoft quickly became the biggest distributor of Operating Systems in Personal Computers across the country. Allen effectively left Microsoft in1982 after receiving a Hodgkin’s lymphoma diagnosis. Due to the shares invested in by Allen, he quickly became a billionaire after Microsoft went public.
In 1988, Paul Allen bought the NBA’s Portland Trailblazers from a California real estate developer for $70 million. The Portland Trailblazers have gone to the playoffs 19 times and been to the finals twice since Allen bought the team. As of 2015, the Trailblazers were reportedly worth $940 million.
Paul Allen buys the Seattle Seahawks
In 1996, former owner Ken Behring had threatened to move the team to California, but Allen to see them stay, so he bought the team. The tech mogul paid $194M for the Seahawks and laid out $130M for the new stadium that would be named Quest Field. As of 2014, the Seattle Seahawks worth was set at about $1.33B.
Under Allen, the Seahawks have been to the Super Bowl three times, Super Bowl XL against Pittsburgh in which they lost, Super Bowl XLVIII against Denver where the Seahawks won in one of the most lopsided Super Bowl victories in NFL history, and Super Bowl XLIX, a loss against New England. Allen had teams go to Super Bowls with both Mike Holmgren and Pete Carroll at the helm, but only Carrol won a Superbowl.
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Despite Paul Allen’s disinterest in football (his biggest interest was the NBA), Allen knew that the Emerald City needed a team and didn’t want to see Seattle lose it’s team.
Allen was known for being one of the most withdrawn NFL owners because he didn’t make any of the big decisions. He let his general managers and head coaches lead the charge as long as success was happening.
Athe same time he wasn’t oblivious to what was going on either. As Carroll told the Seattle Times:
"“His spirit was on everything we were doing.”"
Paul Allen’s Legacy
Allen has had a huge impact on this city, country, state, and the world. You can see the effect Microsoft has had on the development of technology that helps in science and health. It has had an effect on how people communicate across the world.
Allen has owned two successful sports franchises and done well with both. As we all saw in the week six win against Oakland, love for the Seattle Seahawks has stretched across the ocean and infected the hearts of the Londoners.
Next. Roundtable: Are the Seahawks a playoff team?. dark
Allen is someone who helped make Seattle the great city it is today. We will miss him. We already do miss him. Rest easy Mr. Allen.