Seattle’s LGBTQ community members say they hope that this Friday’s World Cup “Pride Match” between Egypt and Iran, two countries where homosexuality is criminalized, can be an opportunity to change minds.
Seattle, WA
What's happened to Seattle Seahawks' home-field advantage?
The mystique surrounding Lumen Field, home of the Seattle Seahawks, seems to be fading away.
Breaking down Seahawks’ NFC West title and playoff odds
After another loss on their home field against Green Bay, the Seahawks fell to 3-5 and clinched a losing record on their own turf this season.
What was once an unthinkable trend was on full display in primetime Sunday night, as Lumen Field was packed with a boisterous group of Packers fans who at time drowned out their Seattle counterparts. Early on at the stadium – and on the NBC Sunday Night Football broadcast – a loud “Go Pack Go!” chant could be heard clearly from the crowd.
This wasn’t the first time this season that an opposing team’s fans cut into the Seahawks’ home-field advantage – the San Francisco 49ers especially had a similar backing in Seattle in October. So after Lumen Field was once again invaded by fans of another team, Seattle Sports’ Bump and Stacy tried to make sense of what’s happened to the Seahawks’ formerly feared home stadium.
“I have never, in the nearly 10 years I’ve covered this team, seen home-field advantage lost the way that it has been. And I, for the life of me, can’t figure out exactly what’s going on behind the scenes,” Stacy Rost said.
Michael Bumpus, a Seahawks Radio Network analyst who played wide receiver for the franchise, has certainly noticed the change on his Sundays at the stadium.
“I walk the stadium before every game, and every game I get more and more disappointed because I feel like somebody is in our house without our permission,” he said. “They got great seats and they’re making themselves at home and they’re talking trash and they’re supporting their teams.”
According to Bumpus, the fans do make a difference.
“When I used to travel on the road, I liked road games because I liked getting booed,” Bumpus said. “But there’s nothing like the roar of support that’s helping you. We need to get that back.”
What’s the problem?
When discussing why the Seahawks are seeing more opposing fans at games, Rost and Bumpus delved into a few of the reasons they’ve consistently heard from fans.
“It’s tough. I think there are a couple (reasons) going on,” Bumpus said. “I think season-ticket holders are trying to get their money back. How do you do that? You sell your tickets. I also think that this team isn’t seen as an NFC power, so fans are less likely to go to these games. It leaves tickets open for fans like the Packers’ to get there and take this thing over.”
In the case of the Packers specifically, the swell of Green Bay fans at Lumen Field could be attributed in part to the difficulties of getting tickets to Green Bay home games. According to greenbayticketservice.com, the wait list for season tickets to Packers games is over 90,000 names long. The Packers’ website touts that its season tickets have been sold out since 1960.
“But we’re seeing this happen in multiple games,” Bumpus said. “I remember the Denver game it was crazy, the Miami game, of course the 49ers game, the Rams game – they’re taking over.”
The main culprit that Bump and Stacy feel is attributing to the opposing fan takeovers is ever-rising costs of attending games.
USA Today reported that the average price of an NFL ticket rose from $235 in 2022 to $377 in 2023. That follows a decades-long trend across all sports. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average ticket price for sporting events rose over twice as fast overall consumer products from 1999 through 2020.
According to the Seahawks’ website, season tickets currently range from $1,030 to $5,240 per seat for a full season. The price of single-game tickets can vary greatly as teams have switched to variable pricing, making games against less popular teams cheaper and those against big brands and heated rivals more expensive. The cheapest tickets on Ticketmaster for this Sunday’s upcoming home Seahawks game against the Minnesota Vikings were listed at $135 as of Monday afternoon.
“It’s unfortunate because the people who aren’t making the majority of the money are probably the most loyal fans out there,” Bumpus said. “The blue collar, hard-working people who genuinely love this team are being kicked out of the stadium because they can’t afford it.”
Another factor that’s come up in relation to the Seahawks is season-ticket holders selling tickets to fans of opposing teams. With the emergence of second-market ticketing sites, it’s become easier for resold tickets to fall into the hands of opposing fans. Sellers oftentimes don’t know who they are selling the tickets to.
“I’ve heard lots of interesting things that, as someone who’s never been a season-ticket holder, I wasn’t privy to,” Rost said. “(A texter from) the 360 (area code) said, ‘I’ve been a season-ticket holder for 20 years. Most Packers fans I’ve ever seen last night.’ They said, ‘It’s unfortunate, but for fans that can’t make the game, they’re forced to use the NFL Ticket Exchange because if we sell to someone we don’t know and then they become belligerent, we can have our tickets revoked if we don’t use the NFL Ticket Exchange.’”
Unfortunately for the Seahawks, they’ve seemed to feel the impact of a less supportive crowd at home games. From when Lumen Field opened in 2002 through 2020, Seattle was 106-43 at home with 13 winning seasons and just two losing seasons. Since 2021, Seattle is just 16-17 at home and has matched its two losing seasons from the prior 19-season stretch.
“I don’t even think there’s a 12th man right now,” Bumpus said. “It’s like 11 1/2 or 11 1/4 or something. I’m not saying this to make anybody feel bad for not going, because I understand how (expensive) it is.”
Hear the full Bump and Stacy conversation in the final segment of the podcast at this link or in the player near the top of this post. Catch Bump and Stacy live on Seattle Sports from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. weekdays.
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SEATTLE — Seattle police are investigating a shooting that left a 17-year-old boy injured early Thursday morning in the High Point neighborhood.
At about 12:48 a.m., dispatchers received multiple reports of rapid gunfire near Sylvan Way Southwest and Southwest Morgan Street.
Officers arrived and found a 17-year-old boy suffering from a gunshot wound to the hip area. Medics transported the teen to Harborview Medical Center in serious but stable condition.
Before officers located the victim, they found a car that had crashed and become disabled near Sylvan Way Southwest and Delridge Way Southwest. Police said multiple suspects were seen running from the vehicle through a nearby Home Depot parking lot.
Officers cordoned off the area and searched for the suspects with assistance from the K-9 Unit, but were unable to locate them. Police recovered the vehicle and impounded it for processing.
During the incident, gunfire struck at least three vehicles and two buildings. No other injuries were reported.
Officers processed multiple nearby scenes and recovered evidence before clearing the area. Detectives with the Gun Violence Reduction Unit will lead the investigation.
Seattle, WA
Council eyes street barricades in fight against violence, sex trafficking in north Seattle
SEATTLE — The Seattle City Council is expected to vote next week on a plan that would give the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) the authority to close off street access for public safety reasons.
The proposal comes after months of outcry from residents in north Seattle who say sex traffickers and sex buyers are looping through the streets surrounding Aurora Avenue North.
The street-closure proposal passed the council’s Public Safety Committee on Tuesday and is expected to be voted on by the full council next week.
“I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say the crime has gotten much worse, much more violent, and much more predator,” said District 5 councilmember Debora Juarez. “I think that we do have the authority to shut down a street for bullets flying and endangering the lives of those who live there.”
Frustrated neighbors have installed their own homemade barricades after a spate of gun violence between sex traffickers in May.
RELATED | SDOT removes street barricades near Aurora Ave; neighbors doubtful of temporary measures
Councilmember Bob Kettle says street closures will help tamp down sex buying in certain areas, but he emphasizes it must be accompanied by an increase in outreach and enforcement.
“We have to have a sustained effort,” Kettle told KOMO News. “My concern is for every action, there’s a reaction. We need to take this flex and then really attack it … because if we do just a bit and our attention wanders, we could have this conversation three months from now and we’re talking about the same thing.”
A 15-year-old boy was shot near 95th Street and Aurora Avenue North around 10:45 p.m. last night. The teen initially claimed he had been shot while walking down the street, but investigators now say he was shot by a passenger in his car.
RELATED | Seattle police say ‘drive-by’ on Aurora Ave. was actually passenger shooting teen driver
Kettle credited the city’s Real Time Crime Center cameras with helping investigators quickly piece together the events of the shooting.
“Just as important to finding out what happened, the cameras help police determine what did not happen,” Kettle said.
According to Seattle police data, reports of shootings and shots fired in the north precinct area are at their lowest levels since 2021.
Through the end of May, there were 48 total reports of shootings or shots fired, with one fatal shooting and seven nonfatal injury shootings.
That’s down from 63 total reports of shootings and shots fired – one fatal and seven injuries – in 2025; and 64 shootings or shots fired reports – one fatal and 17 injuries – in 2024.
At Tuesday’s committee meeting, councilmembers pointed out residents are calling for a new police precinct to be built on Aurora Avenue.
Ten years ago, a new North Precinct building was slated to be built at 130th Avenue and Aurora Avenue North to replace the existing precinct building, which was decades old and did not have enough space for the department’s needs.
Led by former councilmember Kshama Sawant, the “Block the Bunker” movement successfully got the North Precinct replacement project killed in city council.
Kettle said the city’s current financial issues make it essentially impossible to bring back a project similar to the one the previous council defeated.
“We have to connect the dots back,” Kettle said. “If we want to know why we are where we are today, we have to look at decisions made over the last two councils.”
Seattle, WA
Iran and Egypt to play in Seattle ‘Pride Match’ despite earlier complaints | The Jerusalem Post
Seattle revels in its reputation as a welcoming place and Pride flags are visible all over the city, all year round. Its June Pride weekend is one of the biggest in the United States.
So, ahead of December’s World Cup draw, it was only natural that local organizers designated the June 26 match to be held in the city as a “Pride Match.”
Then the draw happened — and the two teams scheduled to play the game were Egypt and Iran.
Egypt’s Football Association urged global soccer governing body FIFA to prevent any Pride-related activities, arguing such events clashed with the Muslim-majority country’s cultural and religious values. The governing body in Iran, where same-sex relations can carry the death penalty, filed an objection with FIFA.
Some in Seattle have doubts over the teams in the ‘Pride Match’
But in Seattle, there is no question that the Pride Match will go ahead as planned.
“The World Cup is going to come and go in three weeks,” Hedda McLendon, from Seattle’s local World Cup organizing committee, told Reuters. “The Pride celebration … has happened on this weekend for 50-plus years.
“It is going to happen this weekend, it is going to happen long after the World Cup.”
Some in the city’s LGBTQ community had mixed feelings given the participants, said Jon Cairns, 49, manager of local LGBTQ+ club Kremwerk.
Cairns, however, said his own view was that it provided a platform to promote acceptance that only the world’s biggest sporting event could offer.
“My reaction is let’s have them,” he told Reuters. “International sports is one of the biggest brokers historically of social change and individual rights and freedoms worldwide, including in the U.S.”
He cited black U.S. sprinter Jesse Owens’ four gold medals at the 1936 Olympic Games in Nazi Germany and Tommie Smith and John Carlos’ raised-fist protest in 1968 as moments where “only international sports could reach that big of an audience.”
“They’re not going to turn off the World Cup on state television in Iran or Egypt to block out a Pride flag in the audience,” Cairns said.
The Pride Match is “a host city initiative” and separate of FIFA, a spokesperson for soccer’s governing body told Reuters.
Seattle’s LGBTQ community sees an opportunity
Egypt and Iran’s involvement in the Pride Match is not the first time the World Cup has grappled with stark differences in attitudes between hosts and visitors.
In 2022 World Cup host Qatar, the emir said visitors should “respect our culture” when asked about gay people attending the tournament.
FIFA threatened yellow cards for captains wearing the “OneLove” armband, citing its rules against political slogans. Teams including England and the Netherlands that had been planning to wear the armbands to protest Qatar’s laws against same-sex relationships abandoned the plan.
For Ryan Webster, a 40-year-old lifestyle manager who was at Kremwerk the weekend before Pride, Seattle’s “Pride Match” was an opportunity to show solidarity with people in countries where their sexuality was outlawed.
“I’m choosing to believe that this is our moment to allow the members of the LGBTQ community that come from those countries to have the opportunity to celebrate themselves in totality that they might not have otherwise,” he said outside the club, which will host a watch party for Friday’s game.
Inside, ‘Venus Fengz’ lip-synced to Cher’s “Believe” before introducing fellow drag performers to the stage, clapped and cheered by a raucous crowd.
Fengz, who only wanted to provide their stage name, said Pride coinciding with the World Cup would bring increased visibility, anticipating perhaps some new audience members.
“I think it’s always great for us to be able to share space and share places with people who don’t have the same experiences as us,” they told Reuters.
“Sometimes you just have to be the bigger person and show grace where you can and know that everyone is a human learning (from) different experiences, but also it can get hard — because you’re on the shorter end of the stick, always trying to have to explain yourself around people who don’t grow up with the same worldview.”
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