Seattle Supersonics Moving To Oklahoma City?...The franchise was sold today.

[Now_Im_Not_Banned]

Sonics Sold To Oklahoma City Group

By Greg Bishop

Seattle Times staff reporter

Howard Schultz, former Sonics owner, sat side-by-side with Clayton Bennett, Sonics owner as of this morning, at a news conference to announce the sale of the Sonics and Storm this afternoon.

They were flanked by the Sonics' and Storm's respective championship trophies and joined by their repeated desires to keep both teams in Seattle. They mentioned this over and over again until it became the theme. They want to keep the Sonics and Storm in Seattle. Key word: Want.

The fine print: Only the next 12 months are guaranteed in the $350 million deal. In the interim, the new ownership group needs to do what the former ownership group could not — negotiate a better venue and lease agreement at KeyArena or another local venue.

Which adds up to what president and CEO Wally Walker called "the biggest year in the history of the Seattle SuperSonics."

"At that time," said Bennett, chairman of Dorchester Capital and the head of the Oklahoma City-based investment group, "we have an opportunity, contractually, to evaluate our position."

In a news conference this afternoon, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels called the sale "disappointing" because it ended local ownership. But Nickels said he expected the new owners would honor a KeyArena lease which called for the teams to play there through 2010, if not beyond that.

"I'm going to take them at their word that they want to stay and we'll work with them ," Nickels said. "We think they will play in the Seattle Center until 2010.

The new owners would receive the same offers as given to the ownership during many negotiating sessions, Nickels said. "We're disappointed that rather than follow through on those offers, they sold the team to an out-of-town interest," Nickels said.

The transaction is expected to close by the end of October — pending NBA approval — but the Sonics turned their ownership reins over this afternoon at the news conference that was festive in decoration (green and gold balloons) and skeptical in nature.

Schultz said he turned down higher bids, as in multiple, to buy the teams because he and the rest of The Basketball Club of Seattle believed those ownership groups were interested in moving the Sonics and Storm. He also said the owners would have accepted a lower bid from a local buyer.

Schultz also said that he believes the new ownership group, Professional Basketball Club LLC, has a better chance to succeed in negotiations with local government — "inherent issues with local and state officials," he said — than his ownership group. He called the interests of the Oklahoma City group "genuine."

When pressed at what he meant by better chance, Schultz said, "In the last two years, it has become very obvious that despite all our individual and collective efforts, we were not able to get to a solution. I honestly believe this group wants to stay in Seattle. Moving the team is not their intent."

The Oklahoma City group still wants to bring an NBA team to Oklahoma City, Bennett added, when asked to address the skepticism from the Seattle fan base. But he said that "transaction" was "unrelated" to this transaction. And he reiterated that his group made a commitment to Seattle for the next 12 months.

The New Orleans Hornets played in Oklahoma City last season, and will play there again next season. But the NBA hopes the Hornets will return to New Orleans for 2007-08.

Bennett encouraged fans in Oklahoma City to continue to support the Hornets, and added, "As it relates to the Sonics, we're very clear. We're going to go through the process. Hopefully, it will come out successful."

Walker said that the Seattle market is the only market for the Sonics and the Storm, not just the best one. But he also knows the difficulty the current ownership has had in attempting to negotiate a new lease. "It won't be easy," Walker said. "We've learned that through our own experience. Is it possible? It is possible."

Bennett said his group has a lot of groundwork to do, effective immediately. He said he wanted to first learn the history between both teams and the city of Seattle, then beginning discussions for a new arena and lease.

That will be the hang-up. In a letter to Schultz dated today, Bennett wrote: "We do not believe that KeyArena is designed to support the requirements of a viable NBA franchise, and thus achieving a modern successor venue and lease arrangement will be critical to the future success of the teams." The letter also reiterates that it is not the group's "intention to relocate."

The deal came together after Oklahoma caught the "NBA bug" watching the Hornets play last year, said Tom Price, a spokesman for Chesapeake Energy. The team relocated there after Hurricane Katrina.

"We love Seattle," Price said. "To come to Seattle more frequently would not be a bad thing. Obviously, the people of Oklahoma City really fell in love with NBA basketball. The people of Seattle have to make a decision about how important NBA basketball is to them. We're excited about owning an NBA franchise. Anybody that has been a longtime NBA fan, they know they've got a great tradition in Seattle. There's a lot of people in Oklahoma that would be excited to have this team in Oklahoma City as well."

"Here's our stance: We need to continue to support the Hornets with everything we've got," said Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett. "The Hornets' ultimate home will depend more on the city of New Orleans' ability to support the franchise. Once New Orleans can, this franchise should go back." Cornett, a former television sports broadcaster, said he first met new Sonics owner Bennett in the mid-1990s.

Bennett was an influential local businessman who had previously been on the board of directors for the Spurs when they were owned by his wife's family, the Gaylords. Bennett tried to attract an NHL franchise to Oklahoma City in the mid-1990s, said Cornett.

News of the sale followed two fruitless years of efforts by Sonics owners to reach a deal with politicians in Olympia and Seattle on a publicly-financed expansion of KeyArena.

The team wanted state lawmakers to extend hotel, car rental and restaurant taxes now dedicated to paying off the debt on Safeco Field and Qwest Field. But their proposal never received a vote in Olympia, in part because Seattle Mayor Nickels and the City Council could not agree on what to offer the team.

The Basketball Club of Seattle claimed to have lost $60 million since purchasing the team in 2001. Owners blamed their lease deal, which required the team to split luxury suite and concession revenue with the city.

Team owners also had begun talks with Bellevue and Renton about possibly building a new basketball arena, but no specific plan emerged.

Gov. Christine Gregoire and Nickels were both told of the sale this morning shortly before it was made public, their offices said.

State Sen. Margarita Prentice, one of the Sonics' biggest allies in Olympia, said she was disappointed.

"It isn't surprising, considering the hostility expressed from many elements, especially the Seattle City Council," said Prentice, a Seattle Democrat who chairs the powerful Senate Ways and Means Committee. "I don't blame the Sonics for finally pulling the plug. How many signals do you have to get?"

She said the sale would be particularly bad news if the team is moved.

"Think about the loss of jobs. The rich people who own the team will always be wealthy, but I've been concerned about the people with all those union jobs," she said. "People always lose sight of that when they're talking about player salaries and the rich owners."

But opponents of the publicly funded KeyArena expansion sought by the Sonics said the news did not change their minds. Opinion polls showed the Sonics cause to be unpopular in the city of Seattle, and an initiative campaign was already under way to block any arena subsidy for the team.

Chris van Dyk, cofounder of Citizens for More Important Things, said the group will continue to campaign for Initiative 91, which seeks to restrict tax subsidies for the Sonics at KeyArena.

"We had difficulty collecting signatures from some people because our initiative did not require the Sonics to leave town," said Van Dyk.

"We don't want them to leave. We think it's a very sad day for the city of Seattle. However it underscores that this is a private business. They can go anywhere they want in the United States."

Seattle City Council President Nick Licata said the city should focus on making sure KeyArena remains a viable part of Seattle Center — with or without the Sonics.

"If they do leave the state, the KeyArena I think has a great future ahead of it as a multipurpose entertainment facility and we need to focus on making that happen," Licata said.

The Sonics presented Bennett with a No. 1 Sonics jersey and an orange-and-white striped WNBA basketball at the news conference. Schultz also ran through the Sonics' history, expressing both pride and regret.

"While there is much to be proud of, there is also great disappointment," he said. "We were forced to face the uncomfortable reality that our group would not be successful."

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/sports/2003135221_websonicssold18.html



Too many teams moving lately...The Grizzlies, then the Hornets (twice), now the Sonics? All within the last 5 years...The NBA needs to keep its teams in place. The Oklahoma City Supersonics? I dunno, doesn't sound right...Hopefully the new owners decide to keep the team in Seattle, though they'll probably make a lot more money re-locating...

[Canuck]

they should come to Vancouver at least we still could get the Trail Blazers

[Now_Im_Not_Banned]

they should come to Vancouver at least we still could get the Trail Blazers

LOL. Vancouver was like an NBA players worst nightmare...I doubt we'll ever see a team there again. Now say "thank you, Steve Francis".

[PLANT]

thats fucked up...maybe the NBA should put a new franchise in Green Bay..........haha JK

[Canuck]

they should come to Vancouver at least we still could get the Trail Blazers

LOL. Vancouver was like an NBA players worst nightmare...I doubt we'll ever see a team there again. Now say "thank you, Steve Francis".

The probably better off in Vancouver, they are losing money in Memphis and thats as a winning team. The only reason we don't have a team anymore is because Stu Jackson is a fucken idiot, and doesn't know how to draft... Bryant Reeves, Antonio Daniels, and then drafting Steve Francis after he said he wouldl not play in Vancouver.

[Now_Im_Not_Banned]

they should come to Vancouver at least we still could get the Trail Blazers

LOL. Vancouver was like an NBA players worst nightmare...I doubt we'll ever see a team there again. Now say "thank you, Steve Francis".

The probably better off in Vancouver, they are losing money in Memphis and thats as a winning team. The only reason we don't have a team anymore is because Stu Jackson is a fucken idiot, and doesn't know how to draft... Bryant Reeves, Antonio Daniels, and then drafting Steve Francis after he said he wouldl not play in Vancouver.

LOL...Stevie "Franchise"...The good ol' Vancouver villain.

[WestCoasta]

I remember reading about the Blazers possibly moving

nothing about the Sonics...


that would suck if you lived in Seattle and really liked 'em 

[Now_Im_Not_Banned]

Seattle, the Okies are playing you

So Aubrey McClendon, a member of the Oklahoma-based Sonics ownership group, decided to announce to a small newspaper in Oklahoma City that, "We didn't buy the team to keep it in Seattle."

Now why would he say a thing like that? Doesn't that confirm the ownership group, headed by Clay Bennett, are liars?

Don't get sucked into a war of words with McClendon. That only gives him what he wants.

Let's be polite. Let's be Seattle. Let's teach Bennett, McClendon and company about process. Endless, endless process. (And, hopefully while bogging down the OKC effort, somebody else will be looking for an arena/ownership solution).

Let me explain.

But to do that I need your patience for a quick lesson in "Southern," which is not exactly like "cowboy," but close enough -- sort of like Spanish in Spain vs. Spanish in Mexico.

The only group in the U.S. that it is not only acceptable but socially celebrated to make fun of is white Southern men. What is less well known is that white Southern men know this, and they often exaggerate their "Southerness" because they want to be underestimated. It's sort of like the old "Saturday Night Live" skit "Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer":

"I'm just a caveman ... your world frightens and confuses me. ... But there is one thing I do know -- when a man like my client slips and falls on a sidewalk in front of a public library, then he is entitled to no less than two million in compensatory damages, and two million in punitive damages."

I'm from Atlanta but have lived in Seattle since 1999. In recent years, as I've become less Southern, I've noticed that whenever my buddies from home are trying to con me -- such as, into picking up the check -- a Southern accent suddenly appears.

And so we have Cousin Aubrey, playing the innocent, good old boy, making statements to The Journal Record of Oklahoma City. The fawning article will surely have folks in OKC who know McClendon falling out of their chairs laughing because the aw-shucks, humble pose he strikes is so far from the real man it's like ... Caveman Lawyer.

McClendon owns a massive ego (not without justification: his leadership at Chesapeake Energy has made a lot of folks wealthy) and not everyone considers him a down-to-earth everyman. There's a reason the billionaire with the deepest pockets within the ownership group has kept a low-profile ... at least until now.

Understand: This was a calculated move. McClendon wants to enrage Seattle. He wants to stoke the resentment. He wants to provoke me into reminding you, mostly liberal Seattle, that McClendon was a big contributor to "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth," the reprehensible and completely discredited group that distorted and lied about John Kerry's war record during the 2004 election.

He wants to emphasize an Oct. 31 deadline that isn't really a deadline. He wants to continue to drive a wedge between the city and the out-of-town ownership group because he knows the NBA will resist them moving the Sonics unless they can prove their position is untenable.

"The people of Seattle kind of look down their nose at us," he said, playing to his preferred audience in Oklahoma while disingenuously acting like he's been wounded by Seattle's skepticism over their intentions -- a Seattle skepticism, by the way, he just confirmed.

Duplicitous grandstanding, however, isn't limited to the Okie cowboys. Mayor Greg Nickels' recent overture to Bennett about KeyArena was pure theater. Golly Greg, where was your enlightened thinking about renovating KeyArena when Howard Schultz owned the team? And when Gov. Christine Gregoire works the issue, you can feel the calculated fecklessness of a politician who wants to play both sides of the fence.

What's the end game? People who love the Sonics need to know it's not as simple as the team bolting for the 2008-09 season if the present ownership group doesn't get everything it wants.

There are going to be plenty more chapters before this story climaxes. What McClendon has done is simply draw a line in the sand and don a black cowboy hat.

His message: It's the Okies vs. Seattle.

[Don Jacob]

the oklahoma city supersonics................gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay.

[jeromechickenbone]

I thought McClendon was a minority owner?  But it's no secret that the OKC group was referred to as rednecks by some of the higher ups in Seattle who were vehemently opposed to selling the team.  If they really want to keep the team in Seattle, that's not the way I would go about it.  But yeah there have lately been reports that the new ownership would rather break even in OKC than be profitable in Seattle.  And they obviously didn't purchase the team to keep it in Seattle either.

But any dumbfuck that is sucked in to thinking these guys are idiots because of their southern twang doesn't deserve to own an NBA team in the first place.  All they had to do in the first place is cough up $100 Mill for a new arena and they would have never had to sell the team in the first place.

I think it'd be dope as fuck for the Sonics to go to OKC.  Durant would be a GOD in OKC.

[Vegasmac25]

damn i was hoping that they would have given Vegas a team.

[me>you]

damn i was hoping that they would have given Vegas a team.

thats what i was thinkin
first the kings was suppose to go there but they didnt

[Don Jacob]

damn i was hoping that they would have given Vegas a team.

yeah that place deserves a team.

[Citizen-Y]

they should come to Vancouver at least we still could get the Trail Blazers

LOL. Vancouver was like an NBA players worst nightmare...I doubt we'll ever see a team there again. Now say "thank you, Steve Francis".

The probably better off in Vancouver, they are losing money in Memphis and thats as a winning team. The only reason we don't have a team anymore is because Stu Jackson is a fucken idiot, and doesn't know how to draft... Bryant Reeves, Antonio Daniels, and then drafting Steve Francis after he said he wouldl not play in Vancouver.

LOL...Stevie "Franchise"...The good ol' Vancouver villain.

Why would he go there, they already had Bibby.  Just an example of Stu Jackson not knowing his ass from a hole in the ground.

[GangstaBoogy]

the oklahoma city supersonics................gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay.

co-sign

now the San Diego Supersonics has a great ring to it