Will they stay or will they go?
A relatively simple look at the less than simple plight of the Supersonics
June 21, 2008
By Brent Bakeman
About 1000 strong, very vocal, Sonics fans amassed outside the downtown Federal Courthouse at the beginning of the week to represent their team and to be heard. Volleys of "SUPER...SONICS" mixed in with an occasional "SEATTLE" drowned out the sounds of commuters from surrounding buildings.
The event was organized by saveoursonics.org who urged all true fans to show up in team colors and stave off the efforts of an out-of-town owner taking their beloved Seattle Supersonics away after 41 years.
So here they were in front of the United States District Court at 4:30 p.m. on a Monday, a blanket of green and yellow fans yelling, carrying signs and being contained by the Seattle Police. A path had been taped off leading from the door of the Courthouse down the steps to Stewart Ave, kept clear for the courtroom players, both the good guys and the bad guys. The good guys of course were the legal team representing the City of Seattle expecting the Sonics to honor their contract signed some 14 years ago to play in Seattle. As the good guys strode down the cleared path the green and yellow throngs cheered loudly for these well dressed legal types that were unknown to the fans just 24 hours before.
It was announced to the crowd that the bad guys, it was announced had wisely "Weaseled" their way out of an alternate exit away from the fans now chanting "Weasel," who undoubtedly would not have received them well.
All too often in the big business that is professional sports we hear of divorce of many types. A team leaving a player or a coach, a player leaving a team, a manager leaving a team for another, and occasionally a team leaving a city and her angry, confused fans. So outside of the rallies and the chants, the heartbroken fans in Seattle and the hopeful expectant fans in Oklahoma City the question begs; how did we get here?
The story starts with the growth of a city and the benefits that come with that, including recognition from the rest of the country allowing said city to be established as a source of viable commerce. Professional sports, in this case the National Basketball Association, is a business like any other and looks for potential successful fan bases and their dollars when considering franchise locations. Thus in 1967 Seattle was awarded a NBA franchise to be named the Seattle Supersonics; the name derived from the omnipotent aerospace industry in the Pacific Northwest, primarily Boeing.
Soaring into the league with hope and an excited Pacific Northwest following, the Seattle Supersonics were the city's first professional sports team outside of the Pacific Coast Hockey Association's Seattle Metropolitans which played from 1911 - 1924. The Seattle Seahawks and The Seattle Mariners did not come into existence until 1976 and 1977 respectively. The Supersonics, or often The Sonics, contributed to an emerging West Coast basketball presence in an otherwise East Coast dominated league. The Sonics have won 6 division titles, 3 conference titles and one NBA Championship in 1979; the only Seattle professional team to do so until 2004 when the Seattle Storm of the Women's National Basketball Association took the title.
The Sonics throughout the 80's and 90's had occasional success, mirroring the path of the carnival rides underneath the Space Needle; rising and falling in the peaks and valleys of the seasons, once making it back to the championship but losing to the Chicago Bulls and Michael Jordan in 1996. Since then the Sonics have only made it to the playoffs three times losing early in each of those playoffs. However the records will show that the Sonics did manage to make the playoffs in 23 of 32 seasons from 1974 – 2005. And fueling this success were players such as Gus Williams, Nate McMillan, Fred Brown, Gary Payton, and Xavier McDaniel; continuing to solidify the fact that oh yes, there is good basketball in Seattle.
In many of the seasons of the 2000's however the Sonics have seen a decline, in win loss record, attendance as well as opinion of their home arena, Key Arena, despite being renovated in 1995. Dissatisfaction with a teams' home court, arena, or stadium often leads to talk of the aforementioned divorce like blood to a feeding frenzy.
So in 2006, after some unprofitable and mediocre seasons, and a failure to secure a publicly funded expansion of Key Arena, Sonics ownership, led by Starbucks visionary Howard Schultz, sold the team to Professional Basketball LLC headed by Clay Bennett and based in Oklahoma City. Contingent upon the sale was the good faith measure that Professional Basketball LLC would make every effort to keep the Sonics in the Seattle area for a time to secure a new arena in the Seattle area for the team.
Bennett briefly proposed moving the Sonics from the NBA's smallest venue in Key Arena to a new arena to be built in the Seattle suburb of Renton. However after the new arena proposal failed to come to fruition, in November 2007 Bennett announced that the team would move to Oklahoma City as soon as ownership could be released from the Key Arena Lease, which kept the Sonics in Seattle until 2010.
At this point in the sordid tale one enters a legal jazzercizic litany of terms that nobody outside of a courtroom should be too familiar with such as "value of debts, arbitration, and specific performance clause."
Basically, Bennett and his group are looking for a judge to say that it is OK for them to break the Sonics lease and head to Oklahoma, the city of Seattle, pushed by a grassroots fan-base, is suing to force the new ownership to honor the lease. A move that in most fan's minds will buy more time to find a way to keep the Sonics in Seattle for good, including an investment group headed by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's promise to pay a large portion of the extensive renovation for Key Arena. In fact the "Good Guys" main argument is that despite the purchase agreement, Bennett's Oklahoma contingent never had any intention of keeping the team in Seattle.
This stance is supported by uncovered emails between the Oklahoma group seemingly discussing the move to Oklahoma before the sale of the team was finalized, helping pave the way for the breach of contract suit by Schultz. The Bennett group has countered that the city of Seattle attempted to bury their efforts to move the team in such red tape as to force them to sell the team to Ballmer's contingent.
Again to sum the whole mess up, the Oklahoman's bought the team on the promise that they would try to keep the team in Seattle, they say they tried, the city says they never did.
So here we are. Judge Marsha J. Pechman wades through the litigation and claims inside, while the fans chant, shout and argue on the outside. The fans of the Sonics that live in Seattle are generally convinced of wrong doing by the new owners. We do not hear much from NBA fans in Oklahoma City; but as this would be the first major professional team for the city and the fact that they have already constructed the team's home there must be some anticipation. The United States District Court In and For the Western District of Washington has become ground zero for the future of an NBA franchise, the hopes of now venomous Sonics fans, and in the words of Seattle's Mayor Nickels the continued earmark of a "Great City."
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