Are the Sonics moving?
 

I was wondering what the status was with the Seattle Sonics moving to Oklahoma City? Haven't heard much lately.

I don't know, but if they were moving to Kansas City, Mizzou B-ball Fan would've claimed that it was a done deal about 10 times by now.

The feud between the Sonics ownership and the City of Seattle continues, with no resolution thereon.

The most recent arena-related pres was an article last week that the Muckleshoot tribe is offering the Sonics free use of their land for a stadium. IIRC, they are located near Auburn, which is SE of Seattle.

Owner Clay Bennett said he would file relocation papers on Halloween if he didn't have a proposal he liked. The City has a lawsuit pending, so I wouldn't be surprised if a stay of action by the Sonics were on the way.

The lease lawsuit is going to federal court, I read today. The Muckleshoot thing, from my understanding, is a no-go. There still wouldn't be a funding plan, and most believe the NBA wouldn't go for an arena next to a casino.

The owners aren't commenting publicly on the court case; apparently they've asked the court to let it be settled in arbitration. But last I heard, they still plan to file on November 1st.

I nominated this for QOTM...

oh shit :(

Are the Sonics well-supported? Seems like a wealthy city, with a large population and corporate base, would make much better financial sense than Oklahoma City.

Not if fans don't want to go see the team play and they're being bilked for a new arena when Key Arena was renovated by the city for like $75 million bucks.

Plus, the new owner is from OKC and the city did a great job with the Hornets. So....they've proven they can handle it, especially since there are no other pro teams there and none likely to move there.

The Sonics are like most pro teams - they are well-supported when the team is good or have the promise of being good soon. But when the team sucks, and/or the owner is actively hostile to the region, they aren't all that well supported.

There's no question that, all things being equal, the team would bring in more revenue in Seattle than in Oklahoma City. I'm sure the team would enjoy a honeymoon period in Oklahoma City that would temporarily inflate revenue, but over time they would do better in Seattle, even considering that they'd be the only major pro game in town in OKC vs. being one of 3 in Seattle.

It's for that reason that I think David Stern is going to do a lot of legwork behind the scenes to figure out a way to keep that team, or move another team, or promise a rapid replacement via expansion in Seattle. The legal factors seem likely to tie up any intended move by Clay Bennett for a while, and given the comments by Bennett's co-owner about always intending to move the team to OKC, it's quite possible the courts will rule in favor of Seattle. I could easily see a scenario where Stern works something out where Bennett sells the Sonics to another group more committed to working out an arrangement in Seattle and Bennett's group is given first rights at the next team up for sale or any new expansion franchise.

Are the Sonics moving?

Hard to say.

To me, I have only a passing interest in Seattle basketball so I don't find them terribly moving. I find them sometimes compelling and sometimes worthy of watching and they can even excite on occasion but they're not particularly moving.

Now, 1987 all star game, in Seattle, Tom Chambers winning the MVP with Magic feeding him assists and the game going into overtime. That game was really an excellent game and it was indeed moving but that only kinda sorta has anything to do with the Sonics.

Even Clay Bennett admits the long-term finances of the team are better in Seattle than OKC. But he wants to be in OKC and can probably turn a profit there, so I don't know that Seattle being a superior market matters much to him.

I wish I could see dawgfan's scenario, because it makes a lot of sense. But expansion looks unlikely, as it throws the division numbers all out of whack. And I'm not sure that it won't be a few years before another team hits the rocks and is ready to be moved.

If they did expand it'd probably be by two to get to 32 and and either a four-of-eight or an eight-of-four division setup. Even so, who'd be the other candidate? KC obviously has the arena, but they had their team move out on them. Given how badly Vancouver was run before going to Memphis, would they get a second chance? Anybody else even interested (aside from Vegas, which basically self-immolated its chances last All-Star weekend)?

At any rate, the NBA did perform for a good long while with odd-numbered teams. Dallas was added I think in 1980 which made 23 teams and they never got to an even number again until the Bobcats were added a couple of years ago.

St. Louis deserves a 2nd shot at the NBA. But it makes too much sense to happen.

Louisville?

That was the first thing I thought of when I saw the title of this thread.

Yes.


http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/allsta...ory?id=3249625

Sucks for the sonics fans, but I am happy for Oklahoma City. Hopefully they can get an expansion team some day. I would think it should be a boon for the Blazers maybe, as they should increase their local fanbase? Since the Sonics won a title, I think maybe they should leave the team name behind.

Should be interesting to see what happens with the Hornets as well.

This probably means new uniforms, which sucks because the Sonics have the best unis in the NBA

Hornets have an extended lease that the team can't get out of if certain attendance numbers are reached. When the deal was struck a few months ago, it looked like a decent possibility that those numbers wouldn't be reached.

The problem with the Hornets attendance figures was that New Orleans never got a chance to become attached to the team. The team was below average before the storm, and after the storm residents had other concerns than trying to build loyalty with what was still a new local team.

Its easier now, with the team winning. Even if the Hornets stumble a little from where they are in the NBA standings this moment, I would be surprised if the Hornets don't keep the level of appeal and attendance that they have now. (And I expect that they will build on it...)

I hate Clay Bennett. Well, I probably hate Howard Schultz more for selling the fucking team to Clay Bennett, but at least I like his lattes. Bastards.

Sad, sad situation. I remember being a little kid and facing the threat of the Giants moving to St. Petersburg. I mean, playing at Candlestick to crowds of 10,000 a night was bad, but I loved the team, and I don't know if I would have cared about baseball at all had they moved.

Does anyone in Charlotte really have an affinity towards the Bobcats? Shinn basically gave Charlotte the finger, and I can't help but think he soured the city of Charlotte on pro basketball.

Any websites out there watching this number? Usually you hear about these clauses after the fact. Posting these numbers before the fact may result in some Companies and Individuals comming forward and purchasing large blocks of seats so the team just makes it over the line every year.

If Shinn didn't do it, I'm sure the awesome GM'ing tandem of Jordan and Bickerstaff will finish the city off. That Adam Morrison pick looks awesomer every day. They should be closer to .500 at this point.

I remember the Giants situation. I remember going to an A's game with family that year and getting a Giants pennant because I thought it might be a collectable with them leaving the next year. It was pretty great that a group of local investors stood up and bought the team knowing that SF was pretty hostile to a publicly financed stadium.

I think in the NBA, they would be gone. Stern is a powerful commissioner and knows its not in the owner's best interests to have a team finance their own stadium. I know that baseball owners aren't really pumped that the Giants financed their own stadium and it actually worked.

I'm excited about having an NBA franchise less than a half hour away though. I had half season tickets the two years the Hornets were here. I don't really have the time to do that right now, but would love to go to some games. It was a really great thing for Oklahoma City and it was such a morale boost for the whole city to have a pro team here--even for those who didn't like basketball or ever go to a game. I'm sorry that it has to be at Seattle's expense--it deserves a team more than NO as far as I'm concerned--but I am happy that the NBA is on its way.

Agreed. I think people are going to be surprised. The recent uptick in attendance has been fairly dramatic compared to the early season numbers. I believe selling out for the complete non-"draw" Memphis Grizzlies last week was the most telling sign that people here are starting to connect with this team.

One thing people around the country don't know is that we have a ridiculous cable dispute that blacks out the team to 200,000+ of the most affluent potential fans on the nearby northshore of Lake Pontchartrain -- not to mention the fact that the Hornets cannot be seen by anyone with a satellite dish, even in the city proper. Conditions are far from perfect for NBA success here, but I really believe we have a better chance to make it than most people think, especially if the idiotic dispute gets resolved.

We're making progress, and I think we're getting a lot of positive mojo from this weekend as well.


The benchmark, with the updated avg needed, is in the local paper every day. I'm not sure we will meet it, given how behind the 8-ball we are right now (and since playoff games don't count), but if we're clearly improving, I don't believe they will move after next year even if the number's a little short. The real thing to watch is going to be season ticket sales, which were anemic for this season. I'm really expecting a significant improvement on that front. The team really came back with a whimper, PR-wise, in the past offseason.

Hopefully you're right Lloyd. The Hornets deserve the support. They are a great, young team that is really fun to watch. It was fun to watch them grow up the past two years--now they are showing what they are capable of without real serious injury problems.

Absolutely. This probably would've happened last year if Peja hadn't gone down and if Paul hadn't been playing on one leg. And there are no bad apples on the team. An easy team to root for, and I really believe the crowds are going to be reasonably good from here on out, though they won't be consistently good without beefing up the season ticket base. Will be a very interesting offseason on that front.

yeah, I'm sad that it may be at the expense of Seattle, but I have no qualms with a team in Oklahoma City. Good city, good people...hungry fans...It would be a good market for a team.

At least traffic across 520 will improve 40 nights a year

This is all still just posturing - my take hasn't changed. Sonics may end up moving, but this is going to go through all the legal challenges the city of Seattle can muster, and I have a feeling someone or some group locally will step forward with a public/private plan for a new arena and Bennett will be enticed to sell the team.

I'm not the only one that feels this way... http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/thiel/351717_thiel18.html

Yeah, those couple dozen cars racing to get to the game are just murder ;)

I hear this quite often and I just can't understand it. Bennett took a bath when he bought the team, he's getting drilled operating the team so to make any money, he has to sell the team for a boatload more than he bought it for.

If there was a group out there willing to pay more than Bennett paid for the team, why didn't they offer it to Schultz? Stern can make all the backroom promises he wants, Bennett is still going to want some return for his investment.

What the hell is this guy talking about?

I think if Bennett was truly only in it to make money, he wouldn't have gotten a bunch of other local OKC investors to buy in. Maybe they knew they could have it good either way...get the arena and sell out for profit or move the team to Oklahoma City and have a team in their backyard. But, the arena isn't going to happen that will be able to make them a bunch of money and nobody is going to pay the premium to do a public/private deal (and if you think David Stern would be behind that, you'd be crazy...he'll protect the owners who want to be able to hold cities hostage). That means move to OKC and do it sooner rather than later since lame duck seasons in Seattle aren't good for the bottom line.

I must give it up to Seattle for drawing the line and not playing nice. They might as well protect the lease and give a big fuck you to the out-of-towner playing hardball with the city. Might as well try what you can to protect what profit can be made on the lease and also to hold onto hope of keeping the team. I'm not sure if it's the "right thing to do", but if you've had enough and really don't care if you ever get a team again, then you might as well.

It came out in the paper today that some of the local politicians are starting to bend and are open to the idea of a buyout from Bennet. This thing may be over quicker than we thought and the team could be gone sooner than later now.

Yeah, some Seattle City Council members are talking about being open to a buyout to retire the outstanding debts on the Key Arena renovation that updated the old Seattle Coliseum, but these are the same ones that have next to no interest in keeping the Sonics regardless.

Here's the deal - Stern's comments mean nothing; they are simply part of the expected negotiating tactics. Bennett's offer to buyout the lease is simply courtroom politics, trying to show some "good faith" effort to resolve the legal situation surrounding the arena lease.

If Bennett is serious about settling this issue, he'll have to offer a hell of a lot more than $26.5M. And if he does, that will change things. But I have my doubts he'll do so, because that puts him and his ownership group that much further in debt, a debt that will probably require selling the team to recoup. He's already stated his desire to see Oklahoma City build a brand new arena for his NBA team if he's able to move it there, despite the fact that the facility there is only 5 years old.

Issue #1 with a bullet is this - the NBA's finances are fucked in a big way. When Miami builds an arena that is replaced after only 12 years with a new arena, and yet the franchise still loses money in a new arena even after winning an NBA title, you know the game's finances are completely bullshit.

It's no surprise that the city of Seattle has been highly reluctant to publicly subsidize such a fucked-up financial situation after agreeing to a sensible public/private renovation of the Seattle Coliseum in 1994 (an agreement that split profits between the Sonics and the city that would pay off the public bonds used to renovate the facility - an agreement that would've worked fine for both parties had the NBA not endured the costly lockout situation during the '98-'99 season.

When local owner Howard Schultz threw his conniption fit over not being allowed to rape the citizens of Seattle over another renovation to Key Arena, financed solely by local taxpayers, he sold the team to the highest bidder which turned out to be the carpet-baggers from Oklahoma. Bennett and Co. overpaid in a big way for the team, which is why the team wasn't sold to local interests (such as Steve Ballmer).

But with the threat now much more realistic about the team possibly leaving the region, the stakes have changed.

If the city wins their lawsuits about the Key Arena lease, it becomes much more realistic to thing that Bennett and his investors will seriously consider selling the team to stem the red ink, especially if David Stern can offer some assurances that they'll be next in line as buyers for an NBA franchise in trouble (can you say Hornets or Bobcats?) A realistic public/private partnership to build an NBA arena that can keep the NBA team solvent while not completely fucking over the local populace will be much more palatable if Bennett is no longer the owner, and despite Stern's wailings to the contrary, plenty of precedence exists for a privately-funded arena (Pepsi Center, Denver; Staples Center, Los Angeles; Rose Garden, Portland; GM Place, Vancouver).

Again, I acknowledge the possibility that Bennett will refuse to sell the team and will wait until legally required to stay in Seattle before moving the team to Oklahoma City. But I also think it's quite possible that the legal situation will open Bennett up to the idea of selling the team to a local contingent (Steve Ballmer?) that will have the backing and plan in place to build a privately-financed arena that will keep the Sonics in Seattle.

Oklahoma City is not building a new arena. A vote comes up the first Tuesday in March to extend the penny sales tax (which has been going on forever because of downtown revitalization as well as schools in a program called MAPS) to pay for rennovations to the arena. When the Ford Center was built, it was done cheaply to give the city an arena to attract a team (actually, it was proposed when it looked like an NHL team was coming, but they decided to build it anyway once that was not a reality). The ammenities and concourses are pretty bare-bones except in the middle level. There is not really a VIP area for the big-timers in the front row. This is going to be fixed if the vote passes and a new arena won't happen for awhile.

Second, I don't think you know how well off this ownership group is. Clay Bennett's company might not be big, but his wife is a Gaylord...owns the paper in OKC and a ton of crap in Nashville. Aubrey McClendon owns part and is a major part of Chesapeake. Other minority owners are car dealers and other players in business. I don't think they're going to sell the team if they buy out of the lease.

If the city wins the lawsuit, then they'll take a loss for a couple of years. I don't think they'll be bullied into selling the franchise for a big loss and then wait to pay full price for the next franchise. It's not like it's a 25-year lease.

I don't get it though - from Seattle to Oklahoma City? Seriously? Wouldn't you take a huge hit on Demographics, a huge hit on income, and generally on players? Ie, money is still the motivating factor, but all things being equal, how many players are going to want to go there?

Quoted again, this is a gem.

I think a number of people unfamiliar with the OKC area would be surprised, as would many who haven't been here in several years.

Oklahoma City is one of the fastest growing cities in the nation. It's adding jobs at a great pace and not seeing many of the difficulties other areas of the country are experiencing. Plus, the cost of living is incredibly low. That's quite attractive for players and businesses alike.

It's difficult to predict due to the fact that the Hornets were a novelty and only here two seasons, but there was a great deal of support from residents and corporations alike when they were here. I'm sure that Bennett and company are counting on that, making them significantly more money than with less support in Seattle.

I'm just repeating what Bennett has said. Perhaps he meant upgrades to the existing facility, I don't know.

I don't think Howard Schultz and his group was hurting for money either, but even multi-millionaires and billionaires grumble a lot about losing tens of millions of dollars per season.

I doubt Bennett's group will sell the Sonics unless Stern can assure them he's got another team lined up for them to buy. But if Stern does that and the city of Seattle prevails in the lawsuits, I think they'll be mighty tempted to sell in order to stem the red ink that is flowing and will continue to flow for them for the next several years.

If they really overpaid by as much as you suggest, though, then wouldn't they have to lose just a shit-ton of money before they decide to sell out when they can just leave in three years? They will lose money by selling the team too...probably more than they would in a couple of years of losing money in Seattle. If they think it's hopeless to make money in Oklahoma City, then I can see where you're coming from--but I don't think the ownership group really thinks that will happen.

When has any owner ever lost money selling a pro sports team (and I'm talking the real leagues - NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL)?

Simmons' mailbag full of Sonics fans airing their grievances:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2...8&sportCat=nba

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/basket..._arena05x.html

Wheels are starting to turn publicly in attempting to keep the Sonics in Seattle. We'll see if the State Legislature acts on this - they only have 7 more business days in this year's session - but this is a significant move, and if it passes, it will put a lot of pressure on the NBA owners to carefully consider whether it's in their collective best interests to leave the Seattle market.

The NBA voted 28-2 to allow the Sonics to move to Oklahoma. Under the new lease agreement, they can no longer negotiate with the City of Seattle on a new arena and lease.

Sorry Seattle.

Some talk in that one piece on ESPN that the NBA could theoretically expand by 2 at some point to go to Vegas and Seattle, but...Stern isn't so keen and owners don't want to dilute their piece of the NBA anymore. (I think the expansion fee payoff might change their minds down the road..)

Basically that Clay Bennett has agreed to pay the lease, pay all of the other fees and such to get out of the deal. At least he's not try to stiff the city financially.

I wonder what they'll change the name of the team to is all.

I wouldn't be shocked if Seattle tried to screw over Bennett if they win their lawsuit and make them play two more seasons there. Even so, there is a lease already signed for 15 years in Oklahoma City starting in 2010, so it would really just be an angry gesture. Since nobody is going to go to the games, the value of the lease went down since they shared on a percentage basis, I think.

Personally, I hope they win the lawsuit and make it cost Bennett as much money as possible. This sucks.

Okay, so apparently Oklahoma City has now filed suit to enforce the very strong legal agreements that Bennett signed there. According to Lester Munson at espn.com, it appears that if the Sonics don't move to Oklahoma City then the team could be on the hook for as much as $150M to be paid as liquidated damages to the city.

This is hilarious. Bennett has screwed himself completely over. I just don't want to see him get away with this. The perfect scenario now is that Seattle wins their suit to enforce the existing lease. Seattle then knows that Bennett is on the hook for the $150M with Oklahoma City. So the best possible ending is that Seattle offers to let the team out of their Key Arena lease for $149,999,999.

:D

The lease with OKC doesn't begin until 2010-2011. There is language to allow them to put it in place as early as this upcoming season, depending on the outcome in Seattle, but nothing is binding until the lease expires in Seattle.

Edit: And as far as I know, OKC has not filed suit. They wrote a letter that said they would file suit if the Sonics don't arrive in 2010-2011. Basically, it's their way of trying to convince Seattle the team is gone eventually, regardless of what they do.

Should be a really interesting legal battle. I agree that Bennett could find himself between a rock and a hard place if Schultz's suit holds up, and there's some optimism that it will.

That said, shame on the Washington legislature for their cowardice on this issue. It's appalling how many State legislators have/had no idea what was being proposed to them when Ballmer's group made the plea for the State to authorize continuation of King County stadium taxes to pick up 1/4th of their proposed KeyArena renovation (with Ballmer's group picking up half plus any overruns and the city picking up the other 1/4).