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Seattle officially loses Sonics to Oklahoma

Associated Press

After enduring billionaire power plays, broken promises and the team's worst season, Seattle lost its first big-time sports franchise.

NBA owners on Friday approved the Sonics' move to Oklahoma City. The last two votes on moves -- the Hornets from Charlotte to New Orleans and the Grizzlies from Vancouver to Memphis -- passed by a combined vote of 59-1.

NBA Commissioner David Stern says there were only two votes against he move at today's meeting in New York -- Mark Cuban of the Dallas Mavericks and Trail Blazers owner Paul Allen.

Gov. Gregoire says this is a "sad day" for basketball fans in Washington. She says the NBA vote to move the Sonics to Oklahoma City is especially frustrating in light of recent revelations that owner Clay Bennett did not make a good faith effort to keep the team in Seattle.

In filings in federal court in Seattle, owner Clay Bennett's ownership group for the Sonics says the city has participated in "significant duplicity" by not revealing the full price of projected renovations for KeyArena.






The motion states the deception was to gain public and political support for an 11th-hour renovation plan valued at $300 million by a group led by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to keep the Sonics from moving to Oklahoma City.

Seattle's Mayor Greg Nickels says the city is focused on litigation. The city already has rejected an offer from Sonics owner Clay Bennett for $26 million to settle the team's lease agreement, which runs through 2010.

There are three-prongs in the legal fight against Bennett and his partners:

-- A trial, set to begin June 16, in which the city is trying to force the team to play out its KeyArena lease.

-- A class-action lawsuit brought by season-ticket holders who say they were duped into buying tickets under the premise the Sonics wouldn't leave.

-- Former team owner Howard Schultz's new plans to sue to get the team back. SuperSonics-Quality Jobs

A tax incentive package designed to help lure the Seattle Sonics to Oklahoma City was also approved by the Oklahoma legislature. Gov. Brad Henry signed the bill Thursday.

Bennett and other members of his ownership team had intensely lobbied legislators to approve the measure.

Sonics officials have suggested that the team's relocation might not be approved without the tax package.

http://www.kgw.com/sports/stories/kgw_041808_sports_sonics_oklahoma_move.78040a9e.html

Sad... must be playoff time, an NBA team is moving.

That makes me so sad. I hate when a city loses its team, especially when it's not due to a lack of fan support.

You're trading Seattle for Oklahoma City.... hmmmm... ok... anyone who ever preaches "loyalty" again needs to be slapped.

I'm sure there were people who said, when the browns were leaving "Baltimore is a nice city."

I personally think we all have a duty as Brown's fans to boo Clay Bennett's team every chance we get, and give our support to Seattle.

Sucks for them I mean we all know first hand about losing a team and we know how rough it is fr their hardcore fan base. To tell you the truth I always thought the Sonics drew well in Seattle and this news is a little shocking. If we didn't get LBJ in the draft I think thats excactly the direction out CAVS franchise was going

sonics leaving seattle.

Somebody told me a while back that the Sonics moving away from Seattle was in no way shape or form the same as the Browns moving to Baltimore. That's a load of crap. Seattle supported their pro team very much the same way we did and still do. I don't understand his thinking, because he said it was just a basketball team, not football. It's still a pro sport. I really feel for the Sonics fans right now, having gone through the same ordeal. I hope they get an expansion team soon.

This kind of thing is completely disturbing.

This is complete crap. The Sonics have a nice history, a very loyal fan base and they get completely screwed by a billionaire owner.

I love Oklahoma City. I very nice city but not really deserving of an NBA franchise.

I find it compelling that the Cavs ownership approved of the move, with the only dissenting votes coming from the Mavs and Blazers.

I can understand why the Cuban wouldn't like the move. He can expect to lose fans to a team in nearby OKC.

The Blazers stand to gain some support from this deal, yet still opposed it. I think it's similar to the Rooney's voting against the move of the Browns. The rivalry between Portland and Seattle for the fans of the Pacific northwest has been lost.

I don't like this at all.

I dont even root for them and im ticked

Could this move have been stopped?

What do you guys think would have happened if say Kevin Durant just told ownership, I'm in Seattle, or I'm not playing at all. Would that have made a difference?

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What do you guys think would have happened if say Kevin Durant just told ownership, I'm in Seattle, or I'm not playing at all. Would that have made a difference?

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They would have laughed.

I won't say OC is not deserving of an NBA franchise, but not at the expense of a 40 year old team. I feel for the Sonics fans.

The Sonics won 52 games just 3 years ago. The owner turned the team to mush and then bolts. Sounds like "Major League" movie plot. I wish the Sonic's fan the best when all the dust settles.

Are they keep the "Supersonics" name? Oklahoma City Supersonics just sounds stupid.

Wow Peen! That Jackson building ,just right of center is where the Bricktown Hooters is located,which is where our Central Oklahoma Browns Backers meet.And that little grassy area in the center is where we toss the football around at halftime. Small World.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=3365972


SEATTLE -- More e-mails involving SuperSonics owner Clay Bennett have been revealed that could slow or even stop the team's move from Seattle to Oklahoma City, a move the NBA overwhelmingly approved last week.

A filing by the city of Seattle this week in federal court in New York includes e-mails to and from Bennett that show the NBA was concerned last summer that Sonics owners may be breaching their contractual promise of good-faith efforts to find a new arena in Seattle.


In court documents provided Thursday by attorneys representing the city, Bennett stated in an e-mail to Sonics co-owner Aubrey McClendon last Aug. 13 that the NBA was looking into issues "relative to certain documents that we signed at closing that may have been breached."

Bennett wrote that president of league and basketball operations Joel Litvin was looking into the possible breach.

Earlier that day, Bennett had written an e-mail to McClendon referring to the fallout from McClendon's comments to an Oklahoma business publication that "we didn't buy the team to keep it in Seattle, we hoped to come here."

"Yes sir we get killed on this one," Bennett wrote to McClendon. "I don't mind the PR ugliness [pretty used to it], but I am concerned from a legal standpoint that your statement could perhaps undermine our basic premise of 'good faith best efforts.'"

NBA commissioner David Stern fined McClendon $250,000 for his comment. The city is citing it as evidence Sonics owners lied to Seattle when asserting they weren't trying to move the team.

The e-mails are part of the city's recent filings in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, where Seattle is attempting to compel the NBA to provide financial records for all of its teams. The city is also trying to force Stern to testify as part of Seattle's dispute with the Professional Basketball Club, the Sonics' ownership entity, over the KeyArena lease.

A week before NBA owners voted 28-2 to approve the team's move to Oklahoma, the city released e-mails that appeared to show Bennett and his Sonics co-owners were eagerly anticipating moving the team from Seattle to Oklahoma City almost as soon as they bought the team in July 2006 for $300 million from a Seattle-area group led by Starbucks chairman Howard Schultz.

In one from April 2007, Bennett stated, "I am a man possessed! Will do everything we can," in response to co-owner Tom Ward asking if they were in for another "lame duck season" in Seattle.

Last week, immediately after the NBA approved the move, Bennett said he was referring to how possessed he was to find a home for the team in Seattle.

After the e-mails became public, Schultz filed suit against Bennett for allegedly violating the good-faith agreement.

The Sonics provided the e-mails to comply with a ruling by federal judge Marsha Pechman in Seattle. She ruled such messages between the co-owners were pertinent for the discovery phase of the June trial between the city and the Sonics over the KeyArena lease.

Bennett argues he is contractually allowed to write a check to buy out the lease and thus move his team to Oklahoma City for next season.

The city asserts the lease requires the team to play in KeyArena through the 2009-10 season. Seattle wants to keep the Sonics in town for those two years to buy time for a group led by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer or some other local buyer to find an arena solution and keep the team in the region for the long term.

The trial is scheduled to begin June 16 in federal court in Seattle.

In a motion Bennett filed last week in Seattle, the owner claimed the trial "has nothing to do with the last two years of the lease. Instead, the city is trying to exploit its landlord status to force the PBC to sell the team ... to drive up costs for the PBC ... to try to force PBC to sell."

The city has already rejected Bennett's offer of $26 million to settle. Last week, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels repeatedly refused to answer if there was a price at which the city would consider settling with Bennett. The mayor instead reiterated the city intends for the Sonics to remain in Seattle for the long term.

Last April, Bennett told a meeting of the Seattle Convention and Visitors Board that Las Vegas was a possible relocation alternative. In an e-mail to Stern dated April 28, 2007, Bennett regretted "my clumsy volley" but wrote that the "threat of Las Vegas has moved the needle" on what he saw as Seattle's indifference toward the Sonics' situation.

"Leadership in the market has never valued the threat of moving to Oklahoma City," Bennett wrote to Stern. "They don't even know where it is."

I think the e-mails will only delay the move.....or cause a bigger financial settlement when the owner just moves the team to OKC anyway. With Stern and the other owners approving the move, it seems like they are doing it no matter what happens in the courts.

Stern was on the Mike Tirico show a few days ago and he sounded quite smug about the move. He was talking about their chances of getting another team moved there in the future....as if it's already a forgone conclusion that the Sonics were gone.

I don't like it at all. Reminds me too much of the Browns move.

Last-minute deal lets Sonics move to Oklahoma City

SEATTLE (AP)—The SuperSonics will move to Oklahoma City for the 2008-09 season as part of a settlement announced Wednesday with the city of Seattle.

The agreement ends a contentious relationship that culminated in a recent six-day federal trial over terms of the team’s KeyArena lease. The judge was scheduled to rule Wednesday afternoon.

The settlement calls for Sonics owner Clay Bennett and his Professional Basketball Club LLC to pay as much as $75 million to the city in exchange for the immediate termination of the lease. The team’s name and colors will be staying in Seattle.

“We made it,” Bennett said after stepping to an Oklahoma City podium featuring the NBA logo and the letters OKC. “The NBA will be in Oklahoma City next season.”

Bennett said the move would start Thursday and the first focus would be on the SuperSonics’ players.

It’s a victory for Bennett, who purchased the Sonics in 2006 from Starbucks Corp. Chairman Howard Schultz for $350 million, and will take the franchise to his hometown. Bennett faced harsh criticism in Seattle for his efforts in trying to build a new arena as a replacement for KeyArena, and the presumption he wanted to move the franchise all along.

“It was a tough experience for all of us that were involved in it. There was just so much that happened on both sides, so much misinterpreted, miscommunicated and misunderstood that it was difficult,” Bennett said.

Bennett announced that the settlement calls for a payment of $45 million immediately, and would include another $30 million paid to Seattle in 2013 if the state Legislature in Washington authorizes at least $75 million in public funding to renovate KeyArena by the end of 2009 and Seattle doesn’t obtain an NBA franchise of its own within the next five years.

The settlement could become a victory for Seattle as well. In a statement, NBA commissioner David Stern reversed his previous stance and said that a renovated KeyArena could be a suitable venue for an NBA franchise in Seattle. But the time is short.

“We understand that city, county, and state officials are currently discussing a plan to substantially rebuild KeyArena for the sum of $300 million,” Stern said in a statement. “If this funding were authorized, we believe KeyArena could properly be renovated into a facility that meets NBA standards relating to revenue generation, fan amenities, team facilities, and the like.”

However, Stern added, “given the lead times associated with any franchise acquisition or relocation and with a construction project as complex as a KeyArena renovation, authorization of the public funding needs to occur by the end of 2009 in order for there to be any chance for the NBA to return to Seattle within the next five years.”

Bennett said he and Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels signed a binding agreement Wednesday, which would be formalized later, that keeps the SuperSonics’ name, logo and colors available if Seattle gets a replacement franchise. Bennett said his franchise would create duplicate championship banners and trophies, leaving one set in Seattle and using the second set for undetermined purposes in Oklahoma City.

“We have 30 million reasons why we have support for a future NBA team,” Seattle city attorney Tom Carr said.

In April, the NBA Board of Governors approved Bennett’s application to move the team to Oklahoma City, pending the outcome of the trial between the team and the city. The settlement came six days after the trial concluded.

It doesn’t cover a pending lawsuit filed by Schultz, who is seeking to regain control of the team. Schultz claims that Bennett didn’t follow through on an agreement to negotiate in good faith for a new arena in Seattle for one full year before seeking relocation options.

“We believe it’s baseless, has no merit. We will fight it vigorously,” Bennett said of that lawsuit.

The trial between the team and city was centered on the lease agreement that called for the Sonics to play at KeyArena through the 2009-10 season. Sonics lead attorney Brad Keller contended that Bennett should simply be able to write a check to satisfy the final two years of the lease. Keller argued that the “specific performance” clause the city rested its case on should not apply in a garden-variety dispute between tenant and landlord.

Bennett and his ownership group previously offered to pay the city $26.5 million in February to buy out the final two years of the lease. They were rebuffed.

Nickels noted that Wednesday’s settlement would cover lost rent, tax revenue and pay off the remaining debt on KeyArena.

“I believed all along enforcing our lease would allow us time to come to a better arrangement,” Nickels said. “We now have that deal.”

I feel bad for the fans. I know how I felt when the Browns left. But after all it is just Basketball so who really cares.

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But after all it is just Basketball so who really cares.

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I think this girl does

Sounds like the guy bought a team and simply wanted to move it to his hometown. Just another greasy billionaire.