Seattle, Oklahoma City, and the NBA

Professional sports in the United States, it is popular to say, are out of control. The salaries, the ticket prices, the unbelievable television revenues -- everybody seems to agree that the Business Of Sports is no longer grounded in any sort of reality.

Taken from a particular angle, however, today's news that the Seattle Supersonics were purchased by a group from Oklahoma City is a return to sanity. The leader of the new group, Clay Bennett, wants to bring a professional sport to Oklahoma City. That's it. He's an Oklahoma City guy, and he wants an Oklahoma City professional sport. Period.

"We are acutely interested and very focused on bringing a team to Oklahoma City. It's a tricky spot to be in because you don't want to overstep your boundaries ... but the Sonics, yes, are a possibility," Bennett told the Seattle Times in a February 2006 profile. At the time of the article, Bennett had not even contacted the Sonics, he said.

Bennett does have experience in the NBA in San Antonio. He once sat on their board, Oklahoma City's Oklahoman newspaper reported today. But, "Bennett is a die-hard Oklahoman. He spoke passionately that day last fall when the Hornets announced they were relocating to the city. He loved the idea that his state, his city, his home was getting a major-league franchise that he long thought it deserved," wrote columnist Jenni Carlson.

Of course, the Hornets were only temporaily displaced, and once Katrina's effects have receeded, the NBA plans to move them back to New Orleans. The NBA has said they expect New Orleans to reclaim the team full-time by 2007-2008. So Bennett went looking elsewhere. There's no harm there, no inordinate greed. During the press conference annoucing the sale, members of Bennett's group indicated that they had even looked at bringing the Washington Nationals baseball club to the city. Mr. Bennett was trying everything. He wanted a professional sports franchise. End of story.

Sort of.

The people from whom Mr. Bennett purchased the Sonics, though, seem dirty. Seattle's ownership group, a hodge-podge of 58 local millionaires and billionaires, purchased the franchise five years ago for $200 million. Since then, the Sonics claim to have lost $60 million, because of what has been called the worst-stadium lease in the NBA. Nevertheless, despite the public protestations of losses and the futility of going-forward, today's sale was for $350 million. Something doesn't jive.

The Sonics have been in Seattle for 40 years, and throughout the 1990's was Seattle's only respectable sports franchise. In many ways, Seattle was a Sonics town. Gary Payton. Shawn Kemp. Detlef Schrempf. To this day, the fans still support the team. The capacity attendance figures from the past four years surprise even me. (Record in parentheses)

2005-2006 - 95.3%, 9th in the NBA, (35-47)
2004-2005 - 96.9%, 8th in the NBA, (52-30), playoff berth
2003-2004 - 92.0%, 11th in the NBA, (37-45)
2002-2003 - 91.0%, 14th in the NBA, (40-42)

The team has been bad. The fans have come anyway.

ESPN.com is asking whether or not Oklahoma City deserves an NBA franchise. With 72,293 votes in, the split is 50/50. I don't think there should be any split. Oklahoma City has supported the Hornets in a way that many cities do not support their franchises. I voted Yes. But, OKC does not deserve one more than the Seattle. Seattle supports the Sonics. Seattle is a bigger city, whether counting within city limits or metropolitan district. If The Business of Sports takes this team away from this city, then Sonics fans have been done wrong by.

Most every news article discusses how unhelpful the city government has been in satisfying ownership complaints about losses. The team has demanded that their stadium lease be reworked, but the city has refused. Sort of. As news of the sale leaked, the mayor's office released three proposals it offered the Sonics. I don't understand the in's and out's, but the Seattle Times tackles the proposals briefly in bullet form.

"They never did respond to us on those three offers," said Seattle Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis said in the Times article. "It was pretty clear at that point they were looking at different options."

Some of those options have been well-publicized in the Seattle press. Most promising were proposals by the local cities of Renton and Bellevue. Very interesting summary by the Seattle P-I.

I should note before closing the storyline that the old ownership group and the new one pitched in their joint press conference this afternoon. There aren't any articles on the web, so I cannot link to anything, but both groups said the sale did not necessarily mean that the Sonics would move to Oklahoma City. The new owners have pledged, or perhaps written into the sale agreement, to spend 12 months pursuing a suitable arena agreement in the Seattle area. The old owners suggested that they took less money from Mr. Bennett's group in order to secure this promise. We'll see.

Lastly, the Sonics switched away from their long-time radio partner, KJR. Excellent review about that move, and what it might mean, and an excellent blog generally by local radio DJ Lisa Wood.