By
Jackson Rohrbaugh
May 13, 2008
Keeping the Sonics in Seattle is essential to our city’s interests. The loss of a professional sports team is a great blemish on Seattle’s name and a weight on its future.
Oklahoma businessman Clay Bennett and his band of pranksters had been planning to move our team away from Seattle ever since they expressed interest in purchasing it from Howard Schultz, despite their assurances to the contrary. And if that isn’t riling by itself, consider the giggling e-mail rhetoric that has surfaced from a dialogue between the corn-fed investors.
Aubrey McClendon, one of Bennett’s good ol’ boys, wrote to Bennett right after the sale occurred. His e-mail subject line: “the Oklahoma City Sonic Boom (or maybe Sonic Boomers!) baby!” McClendon has also been fined $250,000 by the NBA for making comments in an Oklahoma newspaper about the Sonics moving to Oklahoma City before it was officially decided. While this is a just chastisement, it only diverts attention away from the real problem.
This should be frightening to us. How can a group of out-of-state investors from the heartland steal a symbol of our shining Emerald City? Were we that blind? Or did we put too much hope our local and state governments to protect our interests?
The Sonics aren’t a liquid asset. They represent more than 40 years of our collective history — part of our rise to national prominence and the future of Seattle. Just like the Mariners and the Seahawks, when a team has had trouble winning, it doesn’t mean we don’t care about them. And the Sonics have actually won a national championship. Imagine the Red Sox getting sold and moved in the late 90s just because they hadn’t won a world series for decades. Money and corporate logic wouldn’t have mattered — you would have had thousands of angry, beer-soaked Bostonians demanding the heads of rebel millionaires.
It could be argued that professional teams get sold all the time. But it’s the Montreal Expos and Charlotte Hornets, not the SuperSonics. Forty years is too much time to argue with. After that many years, the fans, merchandising and traditions are as much a part of the city as its famous streets and landmarks.
It’s not up to dollar-waving Oklahomans to decide what’s best for our city. We can put Howard Schultz at fault for being willing to sell our team, but he is making a genuine good-faith gesture with his lawsuit toward the Bennett Boys. Because Bennett hinted at an effortless export of our team before it was decided, he’s liable for breach of contract. We can only hope that the lawsuit will swing in Seattle and Schultz’s favor.
I am not a huge basketball fan myself, but a professional sports team has tremendous value to a city, and I am a fan of Seattle. I grew up watching Payton, Kemp, Schrempf and Scheffler, and I always picked the Sonics when playing NBA Jam on Super Nintendo. They are part of our city’s legacy. While I was in Europe, I would mention I was from Seattle and get nods of admiration for both the Sonics and grunge music.
I suggest you get on YouTube and watch Shawn Kemp’s best dunk sequences. That’ll make a believer out of anyone. We have to keep the Sonics here. If it takes standing in front of the moving buses like we did when the Seahawks were wrongfully bound for Los Angeles, I’ll be down at Key Arena with the rest of the protestors. Clay and his gaggle of goons can drag our team away over our fir-branch-waving, plaid-wearing, coffee-drenched dead bodies.
9 Comments
#1 hoodoo
on May 13, 2008 at 5:59 a.m.(Oklahoma City, OK | Unverified Name)
"We have to keep the Sonics here. If it takes standing in front of the moving buses..." It was supposed to take an arena. There's the issue. Standing in front of buses shows interest, but it doesn't show commitment. Spend your energy trying to get people fired up to build a new arena, because that's the level of commitment the NBA was looking for and failed to find.
#2 Bryan
on May 13, 2008 at 6:18 a.m.(San Mateo, CA | Unverified Name)
You can call the Oklahoma City folks all the names you want but it won't change the fact that they bought a neglected team and are going to take them to an area where they will fill an arena with fans... and not just during post-season runs.
I hope this loss serves as a warning to all the fair weather fans in Seattle... which is pretty much all of you. If you don't attend home games, you won't be able to make a case for keeping the team when new ownership arrives.
And before you start barking that you aren't fair-weather fans let me ask you this... "Why was ESPN laughing at the attendence of some recent Mariners games?" The nation is watching, and believe me, there are plenty of cities that would love to steal another team from this apathetic town.
Go to the games even if the team loses, or you will lose the team. It's that simple.
#3 Greg
on May 13, 2008 at 10:49 a.m.(Philadelphia, PA | Unverified Name)
Haha, aww, look at all the angry little Okies. It's almost cute how they get so fired up about this stuff. They're like Clay Bennet's little Oklahoma guard dog chihuahas.
#4 Kyle
on May 13, 2008 at 7 p.m.(Gig Harbor, WA | Unverified Name)
Attendance records are an atrocious reason to move a team. First, attendance doesn't equate to revenue, as incorrect as that may seem to athletic historians like Bryan. The NFL makes as much money as the MLB even though an NFL season draws a mere 17 million fans to baseball's 79 million. Second, low attendance doesn't mean that transplanting a city's left kidney is a great long-term move. The Mariners drew 1.1 million fans in 1994 before Edgar's double saved us all, and now 2.6 million Safeco seats are warmed annually watching an underperforming team. Lastly, it's ignorant to blame folks for not choosing to spend a Tuesday night watching a dismal product on the floor, and even more shortsighted to assume they'll be a better fit for a much smaller media market once the new team smell wears off. The author's point is that having millionaires disingenuiously buy historic franchises and demand publicly funded $500 million dollar palaces while not-so-secretly plotting to rip them from the place they belong is not good for sports or cities. Give the fine people of Oklahoma an icon to enjoy, just don't move the Space Needle there. And especially don't lie at the purchase table when you plan all along to feed your fat face with a revolving view of OKC. The blame is everywhere, and maybe higher attendance could help, but nobody is more culpable in creating a tragic Seattle skyline than Bennett's group. Right on, Jackson.
#5 Anonymous
on May 13, 2008 at 11:44 p.m.(Seattle, WA | Unverified Name)
As long as the Seahawks are here.
#6 Gary
on May 14, 2008 at 8:37 a.m.(Sacramento, CA | Unverified Name)
Bryan said "neglected team"
Are you an idiot? You think that because the fans , the city , and the state have not been willing to subsidize the team with tax money - tax money to help pay for players (that's what the new arena is meant to achieve), then the team is neglected?! That is insane. Should we also pay Microsoft $600MM to build them buildings? The NBA has a problem with their business model, and they have to have the tax dollars to make it work. So why don't they fix it instead of trying to bully cities and states?
I love the Sonics, I do not want them to leave. I's not just Clay, there is plenty of blame to go around that we are in this position now. Remeber that the old crappy Boston Garden work forever, it was a part of their team. But owners should have the right to invest in a new building if they feel that the numbers will work out. But what does this have to do with tax dollars?
#7 Joe B
on May 14, 2008 at 3:02 p.m.(Kingston, WA | Unverified Name)
Those fancy basketball players make too much money. I hate them. They should only make a blue collar wage so the team could afford to build a new arena without tax dollars. I look for the day teachers make millions, and the Sonics have to hold a bake sale to make their payroll.
#8 Bentley
on May 16, 2008 at 3:34 p.m.(Tulsa, OK | Unverified Name)
If you really wanted the Super Sonics to stay, why didn't you buy tickets to the games?
Seattle will still have two major pro franchises (and Seahawks fans, like the Red Sox, are legendary- I don't think anybody's coming in to try to move them).
My entire home state has zero pro franchises. We have one of the best-attended D-I football programs in the Oklahoma Sooners and one of the top basketball programs in the OK-State Cowboys. We have arena football, minor-league hockey, minor-league baseball, and some of the biggest high school football franchises in the nation. It's pathetic, actually, how many people show up to high school football games in this state, how supportive we are of AA and AAA baseball. By this standard alone, I think we've earned a real pro team.
As it stands now, big markets have a sort of stranglehold on major teams. And with each league at 30 or more franchises, expansion is unlikely. So under-supported franchises in cities with three or four major teams are bound to a market or area that is desperate for just one.
So be grateful for your Major-League baseball and the fact that your NFL team has one of the most talented quarterbacks out there. And meanwhile, we'll take the struggling second-worst in the league NBA team off your hands.
#9 Bentley
on May 16, 2008 at 3:37 p.m.(Tulsa, OK | Unverified Name)
I meant to say high school "program" not "franchise." Dumb mistake.
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