Sonic Got Bought!!!!!!!!SEATTLE -- A group from Oklahoma City has agreed to buy the Seattle SuperSonics and the WNBA's Seattle Storm, the Sonics said Tuesday.
The Basketball Club of Seattle, which owns the NBA Sonics and the Seattle Storm of the WNBA, will sell the teams to the Professional Basketball Club LLC, headed by Oklahoma City businessman Clay Bennett, for $350 million. Bennett said at an afternoon news conference that whether the Sonics remain in Seattle for the long term would depend on whether the team can reach an agreement with the city to replace or renovate KeyArena.
"It is not our intention to move or relocate the teams -- as long, of course, as we are able to negotiate a successor venue to the current basketball arena and arrangements to ensure the Sonics and Storm can succeed," Bennett said.
Marianne Bichsel, a spokeswoman for Seattle mayor Greg Nickels, told the Seattle Post Intelligencer that the city plans to hold the Sonics to their lease, which expires in 2010.
No price was immediately reported, but Sonics majority owner Howard Schultz said the team turned down higher bids from groups that sought to move the team immediately.
"It is really impossible to communicate how difficult this decision has been for us to make," Schultz said.
Bennett, who was previously on the San Antonio Spurs' board of directors, was instrumental in the temporary relocation of the New Orleans Hornets to Oklahoma City following Hurricane Katrina and emerged as a potential investor in the Hornets. He has previously discussed his desire to bring a team to Oklahoma City permanently but insisted his first choice will be to keep the Sonics and Storm in Seattle.
Will Oklahoma City have its own NBA team within the next five years?
Yes
No
In February, Schultz threatened to move or sell the city's oldest major-league professional sports franchise, saying the team has lost about $60 million in the past five years. The Sonics will begin their 40th season this fall.
Team officials have blamed a KeyArena revenue-sharing lease with the city of Seattle that lasts until 2010. The lease was called the worst in the NBA by commissioner David Stern.
Following an April 5 meeting of the team's ownership group, team president Wally Walker said the organization would retain advisers to examine different options. Those choices included possibly building a new arena in the Seattle region -- most likely in the suburbs of Bellevue or Renton -- or selling the team.
Potential suitors from outside the region included Oklahoma City, San Jose, Calif., and Kansas City, Mo. In February, Schultz said an unidentified city offered a "blank check" to move the Sonics.
The team said if improvements were made to the arena, the Sonics would enter a new 20-year lease with the city; would manage and operate the arena and pay rent to the city at no less than $1 million per year; and would take on all operating risk of the arena, including all operating costs and routine maintenance. In return, the organization would keep all revenues.
Nickels and the Seattle City Council responded with a letter saying that any public contribution to an arena remodel must be put to a public vote and that the public share must come from visitor taxes collected countywide.
Nickels expressed disappointment Tuesday that the city and Sonics could not reach a deal for a renovated arena. He pledged to work with Bennett.
"We've made very specific and strong offers to the Sonics that would have met" both parties' needs, Nickels said. "Unfortunately they did not respond to those. However, those offers are still on the table."
The Hornets received strong support from Oklahoma City after being displaced following Hurricane Katrina. Half of the Hornets' 36 games at the Ford Center were sold out and average attendance was 18,717 -- the 11th-highest total in the league and about 500 less than capacity.
During a visit to a Hornets game in November, Stern said Oklahoma City was "at the top of the list" if an expansion team became available.
The Hornets will play 35 games in Oklahoma City and six in New Orleans this season. Stern has said the Hornets will return to New Orleans for the 2007-08 season.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
Wow This is terrible.............Thet better fix the arena for real.....I dont got no cable so i ain seen the coverage of this at all..... man im shocked...Whats wit seattle and the sports situation...... out here upper management is always real foul....I dont know bout yall but it hurts to know the sonics might be gone.........
