E-mails reveal Sonics owners intended to bolt from Seattle
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Howard Schultz plans to sue Clay Bennett to get Sonics back
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/sonics/2004349361_schultz15.html
By Percy Allen
Seattle Times staff reporter
Howard Schultz says he wants the Sonics back.
Nearly two years after selling Seattle's NBA franchise to Oklahoma City investors, the Starbucks mogul has hired a lawyer and is preparing to file a lawsuit against Sonics chairman Clay Bennett to rescind the July 2006 sale.
Attorney Richard Yarmuth confirmed Monday that his Seattle-based law firm, Yarmuth Wilsdon Calfo, is representing Schultz and plans to sue Bennett's Professional Basketball Club in the next two weeks.
"The damages that are being sought is to rescind, unwind the transaction," Yarmuth said a day after the team played what could have been its final home game in Seattle.
"It's not money damage. It's to have the team returned. The theory of the suit is that when the team was sold, the Basketball Club of Seattle, our team here, relied on promises made by Clay Bennett and his ownership that they desired to keep the team in Seattle and intended to make a good-faith effort to accomplish that."
When Bennett purchased the Sonics and its sister franchise in the WNBA, the Storm, for $350 million, he agreed to a stipulation that he would make a good-faith effort to keep both teams in Seattle. He has since sold the Storm to four Seattle women who will keep the team here.
E-mails among the Oklahoma City owners, made public last week, paint a different picture of their intentions. In preparation for a June 16 trial in Seattle's lawsuit, which seeks to hold the owners to the remaining two years of the team's KeyArena lease, lawyers for the city obtained several e-mails in which owners expressed an intent to move to Oklahoma City shortly after the sale.
On Aug. 2, 2006, two weeks after the sale, team co-owners Tom Ward and Aubrey McClendon e-mailed about moving the Sonics to Oklahoma City as soon as possible. The communication was after one of the original Oklahoma partners had dropped out of the ownership group.
"I don't think that you and I really want to own a team there [Seattle] either but we are better partners," Ward wrote.
On April 17 last year, Ward wrote McClendon and Bennett: "Is there any way to move here [Oklahoma City] for next season or are we doomed to have another lame duck season in Seattle?"
The exchanges detail a breach of contract, Yarmuth said. He also cites McClendon's comments last August to the (Oklahoma) Business Journal in which the billionaire founder and chief executive of Chesapeake Energy said: "We didn't buy the team to keep it in Seattle; we hoped to come here [Oklahoma City]."
"The issue is did the Oklahoma group fraudulently induce the Seattle owners, Howard Schultz and the other owners, to sell the team on a misrepresentation of their intentions at the time," Yarmuth said.
McClendon's published comments drew a $250,000 fine from the NBA. On Monday, NBA commissioner David Stern said he is aware of the e-mails and is convinced Bennett acted in accordance with the sale agreement.
"I haven't studied them, but my sense of it was that Clay, as the managing partner and the driving force of the group, was operating in good faith under the agreement that had been made with Howard Schultz," Stern said on a conference call. "His straight and narrow path may not have been shared by all of his partners in their views, but Clay was the one that was making policy for the partnership."
Even though Bennett made several trips to the state to drum up support for a proposed $500 million arena in Renton and hired a Seattle-based lobbyist and architectural firm, Yarmuth said, those efforts have no bearing on Schultz's lawsuit.
"We're talking about fraud at the time the contract was signed," Yarmuth said. "It's not merely what activities, good faith or otherwise, were engaged in after the contract was signed so far as lobbying for a new stadium."
Bennett's spokesman Dan Mahoney and NBA spokesman Tim Frank could not be reached for comment Monday night.
Terry Foster, assistant to the dean at Seattle University's Albers School of Business and Economics, said Schultz's case hinges upon the definition of good faith.
"It just allows for so many different interpretations that it may not be much to hang your hat on if that's all there is go on," Foster said. "In other words, if there's not some specific promise in that original agreement that defines what they mean by good faith, then it's open to interpretation from all sides."
At the time of the sale, Schultz said he had included a side letter to the sales agreement that he called a "deal breaker."
"As part of the negotiation, I asked for something that was a deal breaker in negotiation," he said in a KJR (950 AM) interview then. "What I asked for was a side letter to our ownership group and to me ... that said basically he would honor the four-year lease in terms of the 2010 terms, and use his best efforts over the next 12 months ... to get something done."
Last week, when the e-mails become public, former Sonics co-owner Wally Walker said they clashed with the "good faith" pledge Bennett made when he bought the team.
"For the people who voted for the deal, the good-faith, best-efforts promise was a significant factor in supporting the deal," Walker said. "This is not what they signed up for."
NBA owners will gather Friday in New York City to vote on the proposed move. A subcommittee has recommended approval.
Stern has suggested that Oklahoma City — when combined with the presence of Tulsa less than 100 miles away — could be a viable market even though Seattle has a higher population and TV audience. On Monday, he downplayed Seattle's role as a gateway to Asia.
"I would say that we don't ever like to leave a city," Stern said. "We don't like to leave a city as robust as Seattle, but the Asian cities that we're tending to focus more on have names like Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong and Guangzhou.
"It's disheartening simply to leave the city, as it would be to leave any city."
Percy Allen: 206-464-2278 or [email protected]. The Associated Press contributed to this story.
Copyright © 2008 The Seattle Times Company
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/sonics/2004349361_schultz15.html
By Percy Allen
Seattle Times staff reporter
Howard Schultz says he wants the Sonics back.
Nearly two years after selling Seattle's NBA franchise to Oklahoma City investors, the Starbucks mogul has hired a lawyer and is preparing to file a lawsuit against Sonics chairman Clay Bennett to rescind the July 2006 sale.
Attorney Richard Yarmuth confirmed Monday that his Seattle-based law firm, Yarmuth Wilsdon Calfo, is representing Schultz and plans to sue Bennett's Professional Basketball Club in the next two weeks.
"The damages that are being sought is to rescind, unwind the transaction," Yarmuth said a day after the team played what could have been its final home game in Seattle.
"It's not money damage. It's to have the team returned. The theory of the suit is that when the team was sold, the Basketball Club of Seattle, our team here, relied on promises made by Clay Bennett and his ownership that they desired to keep the team in Seattle and intended to make a good-faith effort to accomplish that."
When Bennett purchased the Sonics and its sister franchise in the WNBA, the Storm, for $350 million, he agreed to a stipulation that he would make a good-faith effort to keep both teams in Seattle. He has since sold the Storm to four Seattle women who will keep the team here.
E-mails among the Oklahoma City owners, made public last week, paint a different picture of their intentions. In preparation for a June 16 trial in Seattle's lawsuit, which seeks to hold the owners to the remaining two years of the team's KeyArena lease, lawyers for the city obtained several e-mails in which owners expressed an intent to move to Oklahoma City shortly after the sale.
On Aug. 2, 2006, two weeks after the sale, team co-owners Tom Ward and Aubrey McClendon e-mailed about moving the Sonics to Oklahoma City as soon as possible. The communication was after one of the original Oklahoma partners had dropped out of the ownership group.
"I don't think that you and I really want to own a team there [Seattle] either but we are better partners," Ward wrote.
On April 17 last year, Ward wrote McClendon and Bennett: "Is there any way to move here [Oklahoma City] for next season or are we doomed to have another lame duck season in Seattle?"
The exchanges detail a breach of contract, Yarmuth said. He also cites McClendon's comments last August to the (Oklahoma) Business Journal in which the billionaire founder and chief executive of Chesapeake Energy said: "We didn't buy the team to keep it in Seattle; we hoped to come here [Oklahoma City]."
"The issue is did the Oklahoma group fraudulently induce the Seattle owners, Howard Schultz and the other owners, to sell the team on a misrepresentation of their intentions at the time," Yarmuth said.
McClendon's published comments drew a $250,000 fine from the NBA. On Monday, NBA commissioner David Stern said he is aware of the e-mails and is convinced Bennett acted in accordance with the sale agreement.
"I haven't studied them, but my sense of it was that Clay, as the managing partner and the driving force of the group, was operating in good faith under the agreement that had been made with Howard Schultz," Stern said on a conference call. "His straight and narrow path may not have been shared by all of his partners in their views, but Clay was the one that was making policy for the partnership."
Even though Bennett made several trips to the state to drum up support for a proposed $500 million arena in Renton and hired a Seattle-based lobbyist and architectural firm, Yarmuth said, those efforts have no bearing on Schultz's lawsuit.
"We're talking about fraud at the time the contract was signed," Yarmuth said. "It's not merely what activities, good faith or otherwise, were engaged in after the contract was signed so far as lobbying for a new stadium."
Bennett's spokesman Dan Mahoney and NBA spokesman Tim Frank could not be reached for comment Monday night.
Terry Foster, assistant to the dean at Seattle University's Albers School of Business and Economics, said Schultz's case hinges upon the definition of good faith.
"It just allows for so many different interpretations that it may not be much to hang your hat on if that's all there is go on," Foster said. "In other words, if there's not some specific promise in that original agreement that defines what they mean by good faith, then it's open to interpretation from all sides."
At the time of the sale, Schultz said he had included a side letter to the sales agreement that he called a "deal breaker."
"As part of the negotiation, I asked for something that was a deal breaker in negotiation," he said in a KJR (950 AM) interview then. "What I asked for was a side letter to our ownership group and to me ... that said basically he would honor the four-year lease in terms of the 2010 terms, and use his best efforts over the next 12 months ... to get something done."
Last week, when the e-mails become public, former Sonics co-owner Wally Walker said they clashed with the "good faith" pledge Bennett made when he bought the team.
"For the people who voted for the deal, the good-faith, best-efforts promise was a significant factor in supporting the deal," Walker said. "This is not what they signed up for."
NBA owners will gather Friday in New York City to vote on the proposed move. A subcommittee has recommended approval.
Stern has suggested that Oklahoma City — when combined with the presence of Tulsa less than 100 miles away — could be a viable market even though Seattle has a higher population and TV audience. On Monday, he downplayed Seattle's role as a gateway to Asia.
"I would say that we don't ever like to leave a city," Stern said. "We don't like to leave a city as robust as Seattle, but the Asian cities that we're tending to focus more on have names like Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong and Guangzhou.
"It's disheartening simply to leave the city, as it would be to leave any city."
Percy Allen: 206-464-2278 or [email protected]. The Associated Press contributed to this story.
Copyright © 2008 The Seattle Times Company
This could very well just be a PR move by Howie...we all know he is one of the enemies in this whole fiasco. Maybe he is trying to save face. Why would he spend any more money on lawyers and what not if he sold the team in the first place? Why should he care? He obviously didnt care THAT much if he sold it to a group called "The Oklahoma Professional Basketball Association" or what the fuck Clay is calling his band of lyin cronies.
Ill believe it when i see it.
Ill believe it when i see it.
I beleive it!!!!
I got this from ESPN's message board:
http://forums.seattletimes.nwsource...44&t=49886&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=190
I got this from ESPN's message board:
http://forums.seattletimes.nwsource...44&t=49886&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=190
J.A. Adande is my dude...
http://sports.espn.go.com/broadband/video/videopage?videoId=3348033&categoryId=2378529
He has had Seattle's back ever since this started, and he continues to do so.
http://sports.espn.go.com/broadband/video/videopage?videoId=3348033&categoryId=2378529
He has had Seattle's back ever since this started, and he continues to do so.
Appearntly, Bennett has dabbled in this "swindling" type shit prior to the Sonics...check this:
http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/...s/MYSA041508.buck_harvey_0415.en.369826d.html
Buck Harvey: Spurs skirt snakes on the plain
Web Posted: 04/14/2008 10:13 PM CDT
Buck Harvey
Express-News Staff Writer
Robert McDermott never thought they were evil Okies. Neither did Peter Holt, even when he eliminated them from the equation.
But there were signs then the Spurs were sleeping with the enemy, and what has been revealed lately outlines what was possible years ago when Clay Bennett and his company owned more of the Spurs than anyone else.
Oh, how Seattle gets that.
The Spurs always were vulnerable to relocation until funding for the AT&T Center was found, and McDermott saw danger in 1993. Then, he put together a 22-piece ownership group to buy the team from Red McCombs.
McCombs has insisted he never would have sold to a group who intended to move the Spurs. But, as Seattle knows, intentions change.
The previous Sonics owner, Howard Schultz of Starbucks fame, assured Seattle that Bennett's ownership group was the best option for keeping the team. Bennett was as assuring.
Bennett, in those days in San Antonio, didn't say much. He was just part of McDermott's 22.
Out front was a New York suit named Jack Diller. He had a lot of sports management experience but no ties to Texas. It was his job to find a path to a new arena.
Bennett stayed in the background, albeit with his company, Gaylord Properties, as the largest shareholder. This is the only time in Spurs history when a group or person without ties to South Texas was in that position.
Oklahoma City wasn't ready for the NBA in the mid-'90s, but Gaylord had other interests. The company oversaw a shiny arena in Nashville without a tenant.
But that never became a public issue, even as Gaylord continued to buy shares of the Spurs as they became available. Diller, meanwhile, wasn't getting anywhere on the arena front.
Had this continued, how long would it have been before Bennett offered the remaining investors a lucrative exit strategy?
Enter Holt. He initially bought only 13 percent of the franchise, then purchased more when the Maloof brothers, who later purchased the Sacramento Kings, put in a bid.
Holt's next move solidified everything, and anyone who considers him cheap should consider this: Holt bought out Gaylord.
Holt was patient after that, letting others get in front of the arena push. The Tim Duncan lottery gave him a chip he never saw coming, but Hill Country Holt always made it clear he wasn't going anywhere. That went a long way toward building a community consensus.
Gaylord also was patient, and it got a hockey franchise for its Nashville arena. Diller became team president.
Looking back, was San Antonio in a chess game it didn't know was being played?
Seattle has been in something closer to a vise. Bennett and his Oklahoma buddies bought the Sonics, then met the usual arena resistance that's in every city.
Bennett, unlike Holt, reacted with threats and urgency. As one Seattle newspaper put it, Bennett's concept of good faith bargaining was "making absurdly grandiose, non-negotiable demands."
Almost exactly a year ago, during this "good faith" period, a co-owner in Oklahoma City wrote to Bennett to ask: "Is there any way to move here for next season, or are we doomed to have another lame duck season in Seattle?"
Bennett's reply: "I am a man possessed! Will do everything we can. Thanks for hanging with me boys. The game is getting started!"
That exchange only surfaced recently. In the meantime, another co-owner slipped and told an Oklahoma City publication, "We didn't buy the team to keep it in Seattle." Bennett responded with a lie fitting of these snakes on the plain.
Bennett told David Stern his group has "never discussed moving the team to Oklahoma City."
Bennett is a man possessed, all right, but Stern doesn't mind. He said Monday he's sticking by Bennett.
Given that, it's a certainty a team that flourished for 41 years will leave one of North America's largest pro markets.
And back in one of the smaller ones? Everyone should be thankful Bennett didn't stay around.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/...s/MYSA041508.buck_harvey_0415.en.369826d.html
Buck Harvey: Spurs skirt snakes on the plain
Web Posted: 04/14/2008 10:13 PM CDT
Buck Harvey
Express-News Staff Writer
Robert McDermott never thought they were evil Okies. Neither did Peter Holt, even when he eliminated them from the equation.
But there were signs then the Spurs were sleeping with the enemy, and what has been revealed lately outlines what was possible years ago when Clay Bennett and his company owned more of the Spurs than anyone else.
Oh, how Seattle gets that.
The Spurs always were vulnerable to relocation until funding for the AT&T Center was found, and McDermott saw danger in 1993. Then, he put together a 22-piece ownership group to buy the team from Red McCombs.
McCombs has insisted he never would have sold to a group who intended to move the Spurs. But, as Seattle knows, intentions change.
The previous Sonics owner, Howard Schultz of Starbucks fame, assured Seattle that Bennett's ownership group was the best option for keeping the team. Bennett was as assuring.
Bennett, in those days in San Antonio, didn't say much. He was just part of McDermott's 22.
Out front was a New York suit named Jack Diller. He had a lot of sports management experience but no ties to Texas. It was his job to find a path to a new arena.
Bennett stayed in the background, albeit with his company, Gaylord Properties, as the largest shareholder. This is the only time in Spurs history when a group or person without ties to South Texas was in that position.
Oklahoma City wasn't ready for the NBA in the mid-'90s, but Gaylord had other interests. The company oversaw a shiny arena in Nashville without a tenant.
But that never became a public issue, even as Gaylord continued to buy shares of the Spurs as they became available. Diller, meanwhile, wasn't getting anywhere on the arena front.
Had this continued, how long would it have been before Bennett offered the remaining investors a lucrative exit strategy?
Enter Holt. He initially bought only 13 percent of the franchise, then purchased more when the Maloof brothers, who later purchased the Sacramento Kings, put in a bid.
Holt's next move solidified everything, and anyone who considers him cheap should consider this: Holt bought out Gaylord.
Holt was patient after that, letting others get in front of the arena push. The Tim Duncan lottery gave him a chip he never saw coming, but Hill Country Holt always made it clear he wasn't going anywhere. That went a long way toward building a community consensus.
Gaylord also was patient, and it got a hockey franchise for its Nashville arena. Diller became team president.
Looking back, was San Antonio in a chess game it didn't know was being played?
Seattle has been in something closer to a vise. Bennett and his Oklahoma buddies bought the Sonics, then met the usual arena resistance that's in every city.
Bennett, unlike Holt, reacted with threats and urgency. As one Seattle newspaper put it, Bennett's concept of good faith bargaining was "making absurdly grandiose, non-negotiable demands."
Almost exactly a year ago, during this "good faith" period, a co-owner in Oklahoma City wrote to Bennett to ask: "Is there any way to move here for next season, or are we doomed to have another lame duck season in Seattle?"
Bennett's reply: "I am a man possessed! Will do everything we can. Thanks for hanging with me boys. The game is getting started!"
That exchange only surfaced recently. In the meantime, another co-owner slipped and told an Oklahoma City publication, "We didn't buy the team to keep it in Seattle." Bennett responded with a lie fitting of these snakes on the plain.
Bennett told David Stern his group has "never discussed moving the team to Oklahoma City."
Bennett is a man possessed, all right, but Stern doesn't mind. He said Monday he's sticking by Bennett.
Given that, it's a certainty a team that flourished for 41 years will leave one of North America's largest pro markets.
And back in one of the smaller ones? Everyone should be thankful Bennett didn't stay around.
Washington senators ask NBA to delay Sonics' relocation vote
WASHINGTON -- Washington's two U.S. senators are asking the NBA to delay its scheduled vote on whether the Seattle SuperSonics can move to Oklahoma City.
In a letter to NBA commissioner David Stern, Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell say the Sonics' Oklahoma City owners apparently weren't acting in good faith while trying to get a deal for a new arena in Seattle.
The letter, sent Wednesday, follows a similar missive from Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire and other political leaders, who also asked that the vote be delayed. Washington leaders are angry about news reports disclosing e-mails that showed team owners discussing whether they could leave Seattle, even before a good-faith deadline for pursuing a Seattle arena.
Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=3350289
WASHINGTON -- Washington's two U.S. senators are asking the NBA to delay its scheduled vote on whether the Seattle SuperSonics can move to Oklahoma City.
In a letter to NBA commissioner David Stern, Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell say the Sonics' Oklahoma City owners apparently weren't acting in good faith while trying to get a deal for a new arena in Seattle.
The letter, sent Wednesday, follows a similar missive from Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire and other political leaders, who also asked that the vote be delayed. Washington leaders are angry about news reports disclosing e-mails that showed team owners discussing whether they could leave Seattle, even before a good-faith deadline for pursuing a Seattle arena.
Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=3350289
Sonics owner Bennett fires back at Seattle
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004356164_websonics17m.html
By Jim Brunner
Seattle Times staff reporter
After a week of bad publicity, Sonics owner Clay Bennett is striking back — accusing Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels in court documents of a "Machiavellian plan" to force Bennett and his fellow Oklahoma City-based owners to sell the team back to Seattle investors.
In a federal court filing, Bennett's lawyers also say Nickels' office concealed evidence that a proposed $300 million KeyArena expansion floated by the mayor would have cost more than that.
The latest legal argument, filed Wednesday in Seattle, says documents obtained by the Sonics' lawyers show the city's lawsuit "has nothing to do with the last two years of the [Sonics' KeyArena] lease."
"This litigation and the recent media frenzy the City helped ignite are part of an agreed-upon strategy between the City and a potential purchaser of the Sonics," said the court filing, referring to a local investor group led by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.
The Sonics' filing accuses Seattle officials and Ballmer's group of trying to hide the truth from the public by insisting that some documents turned over to the Sonics' attorneys remain confidential.
Due to objections over what can be made public, major portions of the evidence the Sonics are citing were redacted in Wednesday's filing.
Sonics attorneys are seeking a court order to publicly reveal evidence of what they call the city's "significant duplicity."
Seattle developer Matt Griffin, a partner in Ballmer's group of potential Sonics buyers, insisted that some of the documents be shielded from public disclosure, Sonics attorneys said in the filing — the latest volley in the increasingly antagonistic lawsuit filed by Seattle to hold the team to its KeyArena lease through September 2010.
Sonics' attorneys argue in the new filing that Griffin and Seattle officials are "desperate" to keep the documents secret "because they detail the City's complicity and its coordinated effort to use this litigation to make 'the Oklahomans' bleed cash in a hostile media environment."
Former U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton, who is representing Seattle in its lawsuit, said today he has not seen the latest filing.
But Gorton said the Sonics — not the city — started the fight over the KeyArena lease when the team announced it wanted to seek arbitration to escape the lease before it expires in 2010.
Seattle City Attorney Tom Carr could not immediately be reached for comment.
Jim Brunner: 206-515-5628 or [email protected]
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004356164_websonics17m.html
By Jim Brunner
Seattle Times staff reporter
After a week of bad publicity, Sonics owner Clay Bennett is striking back — accusing Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels in court documents of a "Machiavellian plan" to force Bennett and his fellow Oklahoma City-based owners to sell the team back to Seattle investors.
In a federal court filing, Bennett's lawyers also say Nickels' office concealed evidence that a proposed $300 million KeyArena expansion floated by the mayor would have cost more than that.
The latest legal argument, filed Wednesday in Seattle, says documents obtained by the Sonics' lawyers show the city's lawsuit "has nothing to do with the last two years of the [Sonics' KeyArena] lease."
"This litigation and the recent media frenzy the City helped ignite are part of an agreed-upon strategy between the City and a potential purchaser of the Sonics," said the court filing, referring to a local investor group led by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.
The Sonics' filing accuses Seattle officials and Ballmer's group of trying to hide the truth from the public by insisting that some documents turned over to the Sonics' attorneys remain confidential.
Due to objections over what can be made public, major portions of the evidence the Sonics are citing were redacted in Wednesday's filing.
Sonics attorneys are seeking a court order to publicly reveal evidence of what they call the city's "significant duplicity."
Seattle developer Matt Griffin, a partner in Ballmer's group of potential Sonics buyers, insisted that some of the documents be shielded from public disclosure, Sonics attorneys said in the filing — the latest volley in the increasingly antagonistic lawsuit filed by Seattle to hold the team to its KeyArena lease through September 2010.
Sonics' attorneys argue in the new filing that Griffin and Seattle officials are "desperate" to keep the documents secret "because they detail the City's complicity and its coordinated effort to use this litigation to make 'the Oklahomans' bleed cash in a hostile media environment."
Former U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton, who is representing Seattle in its lawsuit, said today he has not seen the latest filing.
But Gorton said the Sonics — not the city — started the fight over the KeyArena lease when the team announced it wanted to seek arbitration to escape the lease before it expires in 2010.
Seattle City Attorney Tom Carr could not immediately be reached for comment.
Jim Brunner: 206-515-5628 or [email protected]
