Seattle Mourning
It’s now official: an NBA franchise will be in Oklahoma City next year. It’s actually been official for a few days now, but I decided to wait until the dark cloud had been removed before I sat down to share some thoughts about it.
Let me ask this question to Clay Bennett: how is taking a business, any business, from Seattle to Oklahoma City good for it’s long-term future? I doubt taking a $300 million business from a top fifteen market for a top fifty market translates into a profitable long-term financial venture. Sure, the first couple of years the arena in Oklahoma City will be full, merchandise sales will of course be high, and the excitement will probably feel like the move was the right thing to do. However, as the losses pile up and the tickets become too expensive for people living in one of the tougher economic areas of the country, home attendance and overall team interest will start to dwindle.
As much as I love college football, anytime the big draw in the state is NCAA football’s Oklahoma Sooners, that simply can’t bode well for a business of this magnitude. In a ESPN.com poll taken from Wednesday, over seventy percent of the voters said they’d rather pay to go to an Oklahoma Sooners football game than watch the former-Sonics play. That’s pretty bad, and it’s telling of the type of long-term reaction this franchise is looking at unless they are able to become a playoff team in the ever-so-tough Western Conference.
I mean seriously, how do they plan to attract free agents to Oklahoma City? How do they plan to retain their own players once they become free agents? What could possibly be their selling point? There’s no viable angle. Even the Utah Jazz think that Oklahoma City will be a tough draw for free agents, especially when they’re currently one of the worst teams in professional basketball. How do they plan on marketing a player like Kevin Durant, who will likely be one of the leagues biggest stars before he’s eligible to test the free agent market? Do they really think that Durant will stay in Oklahoma City in favor of markets like Chicago, New York, or Los Angeles? Maybe if they were halfway decent they could imagine him staying, but not when the current state of the team is light years away from being competitive.
Without getting into the building of the new arena thing, I simply cannot fathom why anybody would want to leave Seattle in the first place. Of course, we all know Clay Bennett bought the team with the intention of moving it back to his hometown, though he now denies that, it still doesn’t make much sense. Doesn’t he have people on his staff advising him of the financial risks that are at stake? Seattle, by all accounts, is probably one of the best sports towns in the United States, and taking basketball away is not only a bad thing for the city and fans of Seattle, but a bad thing for the NBA. Several NBA players have recently said that Seattle is one of their favorite cities on the schedule and that they’ll miss playing there.
I suppose the only good thing that came possibly come of this whole thing is that the team name and colors were left behind for a future franchise. That’s probably not much for Sonic fans, but that leaves the doors open for professional basketball to return when that didn’t seem likely just a matter of weeks ago.
*Send any questions or comments about this post to ajohn135@gmail.com
July 4, 2008 at 10:21 PM
Oklahoma City is actually a nice city. But Salt Lake city is, too, and neither of them are as exciting a location for a basketball team as Seattle. So I agree with the argument. A team like New Orleans feels so cash-strapped that it sells picks even though it has no bench, but Oklahoma City is going to be able to support a perennial lotto team?
I don’t know the details about the move to OKC, but I know the Sonics wanted the taxpayers of Seattle to pay for their arena, so I hope this isn’t all about extorting city and state governments into subsidizing what should be a self-sufficient business enterprise. If Stern is on board with extortion efforts like that, then bad on him.
July 4, 2008 at 11:01 PM
Just thought I would share some of my thoughts and feelings about the Sonics move to Oklahoma City from Seattle. I have been following the news for quite some time now and was skeptical at the beginning of the fiasco when Bennett was handed the team. Today was a very sad day for me when I read the 8:00 eastern press conference judge ruling on the case whether to keep the Sonics in Seattle or let them be stripped away by a slimy businessman.
I grew up watching and getting excited for Sonics games as a young boy. I remember going over to my friend Tony’s house every day after school and putting on my Gary Payton Jersey and playing one on one for hours against him in his Kevin Johnson Suns jersey. It was the first real sport I followed and could name the players and positions. I had the opportunity to go to a couple of games in the past few years and will keep those memories with me. I have also watched many a game on TV. I got to meet Kevin Durant in person and speak a little with him. I spent a whole day on forest fires looking at Shawn Kemp dunk videos in my tent
. I defended the Sonics against friends who were Nuggets, Trailblazer, and Lakers fans. Those are a few of the many memories I have.
It makes me upset, that one man could take a 41 year old team with unquantifiable value. Like the memories I have written, I have seen that there are many others in the same boat who have shared experiences with family members and friends and now those memories have been taken away to Oklahoma City. It seems insensitive of the NBA to allow something like this to occur and even take an active role of facilitating it. There are a lot of people that are angry out there as result.
In following the news and watching the team unravel according to Clay Bennett’s desire; from the gutting of the team (Ray Allen, Rashard Lewis, Wally Sc.., Radmonovic and all others to playoff contender teams), to claiming the city was apathetic in light of all the fan support and concern, to demanding unreasonable costs to renovate the Key Arena, and not being open to any other options, to not keeping the “good faith clause”, to not allowing the Sonics to stay the two more years as stated in the Key Arena lease, to not accepting bids to sell the team to keep it in Seattle, to the mayor for selling the team for money, to crushing 41 years of memories, I am a little saddened.
Then again, there is not much I can do about it but join the others who feel robbed and know how it feels. I guess I will cheer for the Trailblazers now, which I am excited for and I don’t think it will be very long till Seattle gets another team. I am happy they get to keep the colors and name. A friend told me today, “well maybe you can buy the team back when you are rich in a couple of years”
We’ll see. Hasta la Vista Sonics! Have fun in Oklahoma.
I have been playing this to feel better( http://www.killclaybennett.com/ ), you can too. Clay Bennett is the owner behind it all who is taking the Sonics to Seattle. Here is a great link to what will happen now: http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/story?columnist=adande_ja&page=sonicsmove_080702
July 5, 2008 at 12:04 AM
Thanks for the comments, Ryan. I think I may have racked up the high score on that website you suggested.
I like what J.A. Adande said about the situation. I don’t believe, however, that the move has anything, or little at most, to do with the city fitting the bill for the new arena. Bennett bought the team with the intention of moving them to Oklahoma City and simply found an excuse that was viable enough to justify doing it. To the dismay of Sonics fans everywhere, the NBA and Commissioner David Stern allowed it to happen, and it’s downright sickening.
Although I don’t believe anybody misunderstood my feelings when I wrote this, I wanted to clarify that I wasn’t trying to disrespect Oklahoma City of the good people that live there. I was only pointing out that the NBA has no business being there when a perfectly good NBA city such as Seattle remains vacant.
July 5, 2008 at 12:41 PM
I think that Seattle will get a franchise within five years, despite the fact that the NBA doesn’t want to form an expansion team. Rick Bucher is reporting that a team such as the Memphis Grizzlies, who haven’t seen an abundance of support in their current location, might be an ideal fit to relocate once Seattle has a renovated Key Arena. That would probably benefit the NBA considering the Grizzlies have multiple players that the league could better market in a place like Seattle.
July 5, 2008 at 3:04 PM
Seattle being wipe out of the NBA, it kind of annoys me too.
I hope they’ll get a new NBA franchise in the future, but it’s gonna be hard.
July 8, 2008 at 11:44 AM
[...] Melo Backpedal asks the good question – is moving from Seattle to Oklahoma City a good financial move? No, really, how is it a good [...]
July 9, 2008 at 12:34 PM
The new OKC team laid a big egg in their first pre-season game in franchise history, and its rather telling of what the future holds for the team in general. I don’t doubt that OKC is a fine city, but leaving Seattle sitting on the shelves is a mistake considering how strong the fans base and history was in that city.