Sonicsgate Part II

[Eric]

I guess this goes in this forum. CNBC has acquired the rights to the documentary Sonicsgate. It has been updated and recut and will be aired this Friday. Just thought that was interesting this far down the road, and especially considering how much better the franchise appears to be doing since moving. Hindsight being 20/20 I would imagine they would do it again.

[Celebrator]

Where's the ignore button for these guys? Bore, bore, bore.

[OKCTalker]

SonicsGATE!? GATE, as in SCANDAL? How so? I hope that this directs fire at the people of Washington for a change, not those bad robber barons from OKC.

The franchise was struggling in Seattle, unprofitable, unsupported by local residents and businesses, and in an arena that no-one would pay to upgrade. A group from OKC shows up and negotiates terms acceptable to the owners and the NBA, including paying to lease their arena for an extra year. I recall that the Seattle group also had an option of keeping the team if public funds were committed for an arena refurb. This last gasp effort also failed, so the team moved to OKC, was rebranded as the Thunder, and its been one sellout after another.

[OKCTalker]

Don't forget that Sonics lead owner Howard Schultz was/is head of Starbucks. At the same time he was forcing the Thunder to honor its lease for the Seattle arena, he was walking from Starbucks leases all around the country as part of their restructuring.

[Bellaboo]

I watched the sonicsgate I, it was full of one (blind) sided information, but I do remember that most of the blame was directed at the Seattle politicians. They hate Bennet, but that was their only recourse, now that the Kings have been mentioned about a possible move to Seattle, I think they'd see things a little different than before, only to their own benefit.

[Urbanized]

SonicsGATE!? GATE, as in SCANDAL? How so? I hope that this directs fire at the people of Washington for a change, not those bad robber barons from OKC.

The franchise was struggling in Seattle, unprofitable, unsupported by local residents and businesses, and in an arena that no-one would pay to upgrade. A group from OKC shows up and negotiates terms acceptable to the owners and the NBA, including paying to lease their arena for an extra year. I recall that the Seattle group also had an option of keeping the team if public funds were committed for an arena refurb. This last gasp effort also failed, so the team moved to OKC, was rebranded as the Thunder, and its been one sellout after another.

I agree with MOST of what you say, but part of the statement is wrong. It is totally unfair and incorrect to say that Sonics FANS didn't support their team. They were first-class fans for 40+ years and they're the only people I feel sorry for.

I say this as a total Thunder homer and season ticket holder who attended 41 home games the first abysmal season and who has averaged more than that number each year since, when you include playoff games and away games I've traveled to.

Most of those fans only bailed on their team for what amounted to a lame-duck season when the handwriting was on the wall and they (incorrectly) interpreted Sam Presti's tear-down/rebuild as an attempt to drive them away instead of as the brilliant team building strategy it has since proven to be. They assumed the worst, mostly because they believed their politicians and media, who NEVER gave Clay a fair shake and assumed the worst from the beginning.

I cringe when I hear OKC people say that somehow it is Sonics fans' fault that they lost the team. It wasn't, and every time we repeat that within earshot of a Sonics fan WE are the ones fanning the flames of this controversy. It's untrue, and just like we don't like seeing untrue dustbowl and hillbilly references made about us by them and others, they surely don't appreciate hearing untruths about what kind of fans they were. This has to be especially true when coming from us, the people who ended up with their lost team.

The people ultimately at fault for the move are Seattle, King County and Washington officials who turned a blind eye to the team's predicament (long before the OKC guys owned it), and voters there who had building fatigue after constructing new palaces for the Mariners and the Seahawks. The OKC guys were only making good business decisions and trying to put OKC in line for a team at some point. Seattle's failure to take care of business only meant "some point" was sooner rather than later.

I've seen Sonicsgate a couple of times, and actually was surprised that it - as it should be - was mostly a very strong indictment of the way politicians in Seattle lost the team through their arrogance and refusal to acknowledge the team as an asset to the community. Frankly, I think they believed there was no way a team would relocate from their shining metropolis to a backwater like OKC, and didn't actually see it coming until the very end.

The film is - as expected - also highly critical of David Stern and the OKC ownership group, and I think it's on pretty shaky ground where it covers that territory. The main place where it fails is in not fairly analyzing the actual business elements of it; that is the advantage of moving the team to a one-sport city where they would actually have first- instead of third-dibs on sponsors, a population that despite being smaller is spread less thinly over its pro team(s), and a debt-free building with potential revenue streams typical of a modern NBA facility.

The move to OKC proved to be a very good BUSINESS decision for the owners and the NBA, and the film does not acknowledge that as even a possibility. I just think Seattle folks were way too proud and emotional regarding the value of their city as compared to ours to consider that a move to OKC could actually make good business sense, or even to care if it did. That was their fatal flaw, and THAT'S the real reason for the move.

[Bellaboo]

The big err in judgement, and this was probably not the sonics fans, but the general populace that voted against the new arena. Also, like you say, voter fatigue from building new baseball and football facilities, did them in.

[Doug Loudenback]

The Sonics moved because Seattle didn't take care business. Had it done so, we would not have a team today. The fans were great, though.

[Urbanized]

LOL. You guys said in a couple of lines what it took me 8 lengthy paragraphs to say.