'Sonicsgate' to get national exposure on CNBC

[ou48A]

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/sonicsg...4151--nba.html

SEATTLE (AP) Adam Brown and Jason Reid weren't seeking critical acclaim or a national audience when they went about chronicling the steps that led the Seattle SuperSonics to become the Oklahoma City Thunder.

They were fans simply trying to document the departure of their team after four decades in Seattle.

The result was ''Sonicsgate: Requiem for a Team,'' a critically acclaimed, award-winning documentary released on the Internet in 2009. It became a cult success that brought Brown and Reid awards, attention and helped fans still coming to grips with the departure of the NBA.

Now three years later, a trimmed down, recut and updated version of Brown and Reid's original documentary will get a national stage on Friday night when it's broadcast on CNBC, which purchased the rights.

''We haven't slept in four months,'' Brown joked this week. ''We recut the full movie down to scratch. Even if someone has watched it 10 times before, they will get something new out of this new cut.''

The original online version released in 2009 was a two-hour examination of the SuperSonics from their inception in 1967 to their lone NBA title in 1978 and the moves that led to their departure for Oklahoma City in 2008.

Reid and Brown didn't worry about getting formal approval for all the television footage, audio and still pictures used in the original version, playing into their guerrilla approach to present their story with raw footage, basic graphics and narration to tell the tale.

The film has had nearly 300,000 views on YouTube. It was named ''The Most Persuasive Grassroots Flick of 2009'' by Sports Illustrated and received a Webby Award in 2010 for the best sports film. Memorabilia featuring the ''Sonicsgate'' logo is a must-have for Seattle hoop fans hopeful of seeing the NBA return someday.

But the original cut was simply a production of fan passion. So when CNBC called last December and began discussions about giving Sonicsgate a national audience, there were significant obstacles to overcome. Most notable was the need for Brown and Reid to get permission for all the footage used in the original version. Brown said they were paid ''just enough'' to cover rights costs, add some fancier graphics and get better music in the recut version.

Also important to Reid and Brown was the ability to hold on to the original directors cut. So while the sleeker version that airs on CNBC will be available for purchase on DVD, the original will remain forever available on the web.

CNBC said in an email that the network was drawn by the ''compelling investigative documentary about the corporate, financial and political intrigue behind one of the biggest battles in the business of basketball.''

The story is told through the eyes of Sonics fans angry at the multitude of mistakes that led to the Sonics' departure after 41 seasons. But Brown and Reid tried not to be over the top in assessing blame - although there are a few subtle shots at Thunder owner Clay Bennett in the original version that were cut from the new version.

Much of the blame is aimed at Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz, who owned the SuperSonics before selling to Bennett's group in 2006, believing that ownership outside of Seattle would help the push to get a renovated or new arena that worked within the NBA economic model.

The national release comes at a time when momentum is building in Seattle to address the biggest issue that led to the Sonics' departure: a new arena. San Francisco businessman and Seattle native Chris Hansen has proposed a $490 million venue, with nearly $300 million of that coming from private funding. The remainder would be bonded by the city and county and paid off through taxes and revenues generated by the new building.

The proposal is still being debated by city and county councils.

''This project has had so much serendipity behind it. CNBC approached us three months before Chris Hansen came forward. Now here we are with the premiere the day before the NBA playoffs start,'' Brown said. '' ... Every time this story kind of dies down and we start working on one of our other films something happens and this gets shoved back into the forefront.''

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[Maynard]

Premiers this evening (Friday) @ 9pm local time on CNBC.

[Doug Loudenback]

I didn't catch the Friday showing but plan to watch tonight's CNBC's 1-hour version of "Sonicsgate" at 9 p.m. on CNBC (Cox channel 41). Since we have no game tonight, it might be something you'd enjoy doing, too. See http://www.businessinsider.com/must-...0-pm-et-2012-4, which says,

If you haven’t seen “Sonicsgate,” about how the storied 41-year Seattle Sonics franchise was stolen from that city, it’s a must watch. It airs at CNBC on 10 pm ET, so tune in or set your DVRs.

You can view the original movie on the Sonicsgate website, although the version airing tonight has been revised and includes new material. You can also learn more about the latest developments on the efforts to get basketball back to Seattle.

[Spartan]

I really do feel for the Sonics fans. I appreciated the part at the end with the guy (who was that again?) admitting his assessment that Seattle won't ever have another NBA team without "stealing" it from another city. He's right there.

I don't see why they don't just lower the boom and go after Sacramento, Orlando, New Orleans, Milwaukee, maybe even Portland, and so on. There are plenty of weak links out there. Hopefully they can go after those before our ticket prices rise a bit due to Bennett being extorted for Round 2 from those yahoos.

As for the history, I think the only reason for keeping it in OKC was the assumption that the rebuilding would take longer and the team wouldn't be as competitive for a long time. Now that such is obviously NOT that case, why don't they keep their paltry one championship while we go earn our own? They can even keep the record that we had our first year in OKC..

[bluedogok]

New Orleans isn't moving anywhere since Tom Benson (owner of the Saints and New Orleans native) recently purchased the team from the NBA. Out of those listed Sacramento or Orlando are the only ones that might be candidates for relocating. The Bucks are owned by Herb Kohl and he seems to do a lot for his home town, I don't see him selling the team any time soon or even consider relocating. The wild card could be Paul Allen and the Blazers and his connections to Seattle but I really don't see him relocating the team either.

[betts]

Orlando just built a brand new $500 million arena. They're not moving.

[ljbab728]

The Oklahoma Gazette's take on this show's airing.

http://okgazette.com/oklahoma/articl...n-seattle.html

[Spartan]

Sounds like Sacramento should start worrying, based on the above posts.

Oh, I forgot Memphis. Maaaybe Charlotte, but that one seems to be turning around even in spite of the team's performance (impressively continuing to improve at awfulness each season). At what point is the NBA going to have enough mediocrity to overlook the very good years before Shinn soiled that market?

Charlotte '90s = OKC 2010's

[Soonerman]

Didn't Memphis just built an arena recently? I wouldn't think they would go anywhere.

[BoulderSooner]

until seattle builds a new arena .. they are not getting a team

[Snowman]

Didn't Memphis just built an arena recently? I wouldn't think they would go anywhere.

They used to have an attendance problem despite decent performance on the court but attendance has been steadily climbing recent years and selling out in the playoffs, so if it ever was an option they probably missed it. Plus the new union contract gets all small markets like them and us more money from local revenue streams and major markets TV deals.

[dcsooner]

Watched the documentary last night. Old news

[TaoMaas]

To me, the real "bad guy" in this (if there is one) is David Stern. If he had stayed out of things, the Hornets would have relocated to OKC and Seattle would still have the Sonics.

[Matt]

This probably isn't worthy of it's own thread, but it's most-definitely worthy of a read, so I'll post it here.

Deadspin: Howard Schultz Gave Out $3.50 Starbucks Gift Cards: An Insider’s Notes On The Shabby Death Of The Seattle SuperSonics

Here's a snippet:

I could have gone to that last game, the one where fans chanted to "Save Our Sonics." That came a year after I'd left. Friends with the team offered me tickets, but I declined because I believed it would only be the last game of the season, not the last of the Seattle SuperSonics. Like the Mariners and Seahawks, which had threatened to leave before, the Sonics would find a way to stay.

And then they were gone. I still have friends, much bigger basketball fans than I am, who have totally abandoned the NBA. In that first season with no basketball in Seattle, I simply couldn't bring myself to watch the league, though I did delight in catching stories about the Thunder's ineptitude in OKC. I've slowly come back to the NBA as a basketball nomad in search of a team, and for the most part I've tried to ignore the Thunder. But now that they're on the verge of joining the league's elite, some old resentments have been rekindled. This should be our team, my heart tells me, not Clay's, not Oklahoma City's.

I wish I could really believe that. But the Thunder, the runaway Northwest Division champions, are not the Sonics. Had Howard Schultz not sold this team to Clay Bennett, the Thunder as we know them—the title contender Seattle fans so desperately wish they'd had—wouldn't exist. Under Howard Schultz and Wally Walker, the Sonics were a team and organization that aspired to adequacy. Maybe they would be good, but they would never be great. Fans could see it on the court and during the draft (Robert Swift and Mouhamed Sene?!); employees could see it in the shabby, penny-pinching way the front office was run.

In Seattle, we wanted to denigrate the Okies so much that we couldn't even keep our prejudices straight. We heard Bennett and Co.'s accents and saw their regressive politics, and we labeled them rubes and idiots. At the same time, we painted them as sinister geniuses who'd cynically orchestrated the theft of our team, with David Stern as their co-conspirator. Resentful Seattleites are like those 9/11 Truthers who simultaneously believe that the government is both totally inept and guilty of perpetrating and covering up an immense terror plot. You can't have it both ways. Either Bennett is an idiot who married into his fortune and lucked into the team, or he's a canny businessman who played the game shrewdly and won.

I have to think he's the latter. I need only look at the organization he's put together to know he's running the club better than Schultz—the media-ordained genius—ever did. It was Bennett who brought in the architect of the club, Sam Presti, based on their mutual connections with the San Antonio Spurs. It was Bennett who allowed Presti to build slowly around Durant instead of demanding wins immediately. Sure, there was plenty of bad faith on Bennett's part during the sale, but at this point it's silly to expect anything else from a sports owner. Caveat emptor applies to us as much as it does to owners. They are running revenue-maximizing operations, and a fanbase is of use to them only to the extent that it makes them money. All we can hope for is that an owner cares enough about his product to give us something worth watching every year. By all evidence Clay Bennett cares about his product. Howard Schultz never did. Maybe that's the ultimate deception in the Sonics' story: A lot of us had the wrong villain all along.