Ownership of The Seattle SuperSonics
Schultz is the former owner of the NBA's Seattle SuperSonics. During his tenure as team owner, he was criticized for his naivete and propensity to run the franchise as a business rather than a sports team. Schultz feuded with big name star Gary Payton, feeling that Payton disrespected him and the team by not showing up to the first day of training camp in 2002.
On July 18, 2006, Schultz sold the team to Clayton Bennett - chairman of the Professional Basketball Club LLC, an ownership group from Oklahoma City - for $350 million, after having failed to convince the city of Seattle to provide public funding to build a new arena in the Greater Seattle area to replace KeyArena. At the time of the team's sale, it was speculated that the new owners would move the team to their city some time after the 2006-2007 NBA season. On July 2, 2008, the city of Seattle reached a settlement with the new ownership group and the SuperSonics moved to Oklahoma City and became the Thunder for the 2008-09 NBA season. The sale to the out-of-state owners considerably damaged Schultz' popularity in Seattle. In a local newspaper poll, Schultz was judged "most responsible" for the team leaving the city. Before the city of Seattle settled with the Oklahoma City ownership group, Schultz filed a lawsuit against Bennett - in April 2008 - to rescind the July 2006 sale based on what Schultz claimed was fraud and intentional misrepresentation, perhaps trying to reduce the damage to his local image for having sold the team to out of state owners. However, Schultz quickly dropped the lawsuit in August 2008. When Bennett purchased the SuperSonics and its sister franchise in the WNBA, the Seattle Storm, for $350 million, he agreed to a stipulation that he would make a "good-faith best effort" for one year to keep both teams in Seattle. The sincerity of the good faith effort was widely disputed by the way Bennett acted and by direct quotes from his partner Aubrey McClendon. On January 8, 2008, Bennett sold the Storm to Force 10 Hoops, LLC, an ownership group of four Seattle women, which kept the team in Seattle.
Read more about this topic: Howard Schultz
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—Federal Writers’ Project Of The Wor, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
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