Sale of Team
On July 18, 2006, the Basketball Club of Seattle, led by Howard Schultz, sold the Seattle SuperSonics and Seattle Storm after failing to reach an agreement with the City of Seattle over a publicly funded $220 million expansion of KeyArena, which was remodeled in 1995 and was the NBA's smallest venue, with a seating capacity of 17,098. After failing to find a local ownership group to sell the team to, Schultz talked to ownership groups from Kansas City, St. Louis, Las Vegas, San Jose and Anaheim before agreeing to sell the team to an ownership group in Oklahoma City, which pursued an NBA franchise after hosting the New Orleans Hornets successfully for two seasons as New Orleans rebuilt from Hurricane Katrina. The sale to Clay Bennett's group for $350 million was approved by NBA owners on October 24, 2006. Terms of the sale required the new ownership group to "use good faith best efforts" for the term of 12 months in securing a new arena lease or venue in the Greater Seattle Area.
On February 12, 2007, Bennett proposed using tax money to pay for a new $500 million arena in Renton, Washington, a Seattle suburb. After failing to reach a deal by the end of the legislative session, Bennett gave up his attempt in April 2007. On November 2, 2007 the team announced it would move to Oklahoma City as soon as it could get free of its KeyArena lease. Seattle's mayor, Greg Nickels, maintained the stance that the Sonics were expected to stay in Seattle until their lease expired in 2010 and said that the city did not intend to make it easy for Bennett to move the team early. Over concerns that the city would accept a buyout of the lease, a grassroots group filed a citywide initiative that sought to prevent the city from accepting such an offer from Bennett's group. The Seattle City Council later unanimously passed an ordinance modeled after the initiative.
On August 13, 2007, Aubrey McClendon, a minor partner of Bennett's ownership group, said in an interview that the team was not purchased to keep it in Seattle but to relocate it to Oklahoma City. Bennett later denied such intentions, saying McClendon "was not speaking on behalf of the ownership group". Due to his comments, McClendon was fined $250,000 by the NBA.
Read more about this topic: Seattle Super Sonics Relocation To Oklahoma City
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