What’s sad is the apathy the city displayed toward the franchise and toward the new owners until it became apparent they were going to leave.

Not to mention the “poisoned well” conspiracy the city cooked up to try to force the owners to sell the team.

Sad for the fans, well deserved pennance for a city government that dealt dishonestly with the new owners.

And good for those of us in the Midwest who can now drive a couple of hours and see the World Champs next season.

And for the record, the below link explains the conspiracy entered into to try to force the owners to sell the club to Seattle interests:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008010010_sonitrial21.html

Would have been a lot simpler to just sue the conspirators and get rich than keep the ballclub and try to move it. That powerpoint is a legal goldmine.

thats some messed up

Disgusting.

wow sad day for the NBA.. seattle was a great basketball city compared to a lot of the others

Just a bad market for basketball.

Boycott OKC

What will the team be renamed? and what will the team colors be?

Fine. It was nice to meet you Seattle SuperSonics, some good memories will endure.

Congratulations to the good people of Oklahoma for the new sports team. Well deserved, after all the enthusiastic support you gave to the Hornets. And to Clay Bennett for having the chance of running a profitable enterprise. Go Okies!

What’s going to be the new name? I like Oklahoma Bisons.

I do feel sorry for the fans of Seattle…can’t even imagine losing my favorite team after 40 years. As a life long Celtic fan, however, it will be nice to drive 15 minutes to watch them once a year as opposed to the Texas trip I’ve been making for nearly 20 years!

If they’re going to force cities to use public money to finance new stadiums, how about a stipulation that X number of primo seats go to low income families – either for free or for well below market rates — in return? After all if you’re going to take money that could go to schools or public safety and pour into entertainment, those tax payers who could never afford the benefits of an NBA team should be allowed to experience them, shouldn’t they?

Hypocrisy in the name of the almighty dollar. Stern deserves to be roasted over the coals for this one, but you’ll never hear it from the sports writers.

yea seriously its such a load of crap, well said kuberski
when will stern step down? hasn’t he disgraced himself enough already

Wow. I’m sure the families of Sonics employees are going to be thrilled to have to move from Seattle to Oklahoma City. No offense OK City, but Seattle is one of the most livable and beautiful cities in America. Get ready to crank up the AC.

Lost all respect for coach bo on this one and I won’t forget. Have to assume you are in Oklahoma and have no friggin clue what has gone on here. We were totally screwed by the nba. All year long Stern has said The Key wasn’t good enough if remodeled and now he says it is if remodeled. Course he loved the key back in the late 90’s after remodeling: He is friends with the okc owners, he told them how to steal this team and despite great attendance forever here, Stern pushes this team to okc.

The politics here sucks and they took advantage of it. We just built around 800 million in NFL and AL stadiums here. Pretty tapped out. Previous owner Schultz screws ths city for not helping more to help with an arena by selling to out of city owner 2 years ago.

Its not funny. Grown men whose families bonded over the Sonics have there hearts ripped out. Plenty of blame to go around. But DON’T BLAME any desperate attempt to stop OKC owners who OBVIOUSLY broke contract with Schulz by making no reasonable attempt to keep team here, indeed, they intended to leave all along

It’s fascinating the sense of entitlement I’ve seen from Sonics fans on the Web like above – “It’s our team.”
No, it isn’t. Unless you helped pay for it. Clay Bennett and his partners paid for the team, and it’s future is their decision, not a city’s, state’s or individual’s. Last time I checked, this is still America.

The entitlement stuff is just silly. Here are the facts: Corporations move every day for simplistic reasons – more money, closer to the owner’s home, etc. And they move oftentimes encumbered by bond issues, tax abatements and other kinds of subsidies legally linking them to the city.

Very few of them actually go to the city and the state and tell them, “Here’s what you have to do to keep me.” Tough spot for a city and state, whether we’re talking a basketball team or a Toyota plant. Gotta decide whether the taxpayers want the business badly enough to pay the bill for the improvements to keep it.

Seattle and the state made their decision. The answer was “no.” And at one point they had a pretty solid legal case to enforce the final two years of that lease.

Before the decision was made by a group, including a city attorney, to conspire against Bennett and his partners to force financial losses on them in the hope of a sale. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to conjure up notions of how much that backroom deal might have netted Bennett in a civil court. It was a gold mine.

Bottom line: The city and state had a chance to pony up. They said no, and their response afterwards was a conspiracy involving at least one of their agents.

Too bad for the fans, but the man who pays the bills decides what happens to the business in EVERY walk of life. Want to blame someone? Blame the politicians and the “poison well” powerpoint.