Out of courtesy to the people who are bored by sports talk.
Although Howard Schultz generally acts as the public face of Sonics ownership, he has many partners, many of whom have not been publicly revealed. It took 58 people to put up the $200 million to buy the team in 2001. They had made their fortunes selling coffee, cellphones, car stereos and legal advice, and saw the Sonics as a different sort of investment — a civic icon that might also turn a profit.
It hasn't turned out as they'd hoped. The owners' partnership, The Basketball Club of Seattle, has lost nearly $60 million over the past five years, and local politicians so far have rebuffed owners' pleas for a $220 million KeyArena expansion. While they speak of their stake in the team as a kind of public service, the owners now say their patience is running out, and there are rumors the team already is for sale.
At a quarterly meeting today, the owners' nine-member board will consider the Sonics' future in Seattle. A public statement may be released after the meeting, though spokeswoman Valerie O'Neil said a final decision on the franchise's fate is unlikely.
With a combined wealth in the billions, the owners represent a cross section of Pacific Northwest money and influence. They include several of Schultz's lieutenants at Starbucks, cellphone tycoon John Stanton, University of Washington Regent Stan Barer, and former Microsoft chief financial officer Greg Maffei. The group also includes partners at two of Seattle's biggest law firms, the local inventors of the popular board games Pictionary and Cranium, and the man in charge of ending homelessness in King County.
The Sonics operate under one of the least-lucrative deals in the NBA. Schultz has called the team's lease, which expires in 2010, "probably the worst economic arrangement of any professional sports team in the United States of America."
They only need look across town to find cause for envy. The Mariners and Seahawks get to keep all the profits from their taxpayer-subsidized stadiums while the Sonics must share cash from luxury suites and concessions with the city of Seattle. As a result, the Sonics say they can't turn a profit even if they fill every seat at KeyArena.
If the Seattle area won't follow that national model, agreeing to the KeyArena expansion and a better lease, the Sonics may find suitors elsewhere. Cities as close as Bellevue and as far as Oklahoma City are being talked about as possibilities.
The rest of the story.
Bellevue would suck, but Oklahoma would suck a lot harder.
