The wrong owners of anything, a car you lovingly restored, the home you built or even the professional basketball team you grew up with and supported, can destroy a product with the blink of an eye.
The Seattle SuperSonics have had, for the most part, caring ownership that was committed to Seattle. Sam Schulman, heck even Barry Ackerly. Then came the self-proclaimed guru of locally branded coffee, Howard Schultz, and the investment group he headed. In short order Howard turned the team in the name of profit, abandoning his commitment to fans to rebuild the team. He rebuilt the books and pitched the team to a city ripe on the NBA franchise list, Oklahoma City.
With no intention of caring for the product that took decades to build, Oklahoma businessman Clay Bennett had only one intention: Move the Sonics far away from its namesake. Howard gets a tidy profit for his investment group, Clay gets a screaming deal and the fans who grew up with Seattle’s first professional sports franchise get the shaft.
Maybe a local scrap yard can buy the shaft from us fans on a per pound basis. With the size of this shaft, we might recoup our investment.
Don Everest
Snohomish
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