NEW YORK — NBA owners on Friday approved the Seattle SuperSonics’ move to Oklahoma City for the 2008-09 season, provided the team can settle its lawsuit with the city.
The Sonics could begin playing in owner Clay Bennett’s hometown as early as next season if they can get out of the remaining two years of their lease at KeyArena.
Owners voted 28-2 in favor of the move, with Dallas and Portland voting against. Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has previously expressed concerns about the market size, and commissioner David Stern said the Trail Blazers, owned by Paul Allen, didn’t say why they voted the way they did.
“The vote further confirms that Oklahoma is in the big leagues and can compete with anyone,” Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry said in a statement.
The Sonics, who have been in Seattle since the start of the 1967-68 season, will be the first NBA team to change cities since the Hornets went from Charlotte to New Orleans for the 2002-03 season. Stern said although owners understand the move from a larger market to a much smaller one, they “focused on the likelihood of success in Oklahoma City.”
Seattle has filed suit trying to force the Sonics to remain in the city until the lease expires in 2010, while Bennett wants to buy out the remainder of the lease. The city already has rejected Bennett’s $26 million offer to settle the dispute. A trial is set to begin in federal court June 16.
At a news conference Friday, Bennett would not say how much he was willing to offer the city but said he wants a reasonable settlement.
“Step one, I am hopeful we can re-establish communication and some sort of platform to have a meaningful, principled conversation,” Bennett said. “Certainly, we’re nowhere near that today.”
Stern, who encouraged Bennett to make the offer to the city in February, said the league is prepared to play out the remaining two seasons in Seattle. However, he cautioned that would mean a possible loss of $30 million a year for a team playing in front of reduced attendance.
The city’s hope is to keep the Sonics in town for what would appear to be two lame duck seasons, to buy time for a group led by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to find an arena solution and eventually purchase the team from Bennett.
Ballmer’s group already has proposed paying for half of a $300 million expansion of KeyArena, with the other half coming from the city and from county tax revenues.
“We know the longer they are in the Seattle, the better the chance they will stay,” Mayor Greg Nickels said Thursday of the Sonics. “I think if we had a group the caliber of one led by Steve Ballmer and we had an arena pot with $300 million available in it, the NBA would have a hard time abandoning a city that’s always had pro basketball — at least for the last 41 years.”
Stern dismissed that idea, saying there was no viable KeyArena plan available. He also wouldn’t speculate on a possible return to Seattle in the future if the league expanded or if another team moved.
Bennett also ia facing a class-action lawsuit brought by season-ticket holders who say they were duped into buying tickets under the premise the Sonics wouldn’t leave.
And this week former team owner Howard Schultz announced plans to sue to get the team back, saying Bennett did not make a good-faith effort to secure a new arena deal as he promised when he bought the team in 2006.
That idea came from e-mails between Bennett and his ownership partners released recently as part of the city’s lawsuit, which appeared to show they planned to move the team to their hometown all along. Stern said owners didn’t buy that, saying that none “questioned the good faith of Clay Bennett.”
Henry said the Sonics will provide an economic boost to Oklahoma by “elevating our national profile and enhancing the quality of life here.”
“When we work to attract and retain high-paying jobs and top industries, the NBA label is one more thing we can point to as we market our state to the rest of world,” he said. “Make no mistake, this is a big, big win for Oklahoma.”
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