Seattle Loses NBA Team To Oklahoma City
SuperSonics Move After 40-Plus Years Because of Outdated Arena
Jul 8, 2008
Teams moving from one city to another has been a fact of life in North American professional sports since its origins in the mid-19th century.
The latest team to break the collective hearts of their fans was the NBA's Seattle SuperSonics, who anounced on July 2 that they are moving to Oklahoma City.
The SuperSonics have been playing in Seattle since becoming an expanstion team in 1967. They were Seattle's first major professional sports team.
The people of Seattle and the state of Washington supported the team well in its 40 plus years. The franchise has one NBA title to its credit, three Western Conference titles and six division titles.
But the Sonics became vulnerbale to a move because they play in an outdated venue, Key Arena, which is the smallest facility in the league and lacks moderen features, like the approprate amount of luxury suites.
Seattle lost Major League Baseball in 1970
Ironically, this isn't the first time Seattle lost a major sports franchise.
The expansion Seattle Pilots of Major League Baseball played one season in the American League in 1969 before packing and moving to Milwaukee to become the Brewers the following season.
The Pilots moved because they had financial problems from the outset and did not have a Major League caliber stadium, which Milwaukee did having been home to the Braves (from 1954 to 1966) before moving to Atlanta.
It took the American League seven years to award Seattle another baseball team. The Mariners have been playing since 1977 and play in a modern stadium, Safeco Field, as does the NFL's Seattle Seahawks (started in 1976) playing at Qwest Field.
Both teams played in the outdated Kingdome, which was torn down to make way for new stadiums.
New owner planned to move the Sonics
The dye was cast for the Sonics to move when Howard Schultz, the chairman for Starbucks, sold the team to businessman Clay Bennett in 2008.
Bennett just happens to be from Oklahoma City and some think he planned to move the team to his hometown all along.
Meanwhile, the effects of Hurricane Katrina forced the New Orleans Hornets to move to Oklahoma City and its state of the art facility for two seasons because of damage done to the Hornets facility,
Oklahoma City was a good host to the Hornets, proving it can be a professional sports city.
The Sonics name and colors will stay in Seattle until the NBA can find another team to play there.
It might take as long as the the seven-year period when baseball was absent in Seattle.
