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With David Stern's stern and stoic face announcing the twenty-eight to two decision by NBA owners to allow the Seattle Sonics to move to Oklahoma City pending the result of legal action scheduled for June 16th. The only question in that case is whether the Sonics move next year, or in 2011. The NBA does not regard Key Arena as a state of the art facility, and the city, county, and state leaders could not figure out a way to help extend existing tax bases to help publicly fund an acceptable facility to retain an NBA franchise.

FULL CIRCLE

Key Arena is built on the site of the old Seattle Coliseum. It was the first arena in NBA history to have a game rain out because of water on the floor. The owner in those days was Barry Ackerley. The NBA told Ackerley that no more games could be played at the Coliseum, so he rigged a deal with the Kingdome to keep the team running. Attendance at the Kingdome set NBA attendance records, but it was a terrible venue for basketball.

Ackerley proposed a deal through which he would trade some green belt land he owned for part of the property Safeco Field sits on now. He proposed building a state-of-the-art facility that would also meet NHL standards. The city turned him down. The reason: they did not want to permit a building that would compete with the Colliseum.

Ackerley worked a deal for the Tacoma Dome for two years, and told Seattle that it was their problem to rebuild the Coliseum to meet NBA standards within those two years. If it were not done, he would be working a deal in San Diego, which has lost both its Rockets and Clippers! He also demanded that the space not be used to try to accommodate an NHL team, which has a higher minimum seating capacity.

This was truly the first time a team owner held a city responsible for full investment in a publicly-owned facility, while depriving them of the revenue they had come to enjoy spending. The city learned the value of the flow of money from 13,000 fans gathering in the community to spend money forty-one times a year. They offered up the larger Key Arena, which met minimum NBA standards. Ackerley entered into a terrible lease agreement through which the team gave up significant revenues as its contribution to repayment.

Ackerley sold the team to a group headed by Howard Schultz of Starbucks fame. Schultz grew up as a fan of the Sonics! He teamed with Wally Walker, who was a member of the championship and runner-up teams from 1977-79. They tried several times to rework terms of the lease

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