Slade Gorton Gets In The Mix

Slade Gorton sued the American League to get an expansion team when the Pilots moved to Milwaukee, he brokered deals to keep the Mariners when the owners wanted to sell and later when they had arena issues.</p>

Now, according to the Seattle Times, the Mayor has asked him to help out with the Sonics and Storm fiasco.</p><cite><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><p dir="rtl" align="left">Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels tapped Gorton to add political and legal heft to the city's efforts to keep the Sonics at KeyArena through the end of the team's lease in 2010, said Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis</p></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><p align="left">I am not a big fan of his politics, but I like that we have some local celebrity involvement. We have lacked that up to this point. I am still counting on the fact that in 1994 Stern and the NBA owners blocked the move of the Timberwolves to New Orleans because the city was fighting it and they cited the foolishness of moving from a top 20 market to a mid-40's market. At that time, Stern stepped in and found local ownership in Minneapolis.</p></cite>

 

The Ackerly family(the owners before Schultz who sold the team to Bennett) signed a multi-year lease through 2010 to get the city to rennovate Key Arena and included a Specific Performance Clause in the leasestipulating that they would play all regular season and post seasonhome games in Key Arena through 2010. They are legally bound to honor that lease and the Specific Performance Clause unless BOTH parites negotiate a settlement which would include lease payments and other financial compensations implied by the Specific Performance Clause. In this case the city has indicated (via their ordinance passed this week) that they are not interested in negotiating a buyout. This will require theownership to sue the City of Seattle to force a court settled buyout. Any attempt to leave without agreement, such as an application to relocate filed with the league, will likely triggera breach of contract lawsuit of the team by the city. Such legal battles (in either case) are likely to be both lengthy and costly to the ownership. The city's intent is to buy time to put together an arena plan and perhapslineuplocal ownership. Beyond 2010 the teamhas no obligation outside of their requirement to get approval from the league for relocation including paying the relocation fees.</p>

Strangely, Bennett and his Oklahoma press (owned by his wife's family by the way) have ignored the fact that the mayor has offered a plan to Bennett to EITHER refurbish Key Arena OR BUILD A NEW ARENA IN THE CITY, if Bennett will pledge $100M towards the effort. He has said he is not talking to the city because he is not interested in refurbishing Key Arena, while ignoring the offer to build a new arena. I know of at least one plan in the works that puts a sizeable amount of money in his hands to do with what he will as long as he signs a REASONABLE multi-year lease and pledges $100M of ownership money to the effort. He has refused to look at that plan. The man has ZERO interest in staying and is trying to weasel his way to Oklahoma. By the way...I still think Oklahoma City deserves and NBA team. They have proved they are an NBA city while hosting the Hornets. Personally, if I was in charge,I would have let the Hornets stay in Oklahoma City, pledged millions of NBA money and player appearances/fundraisers to New Orleans rebuilding efforts and promised an expansion franchise to New Orleans when it was rebuilt and ready. They need to fix their basic services before they are asked to support an NBA franchise. I think that would have been a win-win-win situation myself.</p>