Just say the lease is enforced and the Sonics are staying put for at least another season and maybe two. What is realistically the next step? Is it pretty much just sitting back and waiting for a realistic arena plan to be funded and approved? What can fans do in the meantime that could potentially make a difference?
How much would that hurt Clay Bennet and co. financially? At the very least, it might force him to at least come to the negotiation table instead of trying to cram his solution down everyone's throat.
The plan here has been that our last chance resort is to hold them to the lease via the lawsuit...get the funding for the arena via a private/public partnership and then lean heavily on the Bennett and the league. The problem is that the trial is likely to be VERY bad for the NBA and I just don't see Stern and company EVER letting a team come back here if it comes to that. Tuesday is due to bring another whopping set of bad news out of Seattle. Keep an eye out tomorrow folks.
My hope is that they hold them to the lease and eventually Clay Bennett sells the team. Obviously the risk in pursuing this is that not enough revenue will be brought into the city for the next two seasons and it would not be financially feasible to continue to have an existing franchise in Seattle in those seasons. The team could eventually end up folding before the lease ever ends and the NBA would basically be contracting a franchise. That would be the absolute worst situation for the NBA because then their would be an organization that would be forced into paying for a team that doesn't exist and they wouldn't be able to generate any revenue anywhere else. Where would the existing players go? The model for competent ownership would prove to be broken. That is what makes this situation so compelling. Everyone outside of the city of Seattle expects the mayor to take some sort of buyout to get out of the lease. It is a very risky move not to accept the buyout because in essence it could end up costing the city of Seattle a large amount of money. On the contrary if they do accept the buyout it will in no way compensate the city for the revenue that the city would earn if they were able to keep the team in Seattle long term. I would hate to be Mayor Nickels right now. The right thing to do would be to hold Bennett and the Sonics to the lease until 2010 but in the event that they are forced to break the lease without being duly compensated or they hold onto a lame duck team only to lose them in 2010 the city really does not benefit at all. The only solution that benefits the Sonics is to have a local investment group buy the team from Bennett and company. Considering Bennett's insistence not to sell it would take a huge financial hit in order for him to sway from his original stance. His investors on the other hand may not be so willing to take a two year hit. Stern and the other owners have the resources to present the city of Seattle with a very lucrative buyout office -- probably in the range of 80 million dollars upfront. Owners love the ability to hold their local government hostage in order to get what they want. In this case I hope that a proud Bennett can be brought to his senses and either decide to work with local officials for a Key Arena renovation or take a considerable pay raise from a local ownership group and sell. Howard Stern made a tremendous business move when he sold the franchise in 2006. As much as people hated him at the time for doing it he realized that he was fighting a no win situation and he profited immensely from selling. Hopefully in a couple of months I will be saying the same thing about Clay Bennett.
