The City of Oklahoma City's rampant desire to obtain a National Basketball Association Team, in order to turn themselves into a "Big League City" (their term,, not mine) took another bizarre turn yesterday when an Assistant City Attorney (though I think they use the term Counselor there for whatever reason) sent this letter to Howard Schultz' attorneys who are representing him in his litigation to have the sales contract for the Seattle SuperSonics rescinded on the basis of fraud and failure to perform conditions of the terms of sale agreement.

Immediately following that, the Oklahoman (the local daily owned by Clay Bennett's wife's famly, the ####lords, and the partial source of some of the monies used to obtain said team, I'm fairly certain) published this article with the endearing headline of "City Says NBA Team Must Move Here" (all they forgot was the typical five year old's ending taunt of "OR ELSE" (or else what, I'm gonna tell my mom on you????)

If the city of OKC wasn't worried, at least a little bit, that all of the pending litigation against him was not going to go in Mr. Bennett's favor, do you think this letter ever sees the light of day?  After all, what has he done that might make them have any concern....

Well, let's see:  there are the by now famous e-mails proclaiming to the world that he is "a man possessed"  (though he later backpedaled to say that he was possessed to keep the team in Seattle, despite the very clear language in the e-mail to the contrary); there is his signature as the managing partner of PBC LLC on the side letter where he agrees to give his best faith effort, for a term of no less than twelve months, to negotiate a means to keep the Sonics in Seattle in perpetuity; followed within a few short weeks of his opening negotations with the city of OKC to relocate the team there and Aubrey McClendon's ill thought out comments that "we never bought the team to keep it in Seattle, our intention was always to move it here (OKC); and on and on ad infinitum, ad nauseam and (I suspect) the attorneys fighting the cases against PBC have only shown a little taste of what they have to share with the Federal Court judge beginning on 16 June 08.

Now the city indicates in this letter that they don't care WHO the owner of the team is, the team just has to come to OKC to play their home games once the lease in Seattle is discharged (after the 2009-2010 season).  They merely insist that the team make their way to OKC on that date and take up residence.

I suppose that it hasn't occurred to them that, once the city of Seattle's trial date begins in June, Mr. Schultz' legal team will likely file a request with the judge (she will be hearing their case as well, once it comes up on the court's calendar) to enjoin the team from leaving the city of Seattle until such time as ALL pending litigation has been totally resolved (which means that any appeals that would need to be heard in the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and/or the US Supreme Court would have to be heard and adjudicated, as well).  And Richard Yarmuth, Schultz' lead counsel, has already basically laughed this letter out of town, so to speak, by stating that it will have "absolutely no effect on Mr. Schultz pending litigation or it's ultimate outcome."

As any reasonably skilled attorney knows, if the sales contract is rescinded and the Sonics are placed into federal receivership until such time as a local Seattle ownership group takes over, Mr Bennett will have had no standing whatsoever to have ever signed the lease with the city of OKC (and will have wasted the $850,000.00+ that he pumped into the "Big League City" MAPS tax campaign to ensure that he got his free $121MM for renovations to the Ford Center (the subject of the letter referenced above), because he will never have legally owned the team.  Any agreements/leases/contracts that he signed as the "owner" of the team will be solely on he and his business partners to resolve (in English, that resolve translates into "pay for out of their own pockets").

So, the city of OKC would have to file suit against PBC LLC for specific performance of the lease (oooh, deja vu all over again.....they'll have to do what the city of Seattle did.....bet that will put their knickers in a bit of a twist, no?).

And, after Mr. Bennett has helped to drag the NBA's "good image" through the mud during the 2008-2009 league championship series, and since they apparently doubted his good faith motives early on as well, maybe they will file suit against him, too, not to mention blackballing him from ever coming near a third NBA team (the first having been the Spurs, and we all know about his having been asked to leave THAT organization and why. (You don't?  Well, it's a matter of public record.  See my earlier "Snake in the Grass" post) for the rest of his life.  Not mention the high crime of making David Stern look like an ####,, and the other high crime of potentially making life difficult for the rest of the NBA owners when other cities decide to follow Seattle's lead and stand up to their robber baron tactics (build me a $1BB arena without any financial input from me, or I take the team and walk).

By the time the scales of justice stop their gentle swaying on this one, I picture Messrs Bennett et al as having lots more grey hair than they currently do, and having spent a good portion of their lives in and out of various federal courtrooms in Seattle, OKC and NYC.  Sorry, gentlemen (and I use that term loosely), you brought it on yourselves.

And, as for you Mayor Mick (Cornett), maybe you should give up politics and go back to your previous job as a sportscaster on local OKC TV.

In today's episode of "As the Stomach Turns," dear readers, we will debate the issue of whether or not lies were told,, to whom and when, and whether or not there will be consequences for the prevaricators who spun the whoppers.

I'm sure most of you are aware that there will be TWO sideshows going on in the National Basketball League in June. 

One of them, the NBA Championship Finals, is an event that the league most fervently hopes that you will watch, enjoy, participate in, and increase their coffers thereby.

The other, the case of the City of Seattle versus the Professional Basketball Club (AKA the Seattle SuperSonics), is one that they would rather no one were aware of, much less interested in, for fear it might take away from sideshow number one, as mentioned above.

In the latest round of pre-trial discovery, it has been determined that at least three members of the current ownership group--Clayton Bennett, Aubrey McClendon, and Tom Ward--were openly exchanging e-mail messages planning to move the team from Seattle to Oklahoma City during the time period that had been established for the city to come up with a viable plan to keep them here, and that, in fact, there was NEVER any intent to keep the team in Seattle, despite all of Bennett's public comments to the contrary.

From the article referenced above, it appears that Bennett not only lied to the citizens of Seattle and our local and state lawmakers, but he also lied to his good buddy, Commissioner David Stern, in this e-mail, when he said that McClendon had strayed from the farm (more or less) when he made his comments that there was never any intention to keep the Sonics in Seattle. Comments for which the commish later fined him $250K.

If the city's team of attorneys, of whom the lead is former Republican Senator from the state of Washington Slade Gorton, are able to prevail in their subpoena for league records, including records of all teams within the leagues (financial and otherwise), one or more of the league's "dirty little secrets" is likely to become a matter of public record in just over two months from now.

Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, is the only member of the NBA Board of Governors to have come out publically to say that he will vote against the request by Bennett to relocate the team to OKC next week.  I wonder, though, how many others of the 30 owners might be inclined to rethink their votes in light of these developments.

Mayor Greg Nickles of Seattle has already said that the city fully intends to pursue this litigation to its logical conclusion, that any further buyout offers will be as summarily rejected as the first (and last) one for $26.5MM, a figure that  looks to be increased as the owners and the league attempt to avoid the potential embarrassment coming their way in court.

My only regret at this stage is that Court TV doesn't exist any more.  This could be a good one, and it would certainly show other NBA cities that they don't have to lie down and take the league's ever increasing demands for public money without a whimper of complaint.

Stay tuned, my friends, for the next episode of As the Stomach Turns, coming soon to a blog near you.

In order for me to school you properly, gentlemen, it is necessary that you complete this "homework assignment" before we get started here.  Read all of the following.  No  scanning or skimming allowed.  Read EVERY WORD and read for (hopefully) comprehension:

First go here and read this one; and then here for the all important followup.  All y'all go on and do that now.  I will be right here waiting when you get done and return.

For those who are waiting with me, let's put faces on those to whom we are speaking, just for the record:

First there is the Commish:

Then there is Clay Bennett, one of the owners of and (apparently) the spokesperson for, the Seattle SuperSonics Basketball Club,along with Aubrey McClendon (more on him shortly). Mr. Bennett is the one on the right:

I have been unable to find an aggregate photo of the NBA Board of Governors, and I have neither time nor space here to post all 29 of them, so we will just have to use our imaginations.

(*taps foot impatiently*--Geez, I could have read both of those articles twice by now....).  Ah, there you are, gentlemen.  I trust that you read all of those words carefully, because there will be a quiz at the end of our schooling session.

But, first, let us establish a few rules of behavior.

I promise not to call you greedy, scum sucking sons of sea barnacles and/or carpetbaggers.

In return for that concession, you promise not to label me as some liberal know nothing, tree hugging Seattlite. (In point of fact, and to the rather intense discomfiture of most of  my acquaintances and others in Seattle, I am a staunchly conservative (both fiscally and socially) Republican, and I firmly believe in a good many of the things that you purportedly espouse).

You may also not use any statement to the effect that I know nothing about OKC and what goes on there. (My father was BORN in OKC, gentlemen, and I still have relatives there and have made numerous trips to the city in my slightly over 50 years of life.  Were he alive today, my father would probably be totally appalled by what you are up to.  As it is, he is probably rotating in his grave in Las Vegas, so you had better never show up there with the Sonics or he might just haunt you...)

OK, so, somehow you managed to convince 44,849 of your very closest friends to come out to the polls on 4 Mar 08 to vote in favor of the proposal to cosmetically renovate Ford Center (an option, by the way, which you refused to even consider in Seattle), as opposed to 27,564 slightly smarter people who voted against it.  Wow, that's only 72,413 people, out of something over 605,000 who live within the city limits of OKC according to the 2000 census.  That's a voter turn out of 11% of the population--that's pretty darn bad for a city that is predominantly Republican.

What these people voted to do was to continue a 1% sales tax (called MAPS) for another 15 months, in order to fund the proposed renovation.  Did anyone tell them that neither the ownership group of the team nor the NBA is planning on kicking in any funds of any kind to pay for part of this planned renovation or the practice facility, or that the vast majority of the monies made in that building by the team would not be coming to the city of OKC as partial payment/repayment for those renovations.  No?  I didn't think so.  $121 million for you and yours, and nary a penny for those taxpayers who are ponying up the dollars to foot the bill.

Then there is the little subject of your walking into Seattle immediately after buying the team and saying that you "had every intention of making a go of it in Seattle, and you did not buy the team to move it out of Seattle."  But then Aubrey let it slip not too long after that all y'all never had any intention of buying the team to leave it in Seattle, OKC was the target city for relocation all along.  A senior moment type of statement for which the league ultimately fined him $250,000.00 for letting the cat out of the bag (pocket change for him, to be sure, but a heck of a lot of money for all of us "normal people").

And there was the initial statement that Sonics basketball is a major economic force in Seattle, and that the team would be economically missed if they were moved.  Seems to me that just a few weeks ago, when making application to the league to relocate the team to OKC, you stated just the opposite--that a basketball team has no economic impact on a city at all (hmmmm, then why were all of the people on the "Big League City" campaign touting how much of an economic boon the Sonics' move to OKC is going to be?????)

And, of course, there is the whining about the fact that the Mariners and Seahawks have fine new stadia, so why wouldn't the taxpayers of the city of Seattle come up with $500,000.00 for a new arena for the Sonics, again at 100% taxpayer expense?  I can think of one good reason, right off of the top of my head....because Nintendo America and Paul Allen, and their business associates heading those teams did something that you are apparently not willing to do under any circumstances--invest a significant amount of their own money in the construction of those self same stadia, in order to cement the team's ties with the cities and demonstrate fiscal responsbility on the part of ownership.

It's not like a number of people didn't approach you about assisting with finding a suitable location for, and private (or private/public) financing of, that arena that you wanted, but you refused to talk to any of them.  Is that a good faith effort to keep the team here?  I think not.

Collusion:  A nasty, nasty little word; and it seems to be rearing it's little head about now.  Seems Messrs. Stern and Bennett have been friends for quite a number of years.  What did the Commish promise to Mr. Bennett in terms of finding him a team for OKC when the Hornets had to head back to NOLA, and when did he make the promise?

I guess we're going to find out sometime in June.  The city of Seattle has filed a lawsuit in Federal Court to require specific performance of the Sonics' remaining lease on Key Arena, which runs through the end of the 2010 season, because the relocation petition requests that the team be allowed to relocate at the end of THIS season.  The season ticket holders have filed an application for a class action suit against the team because of promises made to them by Mr. Bennett in which he stated that season tickets would be honored through 2010, and without any increase in price.  Yet another lawsuit has been filed against the team by the union local representing the seasonal/part time employees of the Key Arena because of projected loss of jobs and earnings, because this is the primary income for a good many of these individuals.

And, lest the Commish and the Board of Governors should think that all of this legal wrangling has nothing to do with you, perhaps you should think again.  Former Senator Slade Gorton, the lead private sector attorney and the City Attorney for the city of Seattle have promised that you, gentlemen, will be added as respondents in the aforementioned lawsuit, should there be a positive vote on the relocation to OKC at your meeting in April.

It could get pretty ugly, which could have a rather dampening effect on the Commish's plan to go international with the NBA.  (Note to the Commish:  The author of that piece is a "Seattle boy" so, though you might take the tone of the article as a tad ironic, I, personally, believe that he meant pretty much everything he said, including what he DIDN'T say).

In closing, I think that the good people of OKC should know now that you will be coming to them again in just a few years with another request/proposal, this one for a brand new arena, at a cost of $500 million or more, and that they will be asked to foot 100% of the bill again, or the team will be moving to some other city--AGAIN.  But, when that time comes, I would hope that they would have learned a lesson from the city of Seattle, and refuse to be held hostage to the whims of a bunch of guys with a lot of money who want a new home for their hobby/toy, but want someone else to pay for it or they will pick it up and go home.

Good luck with that, gentlemen.

(Note:  The city turned down a $26.5 million lease buyout offer from the team last week, and do not plan to listen to any other such offers.  A group of local businessmen, including Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, have stepped up and offered to buy the team and pay one half of a proposed $300 million dollar renovation/upgrade to Key Arena, with the other half being financed by the same tax that finainced the public portion of the Safeco and QWest Fields' construction. If, as expected, the court case goes in the city's favor, leaving the ownership group to peform the leasehold through the end of the 2010 season; as well as pay the city's legal fees, and suffer any other financial losses that might accrue through the other pending suits and a possible boycott of the team's home games; all y'all just might want to rethink your position on the vote on that relocation petition while you still have the time).

Thank you for your kind attention, gentlemen.

To start this out on the right note, I have hereby declared today "stick a fork in them, they're done" day.  'Nuff said, not gonna say any more (Shouldn't have to, everyone knows whom I am speaking of).

That accomplished, I have been pondering whether or not I think that the ownership and management of professional sports organizations have any kind of any obligation to be accountable in any way to the fans who provide at least a fair portion of the monies with which their salaries are paid.

Let's face it, it is no secret of any kind that I think that Clay Bennett and the new ownership group of the (yes, folks, they are still the) Seattle Supersonics are little better than the Civil War era carpetbaggers.  He waltzed into Seattle last summer with his $300+MM , and a blythe smile on his face, declaring that he had not come to town to take the Sonics back with him on his return trip home to Oklahoma.  Too bad his fingers were crossed behind his back, but more on that later.

He proceeded to demand a $500+MM dollar arena deal, with minimal funding by anyone other than the taxpayers, then drew his line in the sand and pouted that the would file the paperwork to move the team to OKC if said deal was not accomplished by 31 Oct 07. 

The problem is that Mr. Bennett cannot keep track of what story he has told to whom any better than my four year old grandson can.  He told civic leaders in Kansas City that their new (and unoccupied) arena would be a perfect arena for the Sonics.  He basically told the leaders in Las Vegas that they would be well into the mix as well. Finally, he told the citizens of OKC that the team would be theirs, to replace the soon departing Hornets (which team he had tried to buy before the Sonics, and had been rebuffed).

A little over a week ago, his partner Aubrey McClendon forgot that he wasn't supposed to tell the truth about the deal to the press, and let the cat out of the bag (yeah, right, as if that feline hadn't been running free for over a year now) that there had never been any intention of keeping the team in Seattle, no matter what, for which he was fined a quarter of a million dollars by the Commish, Mr. Stern.  Frantic backpedaling occurred from the camps of both Bennett and McClendon.

As if that wasn't enough, Mr. Bennett himself got caught in another "little" prevarication.  He held a meeting with Sonics employees last week and told them that the city of OKC had promised to pay whatever it costs (read legal fees, punitive damages, early out on their lease for Key Arena et cetera) to get the team from Seattle to OKC.  The mayor of OKC immediately came back and said that "that was preposterous," and no such promises had been made or even entertained.  I don't trust any of them as far as I can throw them, which is to say not far at all.

Then there is the ownership and management of the group of people that I impaled with my "done fork" above.  If I wish to go and peruse one of their home games (in another stadium that was paid for with taxpayer dollars and which is one of the best in its league), I have to fork out about $200.00 for tickets alone for my daughter and myself.  If I/we were drinkers, that would be about $10 a pop, so to speak. Parking is $25-50, depending on where you park (though I don't, I take the bus and walk). So that is about $300 or so for one game.  If I'm going to spend that kind of money, I expect to see something worth watching.

Said management does not feel that they have any obligation to the fans to put a good "product" on the field.  They only care how much they can pay their ownership group and stockholders in profits and dividends.

At least the ownership/management of the team across the street from that one (in a stadium that the taxpayers paid only 49% for, not 100%) care about and support their fans, and care enough to put a team on the field that made it to the ultimate game a couple of years ago (yep, I promise not to say a single word about how I feel about how the outcome of that one came about), and hasn't gotten appreciably worse since then, except for the injury plagued season last year. (Maybe it helps that one of the richest men on the planet owns that team, unlike the electronic game manufacturer that owns the other one, and he is a huge fan of his sport).

So, my friends, now that you have heard my gripe and lament for today (all of which is written whilst I watch Team Number Three of this group attempting to overtake the Faders, oops, I mean Raiders), how much allegiance and accountability do you feel that these multihundredmillion dollar organizations owe to you, the ticket and merchandise buying/television game watching fans?  Enough that you should speak with your wallet (and your vocal organs (more on fans booing the home town team in a later post)) if they don't put up?

I'd love to hear your opinions on this subject........

Ah, yes, here we are again.  The time of year when three or more sports overlap and it seems that all of the games that I am interested in are on the tube at the same time.  The TiVO can record one and I can watch another, but the problem is that today there are five on at the same time, and we only have two TV's in the apartment and I'm not swift enough to run from room to room to keep up on all of them at the same time.

There is the replay of last night's WNBA playoff game between the Storm and the Phoenix Mercury that I didn't get to see when it was on live. I already knew the outcome, but just hadn't seen the game, so it is kind of down around number five on my priority list for channel hopping.

But the Mariners/Rangers game started at 5:30 our time,, followed at 6:00 by both the Seahawks/Vikings game and the Angels/Jays game, and the Yankees/Tigers game was in the mix in that time frame as well.

The problem with all of this is that just when it is time to change channels for the next 10 minute stretch of catching up, something important and/or exciting happens in the game of the moment.  But, if I don't change the channel, I miss something equally important and/or exciting in the next game on the surfing schedule.  And, to make things worse, college football is about to toss itself into the mix any day now.  What's a body to do?  I can't, unfortunately, clone myself.  My daughter likes baseball and football, but not enough to watch the games and report on them for me (now, if hockey were on right now, I wouldn't have any problems, because she loves to watch hockey--just against the possibility that some colossal fight will occur sometime during the game (I think she is a closet Canadian)).

So, on I continue to go with my schizophrenic television watching schedule, never really knowing everything that happens in any particular game of a Saturday or Sunday.  If this were the last three years, I would say that it would be over in about another three weeks, and all I would have to worry about would be college football mostly on Saturdays, and pro football mostly on Sundays.  But this year, it is beginning to look like there might just be Mariners baseball into at least the first week or two of October, if not farther (please Lord????????), so I might just have to figure out some other means of keeping current with all of the important games.

Meanwhile, in other more amusing news, I could not help but ROTF and LMAO when I read this and this .  It looks like Clay "not quite a truth teller" Bennett and his cronies might finally be looking down the barrel of what they have coming to them,. After all, it's not like those of us who really pay attention didn't know that he never really meant to keep the Sonics in Seattle from the get-go, but now Commissioner Stern has spoken with the $250K fine for Aubrey McClendon and could very well put the proverbial bug into the board of governors of the NBA that Oklahoma City will just have to wait a while longer for an NBA team, and it could very well not be the Sonics that they end up with.

Oh well, my friends, the Hawks just scored another TD and it is time to check in on the M's,  who were down two runs the last time I peeked in on them in the seventh inning, then on to the Angels and Jays who were tied 2-2 the last time I looked in about the fifth inning.  Here's to productive sports viewing for you all this fine Saturday evening.