Mens Basketball Wire

If the new owners of the Seattle team get their way, that’s just what will happen. The consortium of Oklahoma big shots, led by local energy tycoons, have stated that the city of Seattle has just 60 days to come up with a new stadium or the Supersonics will be jetting off to Oklahoma City.

Oklahoma would certainly look forward to having a permanent team in town. After having the New Orleans Hornets on loan for a couple of years in the aftermath of the Hurricane Katrina disaster, sports fans there are feeling the void. But is the move viable? The ownership group has stated that merely breaking even financially would be good enough. While the city populations of the two cities are about the same (500, 000 and change), the metro area of Seattle more than doubles Oklahoma City’s. Metro Seattle: 3.2 million. Metro Oklahoma City: 1.2. Does that matter? Apparently not. The Sonics averaged a bit less than 16,000 per game last year, while the Oklahoma City Hornets were ninth in the league in attendance averaging almost 19,000 per game.

The ownership group has stated outright that their plans are to move the team to Oklahoma City and have given October 31 as the deadline for Seattle to come through with their bid for the stadium. While seeing a new team in a new city is always exciting, and would certainly be a coup for the state of Oklahoma, would the league actually benefit? Would seeing a mid-market team drop down to an even smaller market thrill the NBA bosses? Television would certainly tune out. One only has to look at the dismal Cavs-Spurs series to see that.

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