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5/24/08

New Damaging Sonics Emails

Here's How To Move Your Team To Oklahoma: Lie Repeatedly And Say You Hate Gays

NBA, Seattle SuperSonics, Dumbass

100%InjuryRate

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This whole Seattle SuperSonics mess just continues to get even better. Thanks to what can only be described as sheer stupidity, both Clay Bennett and co-owner Aubrey McClendon decided to never delete a number of emails they sent that basically caught them red-handed of scheming to get the Sonics to move to Oklahoma. Remember, they were sort of supposed to try and do everything possible to keep the Sonics in Seattle before then even considering moving them to Oklahoma. Yeah, that didn't really happen.

The original stupid email was Bennett's in which he described himself to another owner as "a man possessed" in trying to get the Sonics to Oklahoma. Whoops.

But now McClendon has also gotten involved. Here were the details of his two brilliant emails:

In early 2007, McClendon predicted that a controversy over his contributions to an anti-gay marriage group would improve the chances of the Sonics moving to Oklahoma City.

Later that year, McClendon apologized to principal Sonics owner Clay Bennett for telling an Oklahoma newspaper he'd always intended to move the Sonics. But McClendon added, "the truth is we did buy it with the hope of moving to Oklahoma City," according to a copy of his e-mail read aloud during the deposition.

You know what, it's hard to believe these guys managed to somehow become insanely wealthy when they can't even figure out how to do something as easy as delete emails.

It's also great to know that McClendon systematically decided to contribute to an anti-gay marriage group to make the move easier. There's now officially a special spot in Hell reserved just for him.

Anyway, as far as I'm concerned, this move has never made sense from Day 1, and it's only getting more muddled than ever now thanks to the stupidity of Bennett and his brain dead co-owners.

Whatever. In the long run karma will come back to haunt Bennett and his cronies when Kevin Durant bolts come free agency and they can't get anyone with any talent to come to town to play.

"Want to come to Oklahoma City to play pro basketball?"

Sorry, but I have a great opportunity with the the Iranian basketball league. Plus their nightlife is better.

[HT: Deadspin]

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5/25/08

soonerfan150

1	I live in Sand Springs, just outside of Tulsa which is about an hour-and-a-half from OKC. I think OKC is a great place to have a sports team w/ a place like the Ford Center which is only about 5 years old. The people from OKC are commited of having a team and u saw that when NO Hornets came and the people of OKC did approve to pay a tax to renovate the Ford Center.

5/25/08

blipper21

(Edited by blipper21)

Whatever may be true about McClendon's motive for contributing to an anti-gay marriage group, I didn't see him saying he "hate[s] gays". Opposing gay marriage doesn't necessarily mean you hate gay people, as opposing polygamy doesn't necessarily mean you hate polygamists. I'm not defending McClendon individually in that I can't speak for his reasoning and his motives, but I'd like to see the situation portrayed more accurately.

5/26/08

beerstudk

blipper21 wrote:

Regardless of "accuracy" and his views of the gay community, making contributions to an anti-gay marriage fund for the sole purpose of loop-holing out of an agreement is a pretty disgusting thing to do. I'm not sad the Sonics are leaving, they suck, their stadium sucks (its actually about an hour away from Seattle in Tacoma, WA), their uniforms are by far the worst in all professional sports, and they get little to no support from their fans. That doesn't make it ok for some rich d-bag to come in and promise the moon and only deliver a hand full of sh*t because he's rich enough to get away with it no matter how you try and spin it.

5/27/08

tdbrought

(Edited by tdbrought)

Yea umm:

Seattle metro area population: 3,919,624
Denver: 2,464,866
Oklahoma City: 1,192,989

Oklahoma City is the 45th largest TV market in the country, right there with Harrisburg Pennsylvania, Memphis, Buffalo, and Greensboro NC (Seattle is 12th, btw -- utterly destroying your bigger city argument). The NBA will have a team in Seattle within 5 years if/when the Sonics leave -- they can't afford to be without a team in such a huge market. OKC would draw fine for a basketball team for a few years, until it becomes Orlando. Unfortunately the $$ in basketball doesn't come from selling out an arena, it comes from TV ratings, which Oklahoma cannot produce.

5/27/08

blipper21

beerstudk wrote:

My point isn't to defend the actions of Sonics ownership (nor to condemn them); it's to touch on a point of language/perception that may be more important than is sometimes realized.

5/27/08

tdbrought

In the immediate area, the only major markets I could see not claimed by Dallas or Denver might be Tulsa or Kansas City. Maybe Alberquerque? Though I would think they'd lean Phoenix.

It's not that I think an NBA team in Oklahoma would be a disaster. The NBA works well in many markets when it is the only game in town (see Salt Lake City, Sacramento, Orlando, and San Antonio). I honestly think the best sport for the region would be football. Not only is football obviously king in Oklahoma, but you can draw NFL games from a much larger area since they are only once a week. I also think it is a tragedy that Seattle is losing their team. The argument that they haven't sold out recently simply doesn't hold water to me. They sold out for decades, they have been the worst or second worst team in the league for a while, their arena is ancient, and most importantly the whole city knew they were leaving.
Living in Houston when the Oilers ditched us I can attest that nothing drives fans away like an owner who has promised his team to another town. The Oilers went from constant sellouts to less than 20,000 a game. Not because the city hates the sport, but because the city hates their owner. I also hope that the Sonics keep their name. It's sad when league make teams retain their names and it ends up sounding ridiculous (how much Jazz is there in Utah anyway?) and there is a ton of history ties up in the Sonics name.

5/27/08

beerstudk

blipper21 wrote:

My point isn't to defend the actions of Sonics ownership (nor to condemn them); it's to touch on a point of language/perception that may be more important than is sometimes realized.

I couldn't care less about his views on the gay community, interracial relationships, abortion, ect, ect...... or how other people percieve him because of those views right or wrong.

What he did to the fans of the Sonics is absolutely despicable!! To lie to thier faces with his fingers crossed behind his back is sophmoric and leads me to percive this guy for the lying piece of sh*t that he really is.

5/27/08

beerstudk

I'm don't really care about the Sonics moving to OKC. I completely understand why the franchise wants to make that move and agree with their reasoning for the move. I just think that it's a pretty shameful to have gone about doing it, especially when the cards were very heavily stacked in their favor. No one in Seattle cares about the Sonics and haven't since they moved from the King Dome to the Tacoma Dome, there's no way in hell that Seattle was going to give the franchise the money to build a new stadium since in the past 8-10 years Seattle has had to pay for Safeco Park and Quest Field, and on top of all that the team has been absolutely terrible since Gary Payton and Shawn Kemp left.

There was no reason for him to lie and make an ass out of himself by contributing that money to the Anti-Gay Marriage fund.