goodbye sonics, see you in court?

By josh
April 18th, 2008 @ 2:37 PM news, sports

It’s all over but the lawsuits, the NBA approved the relocation of the Sonics to Oklahoma City. [dailyweekly] Paul Allen and Mark Cuban were the only two owners that voted against the move.

Print this post


3 Comments so far

  1. Ryan (ryanhealy) on April 18th, 2008 @ 2:40 pm

    I’m shocked there weren’t more dissenting owners. It sort of makes me sick, actually.


  2. josh on April 18th, 2008 @ 2:43 pm

    Paul Allen’s vote is super-interesting, given that he owns a team that could conceivably benefit from the absence of the Sonics. (I don’t really pay attention to pro basketball; so maybe this doesn’t really make a difference — would Seattleites "adopt" the Trailblazers as a pseudo-regional team once the Sonics leave?) On the other hand, it was probably a safe vote since everyone else was lined up in favor.


  3. Ryan (ryanhealy) on April 18th, 2008 @ 3:06 pm

    Paul Allen also owns the Seahawks and Sounders and there’s definitely some overlap between Sonics fans and fans of Allen’s Seattle teams. His vote is the least surprising because, as you say, it was safe. Cuban’s vote wasn’t surprising just because he typifies the rebel/iconoclast sports owner.

    The rest of the NBA owners voted in favor of their own [potential] self-interests because who knows when each of them will want to strong-arm a city into paying for a new arena?

    Again, it sort of makes me sick to my stomach. At least with MLB there’s congressional oversight because of their anti-trust exemption. In theory, if a MLB team tried to do this, congress could get involved and put a stop to it (not that it would happen that way).



Terms of use | Privacy Policy | Content: Creative Commons | Site and Design © 2009 | Metroblogging ® and Metblogs ® are registered trademarks of Bode Media, Inc.