If you spend any time watching ESPN or ABC, you surely have seen one of the NBA’s where amazing happens commercials.
These 30 second melodramas display messages of perseverance, dedication and emotion – each glorifying a different NBA superstar – ending with a flash of the NBA logo in what is truly some of the best PR in sports.
They’re catchy. They’re emotionally charged. And now I can’t watch one without getting a dirty feeling in the pit of my stomach.
The Seattle Supersonics Oklahoma Yet-To-Be-Named played their first summer league game Monday, their first action since last week’s $75 million dollar settlement that finally brought an end to one of the saddest stories in sports.
A month from now nobody will remember the final score (95-78, Pacers) or who took the first shot in Oklahoma’s newest chapter of basketball history (Jeff Green), but years from now people will still be talking about the team formerly known as the Seattle Supersonics.
When Starbucks millionaire Howard Shultz sold the Sonics to Clay Bennett two years ago, the deal was that Bennett’s ownership group had to make a “good faith effort” to try and keep the team in Seattle. Two years and several revealing emails later, it became known that Bennett and company never had any such intentions and were in fact waiting for the right time to leave Seattle in their rearview mirror.
Throughout the entire process, NBA commissionaire David Stern had disturbingly little involvement. He sat back and let the spectacle play out, losing one Seattle fan at a time. Isn’t his duty to protect the league’s integrity? Don’t you think that if a NBA player reneged on his contract and left to play for another team Stern would have intervened?
But of course he did nothing. The people of Seattle are left with nothing more than 41 years of memories. But hey, Stern says maybe in the future it might be possible for the city to get another team.
The people in Seattle who spent the last year dishing out their hard earned money on Kevin Durant jerseys are left with a useless piece of memorabilia. But hey, maybe it will be worth money some day.
The people who grew up in Seattle watching The Glove dish alley-oops to Shawn Kemp will have to explain to their kids why they can’t go to Sonics’ games anymore. But hey, kids have to grow up sometime, right?
I realize that when it comes down to it the NBA is merely a business, but everything about this franchise relocation stinks. Bennett justified the move with a lack of public financing for a new building, but Seattle shelled out money to renovate Key Arena just 14 years ago.
Ask yourself, how long has it been since your favorite NBA franchise received a new building? Is your team next? Is mine?
Eventually we will all move on though, and to show Bennett that I’m not a poor sport I’ve even prepared an ad to get the people of Oklahoma excited for their new team.
Two tickets to opening night of the Oklahoma Yet-To-Be-Named … $120
Two hot dogs and two sodas … $18
Hijacking 41 years of history and part of a city’s identity … $75 million
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