According to multiple news reports, Clay Bennett has agreed to sell the WNBA franchise Seattle Storm to a local ownership group, keeping the team in Seattle whatever the final destination of the Sonics. The sale price has not yet been disclosed, but I’d previously heard rumors of a $12 million offer.
It’s a pretty smart business decision for Bennett, not simply because the Storm would have been a guaranteed money-loser in Oklahoma City, but because the sale undoubtedly mutes local opposition to the Sonics’ proposed move. What with the Sonics playing like a bunch of girls these days, why not just stick with the real thing, huh?
Hey, this is great news: We keep the winning team and dump the losers…
Me three!
Storm AND SQUALL
I would much rather attend aStorm game then soneeks game. Hell, we never did build the Boeing SST plus there is something funnee about the sound of The OK Supersonics. Sorta like the Almost Wonder Woman.
I suggest that the megawealthy who can buy s a basketball team keep the storm and THEN build a male team!
Howsa about the
Seattle Squall?
(Seattle April 1, 2008; SJ News)
Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon (sic) and owner of the WNBA Seattle Storm has announced that the NBA has agreed for the creation of male auxiliary … the Squall.
The Storm and Squall will play in the new Floating Arena, a very, very large ferry boat that serves double duty, between games, connecting Hunt’s Point to the Montlake Fishing Pier and Condo Complex.
Yanno….from what I’ve heard, there are some folks in Hawaii who may well be putting a very large catamaran ferry up for sale. Seems when they set out on their little venture, they failed to ask whether any of the people it was supposed to serve really wanted it.
Needless to say, the first order of business for the new owners will have to be finding a new head coach.
The way the Sonic are playing that’s an insult to the Storm players. Then again, when they hired Carlesimo they knew his record as an NBA coach was awful and the team would tank – perfect for creating apathy prior to a move.
The WNBA was never gonna sell in Oklahoma anyway. You know how they like their women there. That, and Clayboy had a player revolt on his hands. Most of the team had already expressed that they had no interest in moving to Oklahoma.
(noting that the Storm currently has only four players under contract for the upcoming season, it must be all four of them)
And that included Lauren Jackson, arguably the best female player on the planet and the WNBA’s biggest star. The WNBA needs Jackson’s star power to stay relevant in the face of increasing competition for players with Russia’s pro league (which pays much better – Jackson and Sue Bird both currently earn somewhere between 3 to 5 times their WNBA salaries playing in Russia during the WNBA offseason), so who wants to bet that a little birdie (possibly with a last name of Stern) politely told Clayboy to sell the Storm to keep Jackson (and Bird) happy and in the US?
Either way, we win. We get rid of a shitty team, and keep a perennial title contender.
If you listen to Lauren Jackson she said something interesting a few years ago.
“Storm All-Star Lauren Jackson, 24, is an example. He mother was cut from the Australian national team when she was pregnant with Lauren in 1981 and passed on the 1984 Olympics to care for Lauren and younger brother Ross.
“That’s why I want to get it all out of the way now, so I can retire and have kids when I’m 28,” said Jackson, who has only Olympic gold remaining on her basketball to-do list. “When I was 15, I was saying to my mom and everyone else that I’m going to be married by the time I’m 21 and have kids by the time I’m 22, and god, how much has changed. For me, I don’t think I can do both at the moment.”
@6 “The WNBA was never gonna sell in Oklahoma anyway. You know how they like their women there.”
Yep — barefoot and on their backs.
I suspect the Storm are going to be very, very popular in this town after the boys’ farm club leaves.