Howard Schultz, Starbucks CEO and former Sonics owner, plans to sue to reacquire the team:
Nearly two years after selling Seattle’s NBA franchise to Oklahoma City investors, the Starbucks mogul has hired a lawyer and is preparing to file a lawsuit against Sonics chairman Clay Bennett to rescind the July 2006 sale.
His lawyer, Richard Yarmuth:
“It’s not money damage. It’s to have the team returned. The theory of the suit is that when the team was sold, the Basketball Club of Seattle, our team here, relied on promises made by Clay Bennett and his ownership that they desired to keep the team in Seattle and intended to make a good-faith effort to accomplish that.”
Schultz got painted as the bad guy when hew sought big bucks for a new arena, and when rebuffed sold the team to a group from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
A lawsuit by Schultz, when combined with the City of Seattle’s lawsuit, could very well force the NBA to rethink their strategy. He was an energetic owner, but an inexperienced one. Maybe he can make common cause with the fans he once jilted, and save the team.
Today’s Tank McNamara comic is about the Sonics:
http://www.gocomics.com/tankmcnamara/2008/04/15/
Some of us are not sports fans, so it wouldn’t matter if the Sonics moved to Oklahoma. It also wouldn’t matter if the Mariners and Seahawks left either. Some people just don’t give a shit about sports.
Part of me wonders if this was the real plan from the getgo…hmmm Howard sells the team, gets back into Starbucks as CEO, sports fans hate him, Starbucks needs to be re-organized, now he’s suing Bennett…vicious circle of the rich men!
It has become blatantly obvious what a bizarre old-boy’s network the NBA has become. Stern & Bennett have some wierd infatuation with each other, they can’t stop telling each other what great guys they are. Stern is pushing the move through the NBA ownership approval process, quickly dismissing any discussion of the damning e-mails between the team’s Oklahoma owners, and not even waiting until the June court hearing.
Is the NBA & Stern a party to the lawsuit? If not, Stern should be named for tortious interference with a contractual relationship. If the owners vote for the move, add them – all of them – to the lawsuit. Conduct depositions daily and in embarrasing detail, make them recount every meeting where the Sonics sale or move was, or could have been, discussed. That should be sure to make the owners real happy with the mess Stern has made of this deal.
Be sure to ask who was at the meeting, who traveled with the team owners, who they met with the day of the meetings, whether there were any discussions with outside persons regarding the subjects of the Sonics ownership or potential moves.
“Okay, Mr. Owner, the hotel records reveal that at the same time you checked into the hotel for the NBA owners meeting, another person was registered as a guest in that same suite, correct? And their name is listed as “Jane Owner”, correct? And their relationship to you is listed as “neice”, is that correct? What was her true relationship to you? And her name wasn’t Jane, was it? Was her true name Bambi Ginormous, isn’t that correct? Oh, that was her stage name? In what venue did she use that stage name on a professional basis? So you would properly call her profession “lap dancing”? And was she present at any of these discussions with other owners about the Sonics situation, either before, during, or after the official meetings? Just so we can confirm your denial, we will need her true name, address, phone number, work address, etc., and we will be scheduling her deposition for next Tuesday, so we can find out, in every detail, what happened during weekend in Miami….”
Bennett should take Schultz to Oklahoma and leave the team here.
@5 AMEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Schultz sits right there with Stern and Bennett. And if he gets the team back, BIG IF, he should relinquish it to the City of Seattle and fans, he should not make ONE SINGLE CENT off the fans of Seattle in this mess HE created!
Goldy, that Ann Coulter add is really making it difficult to eat lunch while I am checking up on your site.
I am shocked, shocked that an evil man from Oklahoma would take advantage of a simple merchant from Seattle.
Obviously Mr. Schultz is of limited competence and probably should be deprived of executive duties until someone finds a cure for hie premature onset Alzheimer’s.
There really is nothing new here other than gender. Every watcher of Dudley Doright is familiar with the evil gambler taking advantage of the helpless widow.
I suggest that Mr. Bennet apolgize, deeply and with heart in mouth for this dreadful disrespect toa decent, god fearing, primitive but good man from a hick town in Souther Alaska.
It is Bennet and his cruel il that deprived the Manhattan’s of their God given rights to Wall street, stole oil rights from the Cherokee, and elected GW Bush president.
Nah, it’s just a PR stunt. Howard is a businessman. He wants people to buy lattes and coffee from him. He doesn’t want his customers mad at him. So, he’ll go through the motions of suing Bennett to get the onus off himself. Nothing will come of it.
(duplicate post)
Litigious society! Tort reform!!
Oh, I guess that only applies to poor people…
@7 Just click on it 20 times a minute while you’re eating and Goldy will make $60 an hour for watching you eat.
Well, more power to Mr. Coffee. I seriously doubt the “good faith” clause can be enforced, however. Putting the clause in the contract was most likely a PR move from the beginning (or Schultz is a bigger dupe that I thought).
If he DOES get the team back the city will certainly embrace him. Maybe that was the plan all along. Make Schultz the “Hero that Saved the Sonics” so the city would drop trow and give him whatever he wants.
I would say that it is one part simple PR stunt. It also might be that there was some behind-the-scenes arm-twisting like, “Howard, you screwed the pooch on this one. Do us a favor and at least muddy the waters with a second lawsuit.”
Hey, Roger, did you see the Merrill Gardens ad in the upper right?
Mr. Starbucks is just trying to employ a little fat cat damage control. He is and will remain the bad guy should the Sonics leave town.
Relatively cheap virture for Uncle Howard. If our answer to Mr. Bean was so concerned about Seattle getting chiseled, then he shouldn’t have done business with an obvious chiseler. That he comes in now as some sort of “white knight” is an espresso draw short and many machine-made white chocolate mochas too late.
Sorry Howard…You and Charlie the Tuna and those two Arkansas chickens can phony together, but the new clothes you’re wearing are pretty invisible.
The Piper
Well, at least it puts Bennett in a somewhat uncomfortable situation. Under the lease, Seattle’s options are limited to arguing that it is irreperably damaged if the Sonics leave prematurely, even if they pay out on the remainder of the lease. With Schult’s lawsuit, Seattle can argue that it was an intended third-party beneficiary of the Shultz/Bennett side agreement to make every effort to keep the team in Seattle.
Secondly, Bennett’s defense to such a lawsuit are pretty much down to to choices: (a) “I did try very hard to make it work, but Seattle didn’t want me”, or (b) “The side agreement was never intended by us to be binding, and you (Shultz) knew full well that I was going to leave as soon as it was politically convenient to do so.”
Under (a), it would be nice to see them making that argument in front of a Seattle jury, with that e-mail trail to try to explain. But Schultz is asking for an equitable remedy – rescission of the sale – so it would be decided by a judge, not a jury. Both sides would need to show that they came to court with “clean hands”, which should be an interesting argument.
Under (b), Bennett would have to admit that he was lying to either Shultz or to the NBA & Seattle, because he couldn’t have been honest with both at the same time. So I don’t expect he will try to use that defense.
I guess there is also a (c), in that they could argue that the side agreement was so vague as to be unenforceable, which I’m sure they would try to get a ruling upon in preliminary motions.
Either way, this should be fun to watch, unless Schultz agrees to be bought off easily.
France called, it wants Louisiana back due to the fact that American government abandoned it after Hurricane Katrina.
France has a better chance than Howard does.
18 No doubt the Russians will step up and throw in to reclaim Alaska as well.
@14 Yeah, and that garden is as good as rabbit food! =:-D
@17 I’m beginning to suspect you’re a lawyer, because you make noises like one.
@18 Lousy deal for France because the whole state of Louisiana will be on the bottom of the Gulf in another 40 years.
This lawsuit is silly.
IF the promise to negotiate in good faith to stay in Seattle had been kept, there is no way to show this would have resulted in a deal being made so that the Sonics would have
stayed.
A totally frivolous suit. If Howard had really wanted to ensure that they woudl have stayed in Seattle, he would have put THAT in the contract.
“Purchaser agreest o keep Sonics in Seattle for at least ten more years. If Seler violates this clause, Seller shall owe Howard Schultz another $100,000,000.”
See how easy it is to write?
Everyone involved in this charade is full of it. Bennet for sure, Schultz for his current posturing and all the Sonics fans who believe in socialisma nd protecting the national blackmail association monopoly scam to udnerwrite billionaire team asset appreciation using public dollars.
Tax the poor, spend on the rich, dress it up with civic pride and faux offense and the culture of sports.
It’s all disgusting. They’re all just posturing now to ensure blame and angst does not fall on them. IOW they know damn well wehen they are being lied to and they damn well knew they weren’t doing a damn thing about it and they are lying to all of us now by pretending otherwise.
Great cartoon of Shultz playing the part of sit on my ass all this time, now I will look like the savior…NOT! Too little too late Howie boy!
http://seattletimes.nwsource.c.....ction.html
@2, Hmmph!. Some of us care about sports and could care less about schools, museums, parks, libraries and poor people. Some of us won’t rest until we have a new arena for the Sonics and until Discovery, Sand Point, Lincoln, Seward and Volunteer parks, as well as the Arboretum and High Point, Holly Park, Rainier Vista and Yesler Terrace housing projects, are all transformed into golf courses.