Seattle and the NBA: How not to treat your customer

So yes, I clearly am a sports fan who probably spends a little too much time on ESPN.com (Spring Training has started for the Cubs, soon this blog will be breaking down the possible splits of Sam Fuld v. Felix Pie on a daily basis) but this is a case that had a very interesting PR angle to it. Too interesting to resist my comments on it in fact.

Few know or even care about the tragedy that is occurring in Seattle, WA. Now of course, that could be due to the fact that the NBA is still recovering from its post-Jordan/player lockout episode in the late 1990s. Suffice to say, the Seattle Supersonics, a professional sports team with 41 years of history, the town's only championship, and a loyal fan base will most likely move to Oklahoma City, OK due to a dispute between local politicians and the team's small group of Oklahoman owners led by Clay Bennett.

To give some background, Howard Schultz (yes, the founder of Starbucks and CEO behind the insane "Let's close down our stores for 3 hours to re-train employees" promotion) decided to sell the team to Mr. Bennett after being refused a government handout to rebuild a stadium that is only 13 years old. He asked for hundreds of millions of dollars at a time when most states are barely able to provide basic social services. Mr. Bennett again tried to get a corporate handout for his team, but when officials failed to katow to his ownership team's whims, he declared that the team would be headed to Oklahoma City. On November 1, 2007, Bennett informed commissioner David Stern that he plans to file papers asking league permission to relocate the Supersonics to Oklahoma City. He now has until tomorrow to file the necessary documents for relocation.

What I wanted to post about in fact was to encourage commentary on an article I read by Bill Simmons outlininig one of the more ingenuous PR stunts to force the issue to the forefront. His article, which can be read here: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/080229&sportCat=nba includes a novel idea. I will post my thoughts this weekend but first, I wanted to see readers' comments (if any) on the idea.