Sonics owner Clay Bennett is presumably a grown man, but he sounds like a character from Boiler Room when he explains why he bought the Sonics.
From the Oklahoman, reporting on a speech Bennett gave at Oklahoma State University:
He shared two quotes that he called funny, interesting and words he considers often ...Bennett and Howard Schultz and, disturbingly, the NBA, have this in common: none understands that owning a sports team isn't like owning a car dealership.
The second quote was from NBA President of League and Basketball Operations Joel Litvin.
"I said, 'Joel, why in the world did I do this,' Bennett recalled. "He said, 'You love the action.'"
Fans invest their souls into their teams. They live and die with the players, with the trades, with the draft picks. You don't take something that means so much to so many people and treat it like just another business asset. At least, you don't if you have a soul.
What's most alarming is that the quote comes from a top NBA executive. You'd like to think that the people who run sports leagues have at least a glimmer of recognition that they are the caretakers of a public trust--that the millions of dollars they earn come from emotional attachment to teams, not from some coldly pragmatic b-to-c relationship.
Negotiating to take one of Seattle's cultural landmarks, to slam the door on generations of Sonic fans--to Clay Bennett and the NBA, that's "the action."
Fan-tastic!
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