My Thoughts on Sonicsgate : Requiem for a Team
In 2008, Seattle Supersonics, an NBA franchise with 41 years of history in the city of Seattle, ceased to exist, its franchise moved to Oklahoma City and was renamed Oklahoma City Thunder.
For the better part of the 2000s, I was not into NBA, having lost interest after the era of Jordan’s Chicago Bulls and Olajuwon’s Houston Rockets. The whole saga of the Sonics pass me by, until Linsanity caught my attention and I started watching NBA games once more.
Sonicsgate: Requiem for a Team is a 2009 movie that attempts to chronicle the franchise’s move to Oklahoma City. It rightly focuses on the corporate and political maneuverings by the parties involved. Past players, journalists, and fans were interviewed to give perspectives on the move.
The movie touched a little on the Sonic’s beginning, its lone NBA championship, the free-wheeling and free-scoring team of the 90s with Gary Payton and Shawn Kemp, until it was sold to Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks. Schultz tried to ask for public money to rebuild Key Arena, Sonic’s stadium, and putting up only minimal private financing. Seattle, which had already spent a lot of public money to help the Seattle Seahawks and Seattle Mariners, refused to help the Sonics this time round, citing public objections.
In this movie, I’ve begun to see why Commisioner David Stern is not a well-liked person. He reminds me of Bernie Ecclestone, the ’emperor’ of F1 racing. His posturing and veiled threats to help owners move the NBA franchise to another city really pissed me of.
Schultz, after failing to make any headway in the stadium rebuild effort, decided to sell the Sonics to a group of Oklahoma City businessmen led by Clayton Bennett, earning big bucks in the process. From the start, many quarters were already wary of the new owners’ intention to move the franchise to Oklahoma City. After letting the team decline on the basketball court, and failing to get public money (again!) to rebuild the stadium, they announced the move.
The movie tries to be objective, and manages to present each step of the saga clearly, pointing to Schultz as the catalyst for the decline, and Bennett as the liar who repeatedly denied any move when email correspondences with other owners showed otherwise. No histrionics or hyperbole from fans, just regret from journalist fans and analysts interviewed.
In the end, I really felt for the average Sonics fans, who has had an NBA team in their city for 41 years, but ultimately was disappointed by corporate sharks who took the team away from them.
You can watch the 2-hour movie online for free from the official website at sonicsgate.org. By the way, this movie was released online for free, as the makers wanted as many people to watch the movie as possible. A shorter, recut 1-hr version has been released on TV and DVDs in 2012 for primetime viewing.
Tags: documentary, film, seattle supersonics, sonicsgate
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