By Evan Weiner

March 9, 2008

(New York, NY) -- You have to excuse Clayton Bennett and David Stern if they are singing that Richard Rodgers-Oscar Hammerstein song "We're only sayin', You're doin' fine, Oklahoma! Oklahoma, O.K.!" these days. Last Tuesday, Oklahoma City voters approved a one cent sales take hike, which will begin on January 1, 2009 and expire in June 2010, to fund $121 million worth of renovations at the city-owned arena and build a practice facility for an NBA franchise, should an NBA franchise become available.

It so happens that Clayton Bennett has a franchise available and NBA Commissioner David Stern won't stop Bennett from moving his Seattle SuperSonics to Oklahoma City over the summer. Bennett is fed up with Seattle, King County and Washington State elected officials not jumping through hoops and giving him a brand new arena with all the revenues flowing from luxury suites, club seats, in-arena restaurants and other concessions along with parking and has decided to take his ball home to his native Oklahoma and the renovated Oklahoma City arena and practice facility.

Oklahoma City voters are going to pay hundreds of millions of dollars for the right to be called a "Major League City." Make no mistake, Oklahoma City Mick Corbett wanted the voters to say yes and he got his way when 44,849 voters, or 61.9 percent, approved the proposal to 27,564, or 38.1 percent, against. About $100 million will go for decorative floors and walls, new bathrooms and concession areas, restaurants, suites, a family fun zone, NBA locker rooms and offices and a host of other renovations. The rest will go for that practice facility.

The Oklahoma City arena is going upscale and so will the patrons that will watch events in the building.

If Bennett or Stern cannot produce a team, and the odds are pretty good that Stern will somehow persuade his owners that Oklahoma City is truly a "Major League City," the city will make improvements to the building that opened in June 2002 and played host to New Orleans Hornets home games between 2005 and 2007 after Hurricane Katrina wiped out New Orleans and a good deal of the United States Gulf Coast from Louisiana through Mississippi into Alabama on August 29, 2005

Hornets owners George Shinn sang his version of "We're only sayin', You're doin' fine, Oklahoma! Oklahoma, O.K.!" and didn't really want to go back to Bourbon Street and the French Quarter except he was forced to return by a commissioner who didn't want to turn his back on New Orleans' recovery Shinn did O. K., not great in Oklahoma City, a market that doesn't not have big cable TV or corporate dollars. He probably did better than he did in pre-Katrina New Orleans. Shinn’s Hornets generated a shade less than $40 million in revenues in Oklahoma City and because the franchise did not hit that mark, Oklahoma City was not able to participate in revenue sharing with Shinn.

Before Bennett and his SuperSonics partners can get their kicks on Route 66 and proclaim that Oklahoma City looks mighty pretty, there is a little matter of breaking a lease in Seattle. Bennett has a valid lease through June 2010 which he inherited when he bought the franchise and the WNBA Seattle Storm from Starbucks founder Howard Schultz in July 2006 for a reported $350 million. Bennett failed in his effort to get a publicly funded arena from Seattle or Seattle's suburbs. Bennett sold the Storm to Seattle interests.

Bennett is the president of Oklahoma City investment firm Dorchester Capital. He was formerly on the San Antonio Spurs Board of Directors.

The city and former SuperSonics owner Barry Ackerley signed a 15-year lease that required the Sonics franchise to play in the renovated city arena between 1995 and 2010. The city owned arena underwent a $70 million facelift during the 1994-95 NBA season. Ackerley sold the franchise for about $200 million to Schultz in January 2001. Schultz could not get Seattle to build him a new venue.

Bennett plans to break his lease after the 2007-08 season and Seattle officials intend to keep the franchise at the city owned arena under the terms of the 1994 lease. The issue will go to court in June. The NBA could approve Bennett’s planned move at its April’s owners meeting in New York but the court decision would supersede any league edict.

Mayor Corbett views the Oklahoma City arena renovations as an economic tool as the city competes with a new arena in Kansas City and big city Dallas for sporting events and concerts. Whether Corbett is correct is an interesting question in that Bennett in his court papers in Seattle claimed the SuperSonics franchise really didn't add anything economically to Seattle, that 66 percent of the people around the Seattle area won't miss the team and that only 12 percent would be upset if the team left.

Seattle business leaders are scurrying to put together a public-private partnership to renovate the Seattle building for an NBA team, maybe not Bennett's team. Perhaps the Seattle business people and elected officials are eyeing Shinn's New Orleans Hornets if New Orleans can no longer support an NBA franchise.

Exactly what are Corbett and Oklahoma City getting for their $121 million? If Streetballers want to use the renovated arena or the practice facility and apply for a city permit to use the basketball courts, will city officials let them? After all, if the Streetballers are Oklahoma City residents or spend money in the city and pay taxes to build a public facility, shouldn't they be allowed to play in a city-owned facility or will they be told, sorry, this city owned facility is for special ballers only, go find a playground?

Are they buying time on sports news programs selling the name Oklahoma City? Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory once suggested that his city needed a new arena with a new NBA team so that the city would be repeatedly mentioned on ESPN. Charlotte built a new arena despite losing the referendum by a 2 to 1 margin for an NBA expansion team after Shinn moved his Hornets to New Orleans in 2002. The city residents never voted on new arena proposal that Charlotte elected officials and NBA officials negotiated.

Whether Bennett was the big winner of last Tuesday's Oklahoma City referendum is open to debate. Bennett is trading in a mid-sized city, Seattle, for a small market city, Oklahoma City, with limited cable TV and corporate dollars in a league where small market owners are begging Stern to implement meaningful revenue sharing between the big market franchises and small market teams. Oklahoma City has bought itself "Major League City" tag, and it only cost a minimum of $200 million when the original cost of the building is added to the March 4 voter approval. Bennett will take virtually every penny generated in the building which means that Oklahoma City residents will be paying and paying and paying for the arena long after the one-cent sales tax expires.

Welcome to the "Major Leagues" Oklahoma City, "We're only sayin', You're doin' fine, Oklahoma! Oklahoma, O.K.!"

(evanjweiner@yahoo.com, eweiner@mcn.tv)