SEATTLE — Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell said he and others are gearing up for a potential SuperSonic push to bring the NBA back to the city.
When asked how close he believed an NBA expansion process was to beginning, Harrell told KOMO News the following:
“Every week I’m having some kind of meeting or discussion on bringing back the Sonics. You’re gonna see this summer, for example, a lot of Sonic buzz. We need to signal to the NBA that we want a team. We know this is a good market. We know you have a good fan base. But now as mayor, I’ve been asked by a lot of people to get the buzz rolling. The media deal hopefully will be closed here in a matter of weeks, a couple of months. We know (NBA Commissioner) Adam Silver’s talked a little about the process that it will entail. It’s much like how we competed for the FIFA games.
“I am actively not only creating the buzz, but looking at how we build the infrastructure here in Seattle. Let’s signal to the NBA: you have to be here. You’re missing this great market and I feel very good about what’s going to happen here in the near future.”
Silver told reporters at the NBA Finals earlier this month that the league was close to finalizing a new TV and digital rights deal before turning to expansion, and that it would likely first form an “expansion committee” to start the process after that.
Silver went on to say a couple of days later, when prompted, that the league was interested in Seattle and Las Vegas, and Mexico City “one day.”
The Sonics left Seattle officially on July 2, 2008, after then-Mayor Greg Nickels settled with the Sonics ownership group to allow them to break their lease on then-KeyArena.
They rebranded as the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Climate Pledge Arena opened in 2021, on the same site as KeyArena, and has an empty “future NBA locker room” currently being used as storage. David Bonderman, who financed CPA and owns the Kraken, has been a longtime minority owner of the NBA’s Boston Celtics.
You can hear more discussion on the topic in the new “Inside the Arena” weekly podcast, hosted by KOMO Sports Director Niko Tamurian and KOMO Senior Reporter Chris Daniels, on iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, multiple audio platforms and on Friday at 6:30 p.m. on KUNS/ARC Seattle.
