Oklahoma City mogul speaks out

OKLAHOMA CITY – An Oklahoma City energy tycoon says the group that purchased the Seattle SuperSonics hopes to move the NBA franchise to Oklahoma City, but he acknowledges the team could make more money in the Pacific Northwest.

“But we didn’t buy the team to keep it in Seattle; we hoped to come here,” Aubrey McClendon, chief executive of Chesapeake Energy, told the Journal Record for a story in Monday’s edition. “We know it’s a little more difficult financially here in Oklahoma City.”

The Oklahoma City-based ownership group, headed by Clay Bennett, bought the SuperSonics last year and wants to have an agreement to build a new arena in Seattle by Oct. 31. If a deal is not in place to build the new facility by then, Bennett has said he plans to move the team to Oklahoma City.

“They’ve got 60 days to make some decisions they haven’t been willing to make in the past year,” McClendon said, “and if they make them in a way that satisfies Clay, then the team will stay there. If they don’t meet the requirements he’s laid out, the team will move, and Clay has indicated they’ll come to Oklahoma City.”

Bennett called the comments McClendon’s “personal thoughts” and said McClendon was “not speaking on behalf of the ownership group.”

“It is my hope we will see a breakthrough in the next 60 days that will result in securing a new arena for the Sonics and Storm in the Greater Seattle area,” Bennett said.

McClendon said he, Bennett and others in the ownership group became interested in purchasing an NBA team after the New Orleans Hornets temporarily relocated to Oklahoma City for two seasons after Hurricane Katrina.

“We started to look around, and at that time the Sonics were going through some ownership challenges in Seattle,” McClendon told the newspaper. “So Clay, very artfully and skillfully, put himself in the middle of those discussions and to the great amazement and surprise to everyone in Seattle, some rednecks from Oklahoma, which we’ve been called, made off with the team.”