Seattle is having a bad week. First Starbucks announced it was closing down 600 Starbucks coffee shops. Now their NBA team is gone. There are things that could make it much worse, but this was not a week they will soon forget.
Clay Bennett and company from Oklahoma City won a ruling today that allowed them to break their lease with the city and move the team to Oklahoma City. Under the agreement, Seattle will keep the SuperSonics’ name and team colors. Now the scramble in OKC occurs for a team name, colors and logo. They need this soon so that they can begin to make the merchandising revenue off of sold shirts, jerseys and all other random things that a logo get’s put on. They also need this so they can begin to sell season tickets and get Oklahomans hyped up! For more information on Oklahoma City’s new basketball team you can visit their wikipedia page.
The 600 stores that will be closing are their lowest performing shops. Approximately 70 percent of the stores being closed have opened since the beginning of fiscal 2006. The stores are not known yet, but this is not good for the Seattle based company. For some this is some poetic justice because the Starbucks chairman Howard Schultz headed the group that owned the SuperSonics from 2001to 2006.
Seattle, it will get better. You still have tons of Starbucks and someday you will get a team.
