BY ERIC D. WILLIAMS
Eric.williams@thenewstribune.com

Here’s a revelation: The Seattle SuperSonics likely will continue to lose millions of dollars if the team is forced to stay in Seattle for two more seasons and honor terms of the KeyArena lease.

Danny Barth, CEO of the Sonics, presented that gloomy financial picture for the future while on the witness stand Wednesday.

Barth’s testimony was the focus of the afternoon session in the third day of the trial involving the Sonics and the City of Seattle. The city is suing the Sonics to force the team to honor a clause in the KeyArena contract that states the team must play all of its home games at the Seattle Center facility until the end of the contract, which runs until September 2010.

Sonics chairman Clay Bennett (shown above being questioned by the city's lead attorney, Paul Lawrence. Listen to an interview with Lawrence here and here.) also returned to the witness stand in the morning session, and again reiterated that he had hoped to get an arena deal done in Seattle. However, once efforts for his proposal for a $500 million facility in Renton failed to gain support among state lawmakers in Olympia, Bennett said he turned his effort toward plans to move the team Oklahoma City.

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Bennett also said he apologized to players for a published, internal email. Responding to a comment that Sonics players were upset about the prospects of moving to Oklahoma City, Bennett wrote in an email: “Boo-hoo.”

And in a made-for-TV moment toward the end of his testimony, Bennett also expressed disappointment for his failure in securing a new arena in Seattle.

“We bought this team with grand visions for success,” Bennett said. “Did we do everything right? No, we didn’t. Did we understand everything there was to understand? We did not. ... But I believed in the bottom of my heart we would succeed and I am deeply disappointed we did not.”

During direct examination by Brad Keller, lead attorney for the Sonics, Barth (shown below) testified that declining ticket sales, TV ratings and sponsorship shows a market apathetic to the team.

Some of the dismal numbers include:
-- The team experienced a more than 61 percent decline in the last four years in television ratings for Sonics broadcasts on Fox Sports Northwest.

-- The Sonics had a “no show” rate of 28 percent for the 2007-08 season. This statistic reflects fans that bought tickets but failed to show up to the arena.

-- Paid attendance is down from 13,798 (13th in the league) in 2000-01 to 9,146 (27th) last season.

-- 23 employees have left the Sonics organization in the last six months.

-- The Sonics are projected to lose $27.6 million this season and nearly $60 million in the next two years if they stay in Seattle.

Barth said the team has received no requests to buy tickets for the upcoming season, and doesn’t see the team’s fortunes getting any better if the Sonics are forced to stay in Seattle.

“I think it will only get worse over time,” Barth said.

However, Jeffrey Johnson, an attorney for the city, got Barth to admit that the team wasn’t even selling tickets for next season because of the uncertainty of where the team will be. According to Barth, the team also is not pursuing requests to renew season ticket packages or club suites until the case is decided.

According to a report by The News Tribune, the Sonics broke even and did not lose money in the 2005-06 season, in part because of a second-round playoff run the year before. Lawrence said in an interview that the team’s performance on the floor has a direct correlation to how much money the team earns.

“The key to whether the team is going to make money or not, regardless of whether they’re in Seattle or Oklahoma City is how well the team does,” Lawrence said. “If the team has a turnaround like the Boston Celtics. … I assure you they’ll make money now matter where they are.”

In the last two seasons Bennett’s Oklahoma City-based group has owned the Sonics, the team has experienced two of worst seasons record-wise in franchise history, including a franchise worst 20-62 record last season.

The city called expert witness Lon Hatamiya late in the day to testify on the economic impact the Sonics have on the Seattle area. The Harvard-educated economist said that over a 5-year period from 2003 to 2007 the Sonics had a total, average yearly economic impact of $187.8 million.

Hatamiya will continue his testimony today. Also scheduled to testify are Seattle author Sherman Alexie and former Sonics employee Matthew Wade.