Sonicsgate: Requiem for a Team

The Seattle SuperSonics were the city’s team for many years. They stayed in Seattle for forty one years. In that time they won an NBA championship. They took three conference titles. They took six division titles as well. Gary Payton is among the players who passed through. Shawn Kemp and Ray Allen played there too. Then the way the league worked changed. Salaries rose fast. Clubs were expected to have new and larger arenas. The money for those arenas came mostly from public funds. Seattle’s KeyArena had been remodelled in 1995. The league did not find it sufficient. A legal fight followed in 2008. The team left the city in the end. The documentary sets out how that happened. Slade Gorton and Sam Perkins speak in the hundred and twenty minute film, an American production Jason Reid finished in 2009.