Watch out ole' boys club!

WNBA's Storm to be sold to group of Seattle women
Associated Press
January 8, 2008

SEATTLE — A group of Seattle women, led by former Deputy Mayor Anne Levinson, will buy the WNBA Seattle Storm from SuperSonics owner Clay Bennett for $10 million.
The purchase option for the franchise was finalized in the last few days, ensuring the Storm will remain in Seattle, while Bennett continues his push to move the SuperSonics to his hometown of Oklahoma City.
"How big is the smile on my face today?" Storm CEO Karen Bryant asked. Bryant, who is not part of the ownership group, will remain with the Storm in her current role.
Two Microsoft Corp. executives and an entrepreneur round out the purchase group, disclosed Tuesday.
The group, calling itself Force 10 Hoops, has until the end of February to close the sale and would need approval of the WNBA board of governors for the standalone franchise.
Levinson, who led the negotiations, said the group was doing it for Storm fans and the community.
The others in Force 10 Hoops are Ginny Gilder, an investment business owner who won a silver medal at the L.A. Olympics; Lisa Brummel, senior vice president of human resources at Microsoft and a Yale softball player; and Dawn Trudeau, who heads Microsoft's database division.
Seattle SuperSonics owner Clay Bennett has owned both teams since July 2006. Bennett's group has filed with the NBA to relocate the Sonics to Bennett's hometown of Oklahoma City.
When Bennett took over ownership, he said he had no intention of splitting the franchises. But last September, he said he might be willing to split the two teams or keep the Storm in Seattle, even if the Sonics were to move. At that time he said the Storm would play the 2008 season in Seattle, but made no commitments beyond that.
The Storm would be the seventh WNBA team independently owned, joining Atlanta, Chicago, Connecticut, Houston, Los Angeles and Washington. They are the third team with a majority female ownership, along with Washington and Los Angeles.
The Seattle team has been successful in its eight years in existence, highlighted by its 2004 WNBA title, the first professional sports title in the city since the 1979 SuperSonics won the NBA championship.