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They wanted a new arena-- even though Key is in pretty good condition with a fairly recent overhaul--but the government wouldn't fit the bill for a 200+million dollar expansion so Howard Shultz (of Starbucks), the owner of the team, entertained offers to buy the team.
Bennett bought the team but was supposed to stay at Key arena through 2010 when their lease was up, but battled through the court system and a deal was reached that they could leave Key arena in 2008.
Bennett tried to get a new 500 million dollar arena built somewhere in the greater seattle area using tax money but the plan failed and the lengthy process of trying to get it approved caused him to give up and decide to move the team to Oklahoma.
Later Schultz found out that Bennetts purchase was not in good faith and tried to sue Bennett to either keep the team or keep it in seattle or something? But because he signed an agreement not to sue it didn't work.
Basically even though key arena is small (17k people), the games weren't coming close to selling out and I think the Sonics blamed this on not having a larger more modern and exciting arena for fans to come to, and the government was willing to provide them with a fancy new place when key arena is a decent arena and their sales were down.
Howard Schultz should have partially funded the remodel and we wouldn't have lost our team.
