In the first eight years of the Seattle Storm’s existence, the WNBA team was the “tail” on the “dog” of its NBA counterpart, the SuperSonics, according to Storm co-owner Ginny Gilder.
Both bought in 2001 for $200 million by an ownership group led by former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, the Sonics and the Storm shared a practice facility and entertainment complex KeyArena for games. Still, the men’s team brought in the cash and was responsible for the majority of the fixed costs.
