Kraken Franchise At Six

Early on during the two-year lead-up to the official awarding of the Kraken franchise, soon-to-be-team-owner David Bonderman arrived for a visit to the Seattle Center campus where he’d once worked as a Space Needle security guard while attending the University of Washington.

There to give him an impromptu campus tour at the request of Oak View Group co-founder Tim Leiweke – spearheading a planned overhaul of KeyArena into Climate Pledge Arena -- was Seattle Center director Robert Nellams, eager to show Bonderman what had changed in the decades since.

“Tim Leiweke said, ‘Bonderman wants to take a tour around the campus; can you grab a golf cart and take him on a little tour?” Nellams recalled. “So, I grabbed a golf cart and took him on a tour and talked about the things we were doing and how the campus worked.”

And Nellams came away impressed by what an “everyday guy” Bonderman seemed to be, as opposed to just another wealthy owner looking to put his stamp on things.

“He was so nice when I took him around,” Nellams said. “I was a little taken aback… I really, really appreciated the fact that he was so gracious.”

Those who’ve witnessed Bonderman’s oversight of the Kraken franchise up close view it in similar “everyday guy” terms: A man of enormous means eager to provide resources but humble enough to not intervene too deeply in areas already entrusted to experts in their fields.

On Wednesday as the Kraken celebrates the sixth anniversary of having been awarded their franchise in Sea Island, Georgia, on Dec. 4, 2018, the legacy Bonderman enacted is today being furthered by his daughter, Samantha Holloway, 44, now the team’s co-owner and chair of the Executive Committee.

Holloway, a tech entrepreneur and investor, relocated to Seattle with her family two years ago.

“My transition came through a perfect storm,” Holloway said. “I had just sold my company, and the pandemic proved to be a catalyst for me to move here.”

Holloway already had a solid base to work from.

Her father, who turned 82 last week, had assembled an ownership group of nationally and internationally recognized business and sports industry figures, including his longtime business associate, Hollywood producer, and director Jerry Bruckheimer, as well as Space Needle steward David Wright, and Amazon CEO Andy Jassy.

“The legacy of Seattle sports is second to none,” Holloway said. “And our best days are ahead of us.”

She has put her own touches on the Kraken while preparing to expand the vision for the future of Seattle sports.

The first area of expansion is a major community project: The overhaul of Memorial Stadium on the Seattle Center campus into a more modern facility in partnership with Seattle Public Schools and the City of Seattle.

Another potential project would be bidding for an NBA expansion franchise to replace the Sonics team that left for Oklahoma City some 16 years ago. NBA commissioner Adam Silver has strongly indicated that expansion is on the near-term horizon and that two new teams could be added to the existing 30.

"The most logical thing would be to do it with two teams, otherwise we would have to make adjustments for having odd numbers," Silver said at a press conference last month. “It is also possible to do it with odd numbers, but we would like to do it with two teams and not one.”

Seattle and Las Vegas are frequently mentioned in news reports as frontrunners in any NBA expansion scenario. One reason Seattle keeps coming up as a candidate is Climate Pledge Arena, which was overhauled to the tune of $1.2 billion in private financing. The world-class venue with an abundance of first-class club seating and suites along with incredible sightlines stands as a beacon of sustainability, and an amazing home for sports, live music, and entertainment.

When Oak View Group first approached city officials in 2016 about plans to completely rebuild the venue under its existing 44-million-pound roof, skepticism reigned. Nobody believed the venture would be profitable without a major professional winter sports team.

Enter Bonderman.

“I’ve looked at franchises from time to time, but I haven’t been in the right place at the right time until now,” Bonderman would say in 2018, by then deep into negotiations to ultimately acquire a Seattle NHL expansion team for $650 million. “I think of it as a personal opportunity, as they say. But it’s a different opportunity in some ways than what I’ve done before. What I do for a living is make investments. And this is a big one.”

For his ‘big investment’, Bonderman hired Tod Leiweke, former Seattle Seahawks CEO and then the No. 2 executive at the NFL to serve as CEO of the future Kraken.

Holloway insists the Kraken would not be in the strong organizational position it now is without its “incredible” executive team under Tod’s leadership.

“The last three years have been like a start-up journey,” Holloway said. “We are scaling and that’s exciting. You make mistakes as you grow but you do them with integrity and a commitment to your fans.”

Leiweke, in turn, says the Bonderman family’s ownership has done everything it promised him it would and that Holloway continues to provide resources to grow the Kraken product both on-ice and off.

“David has been an amazing owner and so supportive,” Leiweke said of Bonderman. “And a great gift he gave us along the way was his daughter, Samantha, our co-owner. The family truly cares about our fans and community.”

Beyond the investment in the Kraken, Bonderman, Holloway, and the ownership group built Kraken Community Iceplex which now attracts more than one million annual visitors and has become a focal point of community activity. They have also been closely involved with the team’s foundation, One Roof Foundation, which focuses on access to play, youth homelessness, and environmental justice.

This past summer, Holloway approved a plan to spend to the very brink of the salary cap limit – adding $94 million in long-term contracts to free agents Brandon Montour and Chandler Stephenson while granting tens of millions more in additional extensions to Matty Beniers, Adam Larsson, Jordan Eberle, and Eeli Tolvanen.

The team also started its own Kraken Sports Network in-house television broadcast. That investment has since paid off with viewer numbers on free Tegna-owned stations and streaming on Amazon Prime now multiple times what they were last season.

Holloway isn’t surprised the viewer numbers have jumped.

“Seattle’s sports fans are a force to be reckoned with,” she said. “This city lives and breathes sports and this environment has shaped our intense drive to create unforgettable experiences for Kraken fans.”

Her Kraken goal moving forward is simple: Build a competitive team and have a true impact on the Seattle community.

“I care about building winning teams and doing it the right way,” she said. “I’m a competitive person and that is what our fans deserve.”

But just like her father, she’s resisted the urge to intervene too greatly in areas best left to experts she already has in place. And prefers to weigh in more on the areas where she’s already demonstrated her own expertise in other fields.

“I have always been customer focused and now it’s the same fan-centric mindset that guides my approach,” she said. “It’s all about enhancing the fan experience. We never want to sit back – we should always be reassessing and reinventing.”

It hasn’t been an easy six years getting to where the Kraken are now. Through the rollercoaster of construction to a global pandemic, the team has weathered the storm with an emphasis on listening to the fans.

That’s how Holloway wants to build on the brand’s initial success - with a commitment to innovation and to furthering the family legacy that her “everyday guy” father started.

“Sports are fun – they bring joy, and hope; they can change lives and communities,” Holloway concluded. “We are rooted in Seattle and want to see our city and region thrive.”