No he didn't. The Save Our Sonics group in Seattle is very POed at him because they were not notified of his decision until after it happened. I guess that group was still working on several items, like a new arena, that required the Schultz lawsuit to be in place. They feel sold out by him yet again (as they should).
Last I heard SOS was sending an email to everyone on their contact list asking that they boycott Starbucks. That is not exactly the support Starbucks’ Board of Directors need/want when trying to rebuild the company under Schultz' leadership. In other words, Schultz has once again pissed off their primary consumer in their home market while the company is going through its most difficult time, all because of their CEO extra-curricular activities.
Sonics | Howard Schultz drops Sonics suit | Seattle Times Newspaper
Quote:
Save Our Sonics co-founder Steven Pyeatt was suspicious of Schultz's timing of the announcement, which came Friday afternoon before the three-day holiday weekend.
"At the very least it's unusual and his reasons are questionable," he said. "We haven't had a chance to talk to [his attorney] or any folks to find out what they're thinking."...
...Pyeatt said Schultz, who bought the team in 2001 for $200 million and sold it for $350 million in 2006, determined his legacy Friday.
"In the beginning everybody was talking about him trying to fix his image and doing this for PR reasons," Pyeatt said. "But the fact that they kept very quiet and they didn't go out and hire a PR firm to pat themselves on the back for doing this, I was leaning toward thinking he was doing it for the right reasons. But now it sounds like he was just doing it for the PR. Now that it's getting a little more difficult and little more costly, he's backing out. That's going to be the public perception.
"There's a lot of people in our group that weren't off the Starbucks boycott. They were at least open-minded to the possibility of getting off it, but I think it might be worse for him now than if he'd never gotten involved. Now you're starting to feel like everybody sold you out. The mayor sold you. The governor sold you out, and now Schultz sold you out."
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