A diehard SuperSonics fan, Seattle resident Tim Knittel thought his biggest dream had come true when he got a job in the team’s events and entertainment department.
But then Kevin Durant, the team’s forward, asked Knittel if he could play ball with him. Knittel was starstruck.
“Hey, can I shoot with you guys?” the WeWork member recalls Durant asking as he stepped onto the court. Dumbfounded, Knittel’s response was a curt, “Uhh, yeah.”
That magic moment didn’t last forever. When the franchise owner took the Sonics out of Seattle and renamed the team Oklahoma City Thunder, Knittel and his brother David were devastated. But the team’s departure motivated them to launch a startup.
Their idea? They wanted to make T-shirts which had a unique Seattle twist.
“The very first shirt had to be Sonics-related, so we made it say, ‘Back to Seattle,’ like the Back to the Future logo except it was green and gold,” says Knittel, co-founder of Shockwave Tees. “The first day we put ourselves out there on social media and said this was our business, there was a rally to get the Sonics back, and people wore our shirts.”
The brothers designed an array of Seattle pride apparel inspired by comic book and TV show characters such as Batman and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
“One of our biggest sellers is the Seahawks T-shirt that looks like the Batman logo, but it’s hand-drawn,” Knittel says.
During the football season, these T-shirts sell like hotcakes. But during the off-season, business is slow. That’s why the brothers have expanded their customer base to include corporations. Its biggest client so far is Coors Light. The beer company found Shockwave Tees on Instagram and has been ordering screen-printed T-shirts to distribute at local bars.
The startup also provides custom orders for local sports teams, schools, and individuals. The brothers recently collaborated with an inspirational speaker who had epilepsy to get her quotes on shirts. They’ve been giving back to the community for the past five years by coaching fifth and sixth grade boys’ basketball and making free T-shirts for the teams.
The vision for Shockwave Tees is to expand further into the Pacific Northwest and gain traction in department stores. Eventually, winning the Sonics back would be a plus.
“The vote on a memorandum to get a sports arena built to bring back the Sonics will take place in April,” Knittel says. “We might do a special Sonics shirt then. It’ll probably be a simple green and gold shirt that says, ‘Do the right thing,’ from a Spike Lee movie. People associate us with the whole movement to bring this team back. That’s huge.”
Photos: Ana Raab