The auction could pit the Seattle group that has already made an offer for majority control of the team against a local competing ownership group that could be publicly identified by next week.
The other minority owners of the team will have the first chance to match the winning bid for developer Bob Cook's shares. If none of them do, the Maloof and Hernreich partnership could match the offer.
Matching the offer could be important depending on the language of the deal between the Seattle investors and the Maloofs.