The Seattle SuperSonics Become the Thunder, A City Gets a Team
Near Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
In the summer of two thousand eight, one of the most contested franchise relocations in the history of North American professional sports concluded when the Seattle SuperSonics became the Oklahoma City Thunder. The move followed two years of legal battles, public hearings, a settlement between the city of Seattle and the team's new ownership group, and a level of civic anger in Seattle that has not fully subsided in the years since. The backstory began in two thousand six, when a group of Oklahoma City investors led by Clay Bennett purchased the SuperSonics from Howard Schultz, the Starbucks founder, for three hundred and fifty million dollars.
Bennett and his partners had Oklahoma City's arena in mind from the beginning, though they publicly stated their intention to keep the team in Seattle during a period of negotiations over a new Seattle arena. Seattle's city government and the team ultimately failed to reach an agreement. Bennett announced the move to Oklahoma City in two thousand eight.
Seattle sued. The settlement gave Seattle the rights to the Sonics name and history and allowed the relocation to proceed. What Oklahoma City received was, almost immediately, one of the best teams in the Western Conference.
Kevin Durant, the second overall pick in the two thousand seven draft, had joined the then-Sonics the year before the move. Russell Westbrook arrived with the two thousand eight draft. James Harden came in two thousand nine.
By twenty twelve, the Thunder were in the National Basketball Association Finals, losing to the Miami Heat in five games, a result that the city received with a combination of disappointment and the specific pride of a mid-sized market that had made it that far. The Chesapeake Energy Arena on Reno Avenue, later renamed Paycom Center, seats just under eighteen thousand. On Thunder game nights, the arena district fills up in a way that would have been difficult to imagine in nineteen ninety-five, when downtown Oklahoma City was still largely empty after six o'clock.
The team became the sharpest evidence for the claim that Oklahoma City had permanently rejoined the first tier of American cities, not as a large city, but as a city that was fully, and loudly, itself.
