Seattle SuperSonics relocation to Oklahoma City information
NBA franchise relocation
The interior of KeyArena during the Sonics' last home game in Seattle, played against the Dallas Mavericks.
The Seattle SuperSonics relocation to Oklahoma City was a successful effort by the ownership group of the Seattle SuperSonics to relocate the team from Seattle, Washington to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The team began play as the Oklahoma City Thunder in the 2008–09 NBA season, after becoming the third National Basketball Association (NBA) franchise to relocate in the 2000s.
After failed efforts to persuade Washington state government officials to provide $220 million in public funding to update KeyArena, the SuperSonics' ownership group, led by Howard Schultz, sold the team to the Professional Basketball Club LLC (PBC), an investment group headed by Oklahoma City businessman Clay Bennett. A condition of the sale was that PBC execute a "good faith effort" to secure a suitable arena in the Seattle area for the team. After failing to persuade local governments to pay for a new $500 million arena complex, Bennett's group notified the NBA that it intended to move the team to Oklahoma City and requested arbitration with the city of Seattle to be released from its lease with KeyArena. When the request was rejected by a judge, Seattle sued Bennett's group to enforce the lease that required the team to play in KeyArena through 2010. On July 2, 2008, a settlement was reached where PBC would pay $45 million in exchange for breaking the lease, and an additional $30 million if Seattle was not given a replacement team in five years, among other conditions.
In months prior to the settlement, Seattle publicly released email conversations that took place within Bennett's ownership group alleging they indicated that some members of the group had a desire to move the team to Oklahoma City prior to its purchase in 2006. The city used these conversations to argue that ownership failed to negotiate in good faith and as a result, Schultz filed a lawsuit seeking to rescind the sale of the team and transfer the ownership to a court-appointed receiver. The NBA claimed the lawsuit was void because Schultz signed a release forbidding himself to sue Bennett's group but also argued that the proposal would have violated league ownership rules. Schultz dropped the case before the start of the 2008–09 NBA season. Ten years later, in 2019, Schultz accepted full responsibility for the sale. "Selling the Sonics as I did is one of the biggest regrets of my professional life. I should have been willing to lose money until a local buyer emerged. I am forever sorry."[1]
^Schultz, Howard (January 28, 2019). From the Ground Up: A Journey to Reimagine the Promise of America. Random House Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-525-50945-5.
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