An Oklahoma City media outlet, KOCO-TV, has reported the city’s relocated NBA team will be named the Oklahoma City Thunder for the 2008-09 season.
The “Thunder,” formerly the Seattle SuperSonics, are in the middle of a full-scale move from the Northwest to Oklahoma. According to KOCO.com, the NBA’s Internet division — through CSC Corporate Domains — secured the domain names of “okcthunderbasketball.com” and “okcthunderbasketball.net” on July 10.
The “Thunder” were officially granted permission to leave Seattle last month, the result of an out-of-court settlement between Sonics majority owner Clay Bennett and the city of Seattle. In return, Seattle gets to retain the “Sonics” name, logo and team colors (green and gold) and could receive up to $45 million in the next several years, as penalty for Bennett breaking the lease agreement with KeyArena, the Sonics’ home for nearly two decades.
The city of Seattle originally wanted to keep the Sonics at KeyArena for two more years. The Sonics’ season-ticket holding base even filed a class-action lawsuit against Bennett and the other team owners at one point.
Credit: Associated Press
