Seattle SuperSonics relocation to Oklahoma City

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 basketball season, after becoming the third National Basketball Association (NBA) franchise to relocate in the 2000s.

After efforts to persuade Washington state government officials to provide $220 million in public funding to update KeyArena failed, 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 that allowed the team to move under certain conditions.

In months prior to the settlement, Seattle publicly released email conversations that took place within Bennett's ownership group and alleged that they indicated at least some members of the group had a desire to move the team to Oklahoma City prior to the purchase in 2006. The city used the conversations to argue that the 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.

...
Wikipedia