Seattle Super Sonics Relocation To Oklahoma City
The Seattle SuperSonics relocation to Oklahoma City was a successful effort by the ownership group of the Seattle SuperSonics to move the team to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The team began play as the Oklahoma City Thunder in the 2008–2009 basketball season after becoming the third NBA franchise to relocate in the past decade.
After failed efforts to persuade Washington state government officials to provide funding to update KeyArena, the SuperSonics' ownership group, led by Howard Schultz, sold the team to Professional Basketball Club LLC (PBC), an investment group headed by Oklahoma City businessman Clayton Bennett. After failing to persuade local governments to fund a $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.
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—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)
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—M.F.K. Fisher (1908–1992)
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—James Poe (1921–1980)