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The Seattle SuperSonics relocation to Oklahoma City was a successful effort by the ownership group of the Seattle SuperSonics to move the team from Seattle, Washington to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The team began play as the Oklahoma City Thunder in the 2008–2009 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 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 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. ==Sale of team== On July 18, 2006, the Basketball Club of Seattle, led by Howard Schultz, sold the Seattle SuperSonics and Seattle Storm after failing to reach an agreement with the city of Seattle over a publicly funded $220 million expansion of KeyArena, which was remodeled in 1995 and was the NBA's smallest venue, with a seating capacity of 17,072. After failing to find a local ownership group to sell the team to, Schultz talked to ownership groups from Kansas City, St. Louis, Las Vegas, Nevada, San Jose and Anaheim before agreeing to sell the team to an ownership group from Oklahoma City, which pursued an NBA franchise after hosting the New Orleans Hornets franchise successfully for two seasons as New Orleans rebuilt from Hurricane Katrina. The sale to Clay Bennett's group for $350 million〔〔 was approved by NBA owners on October 24, 2006. Terms of the sale required the new ownership group to "use good faith best efforts" for the term of 12 months in securing a new arena lease or venue in the Greater Seattle Area.〔 On February 12, 2007, Bennett proposed using tax money to pay for a new $500 million arena in Renton, Washington, a suburb of Seattle.〔 After failing to reach a deal by the end of the legislative session, Bennett gave up his attempt in April 2007. On November 2, 2007 the team announced it would move to Oklahoma City as soon as it could get free of its KeyArena lease. Seattle's mayor, Greg Nickels, maintained the stance that the Sonics were expected to stay in Seattle until their lease expired in 2010 and said that the city did not intend to make it easy for Bennett to move the team early. Over concerns that the city would accept a buyout of the lease, a grassroots group filed a citywide initiative that sought to prevent the city from accepting such an offer from Bennett's group. The Seattle City Council later unanimously passed an ordinance modeled after the initiative. On August 13, 2007, Aubrey McClendon, a minor partner of Bennett's ownership group, said in an interview that the team was not purchased to keep it in Seattle but to relocate it to Oklahoma City. Bennett later denied such intentions, saying McClendon "was not speaking on behalf of the ownership group". Due to his comments, McClendon was fined $250,000 by the NBA. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Seattle SuperSonics relocation to Oklahoma City」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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