Oklahoma City-Seattle franchise swap? Are the Arena Football League's OKC YardDawgz the franchise to be named later?

Just when the Thunder-Sonics bad blood between the Great Plains and Great Northwest had subsided on message boards, along comes a report that, if true, would in some strange way make the Dawgz the team to be named later in a Seattle-OKC franchise swap.

Perhaps fittingly, the news arrived via a message board.

The first report came in this “Dawgz Moving to Seattle!” thread on aflfanzone.com: “The AFL FanZone Staff have received official unofficial information that the Oklahoma City Yard Dawgz will be moving to Seattle, Washington.”

That was posted Saturday afternoon, and a couple hours later YardDawgz general manager Christie Cook told The Oklahoman’s Jason Kersey the report was false.

Today, two state Web sites are reporting the Dawgz are moving to Seattle, one citing “a source close to the Oklahoma City arena football league team.” The other cites the report on AFL Fan Zone.

Are they right? Cook, again, said no. I called her this morning and she mentioned other reports that Yard Dawgz owner Phil Miller was in Seattle, adding that Miller was in Oklahoma City today and yesterday. Cook said the Yard Dawgz are working on season tickets and lining up sponsors for next season. The Oklahoman’s Steve Lackmeyer just reminded me the YardDawgz recently opened a team store in the new Bricktown Red Dirt Marketplace.

Is the team being sold?

“No, not to my knowledge,” Cook said. “The directive to me has been to sell 2011 season ticket packages and sponsorships in Oklahoma City.”