Oklahoma City’s NBA team is expected to announce Thunder will be the nickname at 5 p.m. next Wednesday, Sept. 3, when it releases the team name, its mark, the four team colors and logo at a press conference at Leadership Square.
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Team officials would neither confirm nor deny whether Thunder is the nickname.
Team uniforms, home and road, won’t be announced until late September.
Team merchandise will be available on Wednesday following the announcement.
And don’t put any credence in uniform designs that have appeared on the Internet with Thunder logos. All designs have been speculative and have no affiliation with the NBA or Oklahoma City’s franchise.
All signs pointed to Thunder being the nickname when the NBA released the 2008-09 schedule earlier this month. For a few hours, if someone linked Oklahoma City on any of the team’s 82 games on the NBA’s master schedule, all links pointed to www.nba.com/thunder.
Later that day the Thunder URL was inactive.
The NBA filed trademark rights to six nicknames for Oklahoma City’s franchise in July, according to the U.S. patent and trademark office. Thunder was one of six names filed. The others were: Barons, Bison, Energy, Marshalls and Wind.
Thunder has been believed to be the nickname for more than a month after KOCO reported the company the NBA uses to file domain names purchased okcthunderbasketball.com on July 10.
Since Thunder is expected to be the nickname, there’s been speculation whether Oklahoma City’s NBA team would try to purchase domain names from a communications company in California, which has owned thunder.com and thunder.net since 1994.
That won’t be necessary.
The NBA owns rights to its Web site which would allow the league to link the Oklahoma City team’s Web site to the page: www.nba.com/thunder without infringing on the domain rights of the California company.
For example, jazz.com is a music Web site that currently features a story on whether hip-hop and jazz can mix, but www.nba.com/jazz takes you to the Utah Jazz’s home page.
Thunder.net communications in July extended domain name rights through 2011. In a question and answer segment on the Web site, it was asked if the thunder domain names could be purchased.
The answer: “In case you thought you’re the first to ask, you’re 14 years too late. The answer has always been No. They’re not for sale. The domains are in use.”
A follow-up question suggested everyone has a price. The answer was: “You’d have a real challenge trying to convince an unmotivated party to sell. Sale prices in recent years indicate prime dictionary-based domain names are worth many millions, so your initial offer would have to break records for domain name sales prices.”
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Curious about the whole ending with "s" thing, what is wrong with it not ending in "s"? Seems like you would want your team performing as a team (a singular, collective unit) rather than a loose collaboration of individuals. While in the minority, there are pro teams with singular team names. Don't particularly care for the Thunder (too generic) of the 6 finalists names I liked the Bison the best.
Martin: Reportedly, Bennett used leaving the Sonics name etc with Seattle as leverage to get out of the lease and move the team. He and his staff have said they are essentially treating this as an expansion franchise (but a weird hybrid since he is going to "share" the teams records with whatever team Seattle might get as a replacement...even going to make copies of the trophies and banners...wonder if they will have the Sonics colors and logos or the Thunders?). IMO, they should have been patient and waited for an expansion team (yes, I know Stern has said there are no plans for that, but Stern has been known to not exactly tell the truth completely either) instead of buying a team and trying to move it in the underhanded way they did (all brought out in court). Have nothing against the team or the players themselves. It is the ownership group and City Leaders/Chamber that have engaged in so much spin, half-truths and out right lies during this whole mess. While there could have been a tie-in with Sonic drive-ins if they kept the name (more than one poster on these threads thought the "hamburger guy" bought the team from the "coffee guy".
SuperSonics still sounds like a pretty good team name. Why wasn't there any consideration to keep it? Original franchise names have been kept in many other cases when a team changed locales. For instance: Chicago/St. Louis/Arizona Cardinals; Cleveland/Los Angeles/St. Louis Rams; Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers; New York/San Francisco Giants; Atlanta/Calgary Flames
Heck, even in the NBA, there were the St. Louis/Atlanta Hawks, the New Orleans/Utah Jazz, and the Charlotte/New Orleans Hornets. But, of course, there were also the Houston Oilers/Tennessee Oilers/Tennessee Titans, Kansas City Scouts/Colorado Rockies/New Jersey Devils, and even the New York Titans/Jets and the Houston Colt 45s/Astros. So what's up with the Seattle SuperSonics/Oklahoma City Thunder. It's just weird seeing a major sports franchise with a team name that doesn't end in "s," so my suggestion -- late though it may be -- would be to retain the team name and make it the Oklahoma City SuperSonics, complete with alliteration, which is always good in sports team names. Thunder? Ah, what a blunder ... maybe they can score a hundred, although you have to wonder if it would be safer to take the under ...
Well, according to ticketmaster some of the games are listed as Thunder. I don't know what to believe anymore. I guess the Barons decoration was just to throw off the people who would likely tell people like me and would likely tell you. They're good at covering up their tracks, except when it comes to incriminating emails.
AimForCenterMass, Oklahoma City - Aug 28, 2008 at 4:28 pm
This would be a pleasant surprise if your news ends up being true and I would love to see all the media types if they went with Barons instead of Thunder.
UPDATE: Bennett is smarter than I realized. Now, the sources were ordered to make decorations for Thunder as well. I guess he's trying to throw off people who might have leaked the name a little prematurely. However, one common theme among the decor was the dark blue/silver...and apparently a hint of orange, similiar to the Denver or BSU Broncos...just more silver.
AimForCenterMass, Oklahoma City - Aug 28, 2008 at 1:57 pm
The most I can say is, the sources are somehow involved with the celebration planning at the news conference. Of course, they could just be yanking my chain, but if it comes down to trusting a friend or the Daily Oklahoman for reliable information, I'll trust the friend.
AimForCenterMass, Oklahoma City - Aug 28, 2008 at 1:48 pm
I've heard through a few sources that the name will be Barons. I'm pretty sure of that one. As for the color scheme, I've heard dark blue and silver/white could be it, but I'm not as certain about the colors as I am the name. Barons is the name. The Daily Jokelahoman is wrong, as always.
AimForCenterMass, Oklahoma City - Aug 28, 2008 at 6:04 am
Yeah, Lakers is a real classic. Los Angeles took the name when the team moved from Minnesota. And the Jazz fits real nicely in Utah. The name doesn't really matter does it? Over time the name will be as common as the Miami Heat and the Orlando Magic.
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Heck, even in the NBA, there were the St. Louis/Atlanta Hawks, the New Orleans/Utah Jazz, and the Charlotte/New Orleans Hornets. But, of course, there were also the Houston Oilers/Tennessee Oilers/Tennessee Titans, Kansas City Scouts/Colorado Rockies/New Jersey Devils, and even the New York Titans/Jets and the Houston Colt 45s/Astros. So what's up with the Seattle SuperSonics/Oklahoma City Thunder. It's just weird seeing a major sports franchise with a team name that doesn't end in "s," so my suggestion -- late though it may be -- would be to retain the team name and make it the Oklahoma City SuperSonics, complete with alliteration, which is always good in sports team names. Thunder? Ah, what a blunder ... maybe they can score a hundred, although you have to wonder if it would be safer to take the under ...