OKLAHOMA CITY (TICKER) —The NBA filed for trademarks on six nicknames for Oklahoma City’s new franchise, The Oklahoman reported on Friday.
Citing the United States Trademark and Patent Office, the newspaper said that the league filed for a trademark on Barons, Bison, Energy, Marshalls, Thunder and Wind.
It has been rumored in the last few weeks that the team formerly known as the Seattle SuperSonics is leaning toward Thunder, but the NBA would not reveal that information.
“The NBA will not have a comment on this until a nickname is selected,†NBA senior director of basketball communications Tim Frank told the newspaper.
Citing a source close to team ownership, Oklahoma City’s ABC affiliate previously reported that the “registrar for all of the NBA’s Internet domain names were reserved okcthunderbasketball.com and okcthunderbasketball.net on July 10,†suggesting that the franchise will soon be renamed.
The franchise left the Pacific Northwest after an ugly court case ended with an agreement between the team and the city of Seattle, which released the club from its lease at KeyArena - the crux of the disagreement.
In the court case, the city of Seattle had been seeking to hold the owners of the Sonics to the remaining two years of the team’s KeyArena lease and Sonics’ season-ticket holders also filed a class-action lawsuit that contended they were tricked into buying tickets under the belief that the team would be staying in the Pacific Northwest.
Sonics majority owner Clay Bennett and his ownership group alleged the team was losing money at KeyArena, thereby necessitating a move to Oklahoma City.
However, the Sonics and the city of Seattle came to an agreement on July 2, just hours before a district court judge was to issue a verdict on the six-day trial.
As per the agreement, the Oklahoma City franchise agreed to leave the Sonics’ name, logo and colors behind for a potential future NBA franchise in Seattle.
