Word on the street is that the Sacramento Kings have been sold and will file for relocation to Seattle for next season. I don’t follow the NBA, but I’ve always been interested in franchise movement regardless of the league, so that got me wondering… The Kings started as the Rochester Royals, then became the Cincinnati Royals, Kansas City Kings, Sacramento Kings and now (potentially) the Seattle SuperSonics.
Does anybody know of any other team in North America, or even the world, as nomadic as the Kings?
I can think of a team or two in each sport that have been in three cities, but nobody else who have been in four or more…
Boston / Milwaukee / Atlanta Braves
Philadelphia / Kansas City / Oakland Athletics
Chicago / St. Louis / Arizona Cardinals
Kansas City Scouts / Colorado Rockies / New Jersey Devils
Buffalo Braves / San Diego Clippers / Los Angeles Clippers
The franchise will pass MLB’s Angels for most team names:
- Los Angeles Angels
- California Angels
- Anaheim Angels
- Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
Although the Angels only moved once, from LA to Anaheim in 1966–so not the same as the Kings basketball franchise.
After I posted, it occurred to me that the Nets have moved three times without leaving Metro NY… They were on Long Island when they were the New York Nets, then they were in New Jersey, and now in Brooklyn.
Also, the Warriors are probably up there in team names as well… Philly, San Francisco, Golden State…
You can actually make the case that the Kings have played in 6 cities with 6 different team names. When they first moved west from Cincy, they split their games between KC and Omaha and were officially known as the “Kansas City-Omaha Kings”. In 1975, when Kemper Arena in KC opened they abandoned Omaha and became the “Kansas City Kings” at that point.
Greg Dunn
Cool! I saw something about part of the schedule being played in Omaha, but I didn’t realize that there were enough games that they would have Omaha in the name.
Now that I think of it, that’s pretty interesting in that the team played home games in two states, unless they played their Kansas City games in Kansas City, KS rather than Kansas City, MO.