‘The Sonics Never Died’: The Long Afterlife of Seattle NBA Merch

For years, Jamie Munson has advertised his business, Simply Seattle, as “the largest team shop for a team that doesn’t exist.” 

He may need a new slogan soon.

Last week, NBA owners voted to explore potential expansion bids in Las Vegas and Seattle, in what appears to be the most serious attempt to bring the SuperSonics back to the Emerald City. 

The team relocated to Oklahoma City in 2008 and became the Thunder, leaving its name and history in the city. The Thunder own the team’s intellectual property but are required to return it whenever Seattle gets another NBA team. 

Munson joined Simply Seattle in 2015 as its general manager before buying out the owner two years later. By that point, local hedge fund manager Chris Hansen had already failed to move the Sacramento Kings to Seattle in 2013 and NBA commissioner Adam Silver was still years away from first teasing the idea of expansion. 

But despite that, Munson decided to make the Sonics one of the calling cards of his business. 

“We sort of carved out this niche of what we call the world’s largest SuperSonics retailer,” he told Front Office Sports.

And it paid off handsomely. In 2008, when the Sonics left the city, the vintage sports market was only coming into view. Over the last two decades, it has exploded all over the country, and nowhere is the pull of nostalgia stronger than where a team has actually departed. 

Since Munson took over the business, only championship teams have outsold the Sonics. He cited the Seahawks’ Super Bowl runs and Washington’s CFP run as the only years that the Sonics haven’t been the store’s top-selling team. 

It gives Munson a unique business opportunity: being the top seller of a defunct team that has the chance to return. After Silver announced on Wednesday that owners voted to explore expansion, Munson said it was his busiest sales day of Sonics merchandise “in the past five years.” 

“‘Coma’ is a good word because the team leaves in 2008 and it’s almost like it went into a frozen time capsule,” Munson told FOS. “And no one believes that the team is never gonna not come back.” 

Or as former Sonics coach George Karl put it on X, “If you’ve been to Seattle in the past 20 years you know the Sonics never died.” 

‘They’re not policing that IP’

When Clay Bennett bought the Sonics and moved them to Oklahoma City, and rebranded as the Thunder, part of the $45 million settlement with the city called for the team to hold the Sonics IP and return it to an ownership group that brings a team back to the city. 

The Thunder haven’t touched the Sonics IP in their 18 years of existence. It’s why when Munson became owner of Simply Seattle in 2017, he changed the way he handled the team’s merchandise. 

“The former owner, his strategy was he bootlegged shirts but he would just print the Sonics logo on shirts,” Munson said. “I wanted to be a little more above board with it. It’s been a little bit the wild wild west with Sonics because Oklahoma City, they’re not policing that IP. Not in terms of trying to chase down people who might be violating it.”

The Thunder have let the NBA monitor the Sonics IP while the organization has been focused on creating its own identity instead of leaning into its past. Munson isn’t the sole seller of Sonics merchandise, either. 

Mitchell and Ness, known for throwback jerseys, has sold multiple Sonics jerseys for years through its own site and the NBA. One of the two active players who suited up for the Sonics is Kevin Durant, who played for Seattle as a rookie. Durant’s jersey annually ranks among the league’s top sellers and his Sonics jersey is still regularly donned by fans in NBA arenas.

Should the Sonics return, Munson doesn’t see his ability to get merchandise changing that much. He wonders if the colors and logo will change at all for a new-look franchise, but he still expects to buy from current wholesalers including Fanatics and 47 Brand. And instead of the license being from the NBA’s Hardwood Classics line, it would be listed with the rest of the active teams.

He does expect business to only improve, though, as the Sonics sold well despite little actual expansion news to cling to. Now, the wheels are in motion.

“I think fans have been a little tired over the last couple of years,” Munson said. “It’s kind of the boy who cried wolf where it’s bait and switch.” 

Speaking the day after Silver announced the owners’ vote, he said that sentiment had already begun to shift.

“Yesterday felt like real news, real movement, real progress and so people get excited about that,” he said. “ When they come back and it’s official, I expect it to be 10x of what we did yesterday.”