Thunder join Rams as recent relocated championships
The Thunder won the NBA Finals on Sunday, capping off a season in which they won the most regular season games and winning a title 17 years after moving from Seattle to Oklahoma City. Winning a championship in your new city is something that the Rams can relate to from the NFL.
And they’ve done it more than once.
The blueprint to the Thunder’s 2025 championship started in 2007
◽️ 2007 – Sonics GM Sam Presti sign-and-trade Rashard Lewis to the Magic for a conditional 2nd-round pick
◽️ 2007 – Sonics trade the 2nd-round pick to the Phoenix Suns for Kurt Thomas and two first-round picks… pic.twitter.com/75snG09iw3
— The Athletic NBA (@TheAthleticNBA) June 23, 2025
The Rams won the NFL Championship in 1945 when they were in Cleveland and then immediately moved to Los Angeles in 1946 as the first professional sports team west of the Mississippi.
It would only take three more years for the Rams to make the championship game after moving to L.A., and then Norm Van Brocklin led them to their first title as a team in Southern California by beating the CLEVELAND Browns in the 1951. That was L.A.’s third straight appearance in the NFL Championship game.
But after nearly 50 years in Los Angeles, the Rams moved once again, this time relocating to St. Louis in 1995. Previous to that, the Rams had reached only one Super Bowl, a 31-19 loss to the Steelers in 1979.
However, it took just five seasons for the St. Louis Rams to reach the Super Bowl, win it, and become one of the greatest teams in NFL history: The Greatest Show on Turf with Kurt Warner.
That was the second time that the Rams won a championship within six years of relocation.
Of course, after 21 seasons in St. Louis, owner Stan Kroenke got anxious about how much money he could make if the Rams played in a major market and once again moved the team to Los Angeles. The Rams started their second SoCal stint in 2016 and took only three years to get to the Super Bowl. Like clockwork, on their sixth season in L.A., the Rams won the Super Bowl.
Great news if you’re a Rams fan, stupendous news if your Kroenke, but painful if you’re strictly a fan of the team that was in St. Louis.
Rams approved to relocate to Los Angeles: https://t.co/JirE1vxKry pic.twitter.com/I3xrlDGtD6
— NFL (@NFL) January 13, 2016
So is relocation good for sports or only good for business?
Technically, the Rams aren’t the only NFL team to win a championship after relocation. The Kansas City Chiefs started as the Dallas Texans in 1960 and then moved to K.C. in 1963, also the year right after winning the NFL Championship.
The Baltimore Ravens used to be the Cleveland Browns, but didn’t take the Browns history with them.
The Indianapolis Colts were in Baltimore from 1953 to 1983.
Relocation could be a painful part of sports history, but is history nonetheless. The Minneapolis Lakers won five of six championships from 1948 to 1953, but that didn’t stop them from moving to L.A. in 1960, where they have since won 12 championships. Now the Thunder carry on that legacy.
The NFL would like to avoid relocation in the future. The past tells us that they won’t be able to.