Thunder Season Tickets Could Be Sold Out By Tomorrow Night

Oklahoma City Thunder tickets are "such a hot item, season-ticket sales might be capped Wednesday night or sometime Thursday," according to Mike Baldwin of the DAILY OKLAHOMAN. Fans who have "late-in-the-week appointments" to secure season tickets will be canceled and "those fans will be placed on a waiting list and most likely have an opportunity to purchase eight-game mini packages." Applicants with appointments today will "discover that most of the Ford Center's 19,200 seats are already gone," including a "majority of seats in the lower bowl." Applicants picking seats yesterday found "hundreds of white seat covers represented more than 2,500 seats reserved for corporate sponsors and several hundred more seats for media, league and team needs." Thunder spokesperson Dan Mahoney: "There was a tremendous amount of corporate interest" (DAILY OKLAHOMAN, 9/9).

FLYING OFF THE SHELVES: In Oklahoma City, John Rohde reports thousands of fans "have waited in line to purchase T-shirts, hats and other merchandise" at the team's official store at the Ford Center. The club set a merchandise-sales record for a non-game day during in the 24 hours after the team name and logo were unveiled last Wednesday, and while the Thundershop "wasn't open during the weekend, the team's Web site experienced heavy traffic." The site has received "roughly 500,000 visits so far" since it was launched, and XP Events President Alan Fey said interest in the team "has come from all over the country" (DAILY OKLAHOMAN, 9/9).

GET OVER IT: A DAILY OKLAHOMAN editorial states the team's Oklahoma City moniker "has some opinion leaders in Tulsa more than a little rankled." The editorial: "We're tempted to point out that the team's owners are from Oklahoma City, or that it was city voters who agreed to tax themselves in order to pay for Ford Center upgrades. Without these improvements, there would be no Thunder opening shop here. But the bottom line is this: The team is contractually obligated to include 'city' in its name, and that's been the case for months. It's time to move on" (DAILY OKLAHOMAN, 9/9).