Paycom Center

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Paycom Center sits in the heart of downtown Oklahoma City, and its history reads like a bet that a mid-sized city made on itself. When the building opened on the 8th of June, 2002, it was deliberately stripped of luxury amenities. City planners had a reason for that restraint. No major-league tenant had committed to Oklahoma City, and local leaders did not want to be seen spending lavishly on a venue that might sit half-empty. The arena was built to minimum NBA and NHL specifications, nothing more, but with one important design decision baked in: the whole structure could be retrofitted when the time came.

  That time came faster than almost anyone anticipated. Within three years, a hurricane would drive a professional basketball team to Oklahoma City's doorstep. Within six years, billionaire investor Clay Bennett would pull a franchise out of Seattle and plant it permanently in Oklahoma. The arena that once lacked luxury suites would host NBA Finals games. The questions worth sitting with are how a building built to minimum standards became one of the NBA's regular playoff venues, and what a series of naming rights deals reveals about the economics of running a modern arena.

• 2. A City Bets on Itself

  ›

  The 1993 Capital Improvement Program, known as Metropolitan Area Projects or MAPS, was the financial engine behind the arena. Oklahoma City funded new and upgraded sports, entertainment, cultural, and convention facilities using a temporary one-cent sales tax. Despite the word "metropolitan" in the program's name, the tax applied only inside city limits.

  Construction began three years before the June 2002 opening. The first naming rights deal arrived not through the Ford Motor Company but through a regional dealer group, the Oklahoma Ford Dealers, who represented the state's Ford dealerships. That distinction mattered later, when renewal negotiations broke down and the name had to go.

  The arena's original footprint was 581,000 square feet. On three seating levels, with a fourth added during concerts, it could hold up to 19,711 people. The basketball configuration seated 18,203; hockey configuration seated 15,152. From the start, the building hosted a wide range of events: concerts, ice shows, conventions, civic gatherings, and professional wrestling alongside its sporting tenants, including the Oklahoma City Blazers of the Central Hockey League and the Oklahoma City Yard Dawgz of Arena Football 2.

• 3. The Katrina Effect

  ›

  Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005, and the damage to New Orleans Arena left the NBA's New Orleans Hornets without a home. The league struck a deal with Oklahoma City, and the Hornets arrived at what was then the Ford Center. As part of the lease, the arena received a $200,000 renovation focused primarily on lighting and sound.

  The team played two full seasons in Oklahoma City, branded as the New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets. Attendance averaged 18,716 fans per game across 36 home games in the 2005-06 season, and 17,951 fans across 35 games in 2006-07. For a city long considered too small to support major-league sport, those numbers spoke loudly. NBA Commissioner David Stern was quoted as saying that "Oklahoma City was at the top of the relocation list of cities." During the Hornets' final home game, Stern reportedly told local fans: "I look forward to the day that the NBA will return to Oklahoma City."

  The Hornets played their last game in Oklahoma City on the 9th of October, 2007, a preseason contest. But the two-year experiment had changed the calculation for the city's arena. Plans that had been modest and cautious now had momentum.

• 4. Bringing the Thunder

  ›

  Oklahoma City billionaire Clay Bennett, acting through Professional Basketball Club LLC, purchased the Seattle SuperSonics and Seattle Storm franchises from Howard Schultz in 2006. The purchase included a provision giving Seattle officials one year to resolve the Sonics' arena situation before Bennett could seek relocation.

  With the clock running, the City Council of Oklahoma City placed a sales tax initiative on the ballot on the 4th of March, 2008. Voters passed it by a 62% to 38% margin. The measure extended a prior one-cent sales tax for 15 months to fund $121 million in budgeted improvements to the arena, along with a separate practice facility for the incoming franchise. On the 18th of April, 2008, NBA ownership approved the franchise move. On the 2nd of July, 2008, the relocation was formally announced. On the 2nd of September, 2008, the team revealed its new identity: the Oklahoma City Thunder.

  The preliminary agreement between city officials and the Sonics ownership detailed specific financial terms. The franchise would pay $1.6 million in annual rent and a $409,000 annual supplemental payment in exchange for control over arena naming rights. That second figure would matter enormously as the revenue from those naming rights shifted hands over the following years.

  Renovation work ran into headwinds during the 2008-10 economic crisis. Tax receipts came in at $103.5 million rather than the projected $121 million. The shortfall forced planners to scale back a new glass entryway and eliminate a practice court that had been planned above the delivery entrance. Major construction was pushed from the summer of 2010 to the summer of 2011. Similar revisions trimmed the Thunder's separate practice facility, saving approximately $14 million total across both projects.

• 5. Names, Money, and Bankruptcy

  ›

  The Ford Center name became a casualty of failed negotiations. On the 26th of August, 2010, the Thunder announced it had begun seeking new naming rights partners. The Oklahoma Ford Dealers and the Thunder discussed a new agreement, but the talks collapsed. Under the original contract, the Thunder was permitted to terminate the existing naming rights deal, and it did. On the 21st of October, 2010, the building became the Oklahoma City Arena while negotiations continued.

  On the 22nd of July, 2011, a 12-year naming rights partnership was announced between the Thunder and Chesapeake Energy Corporation. The deal started at $3 million per year with a 3% annual escalation built in. Chesapeake Energy placed its branding on the high-definition scoreboard and on new interior and exterior digital signs, most of which were installed before the Thunder's 2011-12 season began.

  The arena witnessed its highest-profile games under that name. Playoff games were held there every year from 2010 through 2014 and again in 2016. In 2012, the Thunder faced the Miami Heat in the NBA Finals. Oklahoma City won Game 1 at home but lost the subsequent four games and the championship.

  Then Chesapeake Energy filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on the 28th of June, 2020, carrying $9 billion in debt. The fate of the naming rights was initially unclear. On the 20th of April, 2021, the company terminated the deal as part of its corporate restructuring. The arena kept the Chesapeake name while the Thunder sought a replacement.

  On the 27th of July, 2021, locally based Paycom acquired the naming rights for a 15-year period. But on the 14th of July, 2025, Paycom announced it would end that deal when the Thunder move into a new arena in 2028.

• 6. Events Beyond Basketball

  ›

  On the 11th of March, 2020, a game between the Thunder and the Utah Jazz was scheduled at the arena. Jazz center Rudy Gobert was placed on the injury report due to illness. When it emerged that Gobert had tested positive for COVID-19, the NBA suspended the remainder of the 2019-20 season immediately following that night's other games. The arena had become, without intending to, the site of a pivotal moment in how North American sports responded to the pandemic.

  Professional Bull Riders held a Premier Series event at the arena from 2002 through 2006 and again from 2009 through 2022. In 2022 and 2023, the PBR's Oklahoma Freedom called Paycom Center home during the PBR Team Series season. The arena also hosted WWE events including Raw, SmackDown, and Unforgiven 2005. On the 25th of September, 2006, Raw came to what was then Chesapeake Energy Arena, and a blackout interrupted the show's opening before lights were restored.

  The UFC returned to Oklahoma at the arena on the 16th of September, 2009, for UFC Fight Night: Diaz vs. Guillard. It was the promotion's first event in the state since UFC 4, held at Expo Square Pavilion in Tulsa on the 16th of December, 1994. College basketball also became a fixture. The venue hosted the 2007 and 2009 Big 12 men's basketball tournaments, NCAA Men's Basketball First and Second Round games in 2010, 2016, and 2026, and the NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships in March 2014.

  In September 2023, a new 28,000-pound scoreboard with a wraparound video display was installed at a cost of $7.5 million.

• 7. What Comes Next

  ›

  The Thunder's use license with the city, struck in 2008, expired in 2023. The team exercised an option to extend the agreement by three years, buying time for a new arena to take shape. On the 12th of December, 2023, Oklahoma City voters approved a 72-month extension of a one-cent sales tax dedicated to building a new publicly owned downtown arena. The Thunder have committed to remaining in Oklahoma City for 25 years after moving into that facility, which is slated to open no later than the start of the 2029-30 NBA season.

  The site selected for the new arena was revealed on the 17th of May, 2024: the former Cox Convention Center, originally known as the Myriad Convention Center, located north of Paycom Center across Reno Avenue. Prairie Surf Studios had been leasing the property. In December 2023, the city gave notice that the lease would not be renewed past the 31st of December, 2025. By June 2024, the city and Prairie Surf Studios agreed to terminate the lease a year early, clearing the way for demolition to begin in early 2025, with the city aiming for an opening as early as June 2028.

  Once the Thunder depart, Paycom Center's future use remains undetermined. The 2025 NBA Finals did return to the building, where the Thunder defeated the Indiana Pacers in seven games to claim the franchise's first championship since the move from Seattle. That title may be the arena's last landmark moment before a new chapter begins.