Who pissed in your cornflakes this morning?

First of all, you appear to have mistaken my premise - that there is no *capitalist* case to move to OKC. There may be a way for it to pencil out, with the arena you mentioned and the 'bump' in attendance from having a new team in a new area. But the point is, none of this *works* without OKC building an NBA arena. The city built it with a sales tax increase; private enterprise had nothing to do with it.
The OKC media market is the 50th largest media market and only the 44st largest metro area. If it's not working in Memphis, there's gotta be a reason for this to be totally different. TV revenue matters a hell of a lot, and OKC can't compete. There's no way that poor attendance (and the team's attendance recently hasn't been that bad considering their place in the standings) outweighs that. I'd also point out that even now, with ownership trying to move the team, Seattle outdraws Memphis. The point here is that a case can be made to move to OKC, but ONLY when you use PUBLIC financing and support. If OKC's package of taxpayer support outweighs SEA's package of taxpayer support (and it might not; Seattle spent more on Key Arena than OKC did on the Ford center), there's a business case. But that's a separate (and still debatable) issue.

I'd also like to point out that it's kind of hilarious that your argument against my statement that 'capitalism has nothing to do with it' includes this phrase: "the city has essentially stated through a public vote and several hearings that they do not want to fiscally support the team anymore."

On baseball, you're arguing that a league that restricts entry, where 30 owners decide who gets to participate, where TV revenue is shared, with a luxury tax on player salaries, is capitalist? You're telling me that a league where Albert Pujols 2003 salary was less than $1m, or where Felix made $420,000 last year and with an arbitration system for players is based on 'what the market will bear?' Really?

Compare this to Europe, without revenue sharing, with promotion/relegation and without even restrictions on the size of the roster. Does this mean the rich get richer and the poor go bankrupt? Yes. The US system is totally different, and that's the *whole point of my comment*. Saying that baseball's lack of a salary cap (they have the luxury tax; same basic deal) invalidates my point or makes it 'the total opposite of correct' is... not accurate.

they're only able to do this in the bizarre, carefully-controlled, franchise system of the NBA (or other pro sports here). It's that system that enables them to profit from what is, at heart, a *terrible business decision* in any sort of market system.

You're right pdb, they bought it, they can do what they want. But the whole thing works only because capitalism is excised from the entire system.

By the rules of the game, billionaires have every right to purchase a franchise in a major market and move it wherever they want, be it OKC, Cle Elum, WA, or Homer, Alaska, so long as the NBA Board of Governors approves the move. But that just feeds right back into my initial point: thems some fucked up rules. Legally and systemically, fans who have successfully supported a franchise for decades by buying gear, tickets, and arenas have no right to demand to be paid back in kind through loyalty to the consumers that made the business what it is. The owners have every right to fuck these fans over on a whim. This indicates, to me, a flaw in the system.