Sacramento Kings

The Sacramento Kings are the NBA’s oldest continuously operating franchise, with roots stretching back more than a century. They began life in 1923 as the Rochester Seagrams, a semi-pro outfit in upstate New York, before turning fully professional as the Rochester Royals in 1945 — a name chosen to signal prestige and excellence. The choice was quickly justified: behind stars like Bob Davies and Bobby Wanzer, the Royals won the 1951 NBA Championship.

The club moved to Cincinnati in 1957, keeping the Royals name and adding serious pedigree with Oscar Robertson (drafted in 1960) and later Jerry Lucas. In 1972 another relocation brought the franchise to Kansas City, where a clash with the MLB’s Kansas City Royals forced a rebrand. “Kings” kept the regal theme without the confusion, and for a spell the team split home games as the Kansas City–Omaha Kings, featuring the electric Nate “Tiny” Archibald — the only player to lead the league in scoring and assists in the same season (1972–73). In 1985 the Kings found a permanent home in Sacramento, where the crown finally settled.

Sacramento was a fitting landing place for a royal crest. The city was born of the California Gold Rush of 1848–49, when the discovery at Sutter’s Mill sent tens of thousands of “forty-niners” west. Sitting at the confluence of the Sacramento and American Rivers, the town became the logistical heart of the rush — a staging post for steamers, freight, tools and finance heading for the Sierra Nevada. The promise of gold enriched merchants as often as miners, and Sacramento, muddy but booming, was named California’s capital in 1854. It soon became the western terminus of the Pony Express and the starting point of the Central Pacific Railroad, which drove the first transcontinental line eastward from 1863.

The region’s story is also older and more complex. Long before the rush, the valley was home to Nisenan (Southern Maidu), Miwok and Patwin peoples, whose fishing, trade and seasonal movement were tied to the river system. Rapid settlement, disease and treaty pressures remade that map within a generation. Even for the new city, the river proved both lifeline and hazard. Floods repeatedly threatened Sacramento, prompting levees, canals and, later, the Yolo Bypass — engineering that let the capital live with water rather than against it.

Beyond gold, the area’s identity rests on the land. Sacramento sits in the heart of the Central Valley, one of the world’s great agricultural zones. Rice, almonds, grapes, tomatoes and a long litany of crops feed the state and the nation, giving rise to the city’s “Farm-to-Fork” claim. Government, logistics and higher education keep the capital humming, but agriculture remains a constant thread.

The Kings’ badge blends tradition and modernity: a bold crown atop a basketball crest in purple, silver and black. It nods to the journey from Royals to Kings while keeping a clean, contemporary line — regal without fuss.

On the court the tale has been turbulent but unforgettable. The early 2000s brought a golden era: Chris Webber, Vlade Divac, Peja Stojaković and Mike Bibby played a whirring, unselfish style under Rick Adelman, pushing the Lakers to the edge in the epic — and still controversial — 2002 Western Conference Finals. Leaner years followed, but Sacramento’s loyalty never wavered. When relocation rumours swirled in the 2010s, a fan base armed with cowbells and civic will helped secure the downtown Golden 1 Center, a statement that the city meant to keep its crown. In 2023, after a record 16-year play-off drought, the Kings roared back behind De’Aaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis. The new tradition — firing a purple beam into the night sky after every home win — gave the capital a literal beacon: Light the Beam.

The Sacramento Kings are more than a basketball team. They are steamboats and gold pans, Pony Express riders and railheads, wheat fields and almond groves, Capitol domes and purple beams; Webber’s no-look passes and Fox’s lightning drives; the river’s life and threat, and a small-market city that refused to lose its crest. Their badge is a regal mark, but the story is grit, survival and pride — the league’s oldest team thriving, at last, in California’s capital.