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Umm, okay. The I-40 relocation project was in the proposal stages for years before any funds got appropriated. And the drawings were finalized before the Ford Center construction even started.
And it you are talking about the off-ramp from I-40 that was moved a few yards for the Ford Center expansion, that is a drop in the bucket compared to the IDL.
You can't be serious about this Oklahoma team crap when I can guarantee that if Tulsa landed a pro team before OKC did, they would not have worn a state name, taxes or no taxes. Think about that.
We've gone through this a hundred times, on this board and at TulsaNow. We also would NOT have marketed our team as a state team. If the powers-that-be hadn't have done that, I wouldn't have cared other than the tax breaks. Continue to support and defend her, but IMO, and I'm not in a small minority, Tulsa got the shaft on this deal.
We didn't market the Thunder as a state team. David Stern made that suggestion. Mayor Cornett wanted to market the Thunder as an OKC team. Tulsa's mayor came in support on their own merits. We appreciate that. But we wanted this to be an OKC team from the get-go.
I never agreed with the tax break. It wasn't needed and it still isn't needed. But you guys are demonizing the entire city of OKC over a decision between team owners and state lawmakers.
I would hope the same is done for Tulsa if Tulsa got a pro team since it was done for the Thunder. It is only fair. But I do have to ask, did Tulsa lawmakers vote for the tax break? If so, then Tulsa truly did get the shaft.
Before you berate me, I did write the representative of the district in which I used to live in NW OKC, Rep. Guy Liebmann, that Tulsa needs to start getting its fair share of taxes for public projects they are requesting. I never heard back, but was pleased to see he voted in support of the river dams in Tulsa, which is using state money. Hopefully, the playing field will start to level. All other states operate that way. Why can't Oklahoma?
If we are going to put time, effort, thought and money into getting a sports team in Tulsa, would rather see Tulsa try to get a MLS franchise. Soccer is a bigger sport here and would get more support from the public and corporate sponsors than Hockey. Would also love to see OSU Tulsa build a soccer stadium by its campus. Let OSU Stillwater be the big dog with American Football, and OSU Tulsa develop the Soccer side of things.
If we are going to put time, effort, thought and money into getting a sports team in Tulsa, would rather see Tulsa try to get a MLS franchise. Soccer is a bigger sport here and would get more support from the public and corporate sponsors than Hockey. Would also love to see OSU Tulsa build a soccer stadium by its campus. Let OSU Stillwater be the big dog with American Football, and OSU Tulsa develop the Soccer side of things.
Utter BS. Hockey has been around Tulsa a damn sight longer than soccer (try 1928) and doubt that it would get more support. What happened to the Roughnecks? The current hockey club front office is the problem.
Utter BS. Hockey has been around Tulsa a damn sight longer than soccer (try 1928) and doubt that it would get more support. What happened to the Roughnecks? The current hockey club front office is the problem.
Utter BS right back at you.
The NHL has never been serious about placing a team in Tulsa.
Your NHL story was a pipedream created by Bob Funk/Express Sports back in 2007 saying he'd give the NHL Tulsa's business card.... which barely registered a blip on the NHL's radar; no expansion proposal was ever taken seriously outside of one Tulsa World article....
OKC in the NHL? Yes. The Blazers have always drawn alot more fans per game than the Ice Oilers. I always thought OKC would get the NHL and not the NBA.... then came Hurricane Katrina....
Tulsa? No. Never. Not any serious consideration for the NHL.
Never... since 1928.
Pro football has always been king in Tulsa and in the state.... yet the Oklahoma Outlaws of the USFL lasted just one season in Tulsa (1984) and averaged 21k for 9 home games before moving to Arizona in 1985....
Tulsa was to the North American Soccer League in the late 70s/early 80s what OKC is now to the NBA..... a very small market that is successful because it is the only high level pro game in town. The Tulsa Roughnecks twice had crowds of over 30k to watch games against the New York Cosmos.... they had many games where they drew between 20k and 30k... and one season (1980) in which they were drawing an average of 20k fans per game.
The NASL's owners overspent on aging stars and it is argued that the league overexpanded; Gulf & Western owned big stakes in several teams, and when the 70s oil boom turned into 80s oil bust-- eventually giving way to the OKC Penn Square Bank debacle--- the league shrunk from 24 teams in 1980 to 21 teams in 1981, to 14 teams in 1982, 12 teams in 1983, and down to 9 teams in 1984....
Over 12,000 Tulsans donated around $60,000 (tip of the hat to KRMG) to help the team make payroll in Nov/Dec 1983.... no other group of fans has ever come to the rescue of a pro soccer team in this fashion.... there was even talk of a Green Bay Packers-style public stock offering before Tulsa Cable/United Cable Television Corp bought the Roughnecks in 1984..... the league died after the '84 season, but with another new set of owners, the Roughnecks played half an exhibition season in 1985 at Driller Park, after the league had already died (IOW, if the NASL had existed in 1985 with a handful of teams, Tulsa would still have been there).
So, pro soccer didn't fail in Tulsa; the league literally imploded around us.
In 1994, Tulsa was a finalist for the original 10-team MLS-- we had more season ticket deposits than Seattle, Portland and most other bigger cities, but less than Tampa.... in 1996, the first MLS weekly highlights shows on ESPN were filmed at Winnercomm studios in Tulsa. Lamar Hunt and MLS officials came to Tulsa in 2002 to try to sell the city/mayor LaFortune on building a stadium for MLS. A feasability study requested by MLS and conducted by Conventions, Sports & Leisure came to the conclusion that the city could expect an average of 14,600 fans per game for MLS in Tulsa; the same study for Johnson County (KC) anticipated 12,000 fans per game could be expected for a team playing there....
^^^14,000 fans showed for the April 2003 Dallas vs. KC Major League Soccer exhibition game at Skelly Stadium, 3,500 of those fans gave checking/credit card info for season tickets and Tulsa eventually had 5,000 fans sign up for season tix..... the soccer stadium didn't make Vision2025, so the Ice Oilers and Talons were gifted with a brand new sales tax funded state of the art facility, leaving local soccer boosters out in the cold...
But that still wasn't the end of the story..... in the summer of 2005, Global Equity Partners had purchased DC United for $27mil and were in talks with LaFortune to use a TIF district to finance a mixed use condo/retail/stadium project in the East Village (East End) area of downtown...
In the end, Lamar Hunt found strong local ownership for the Kansas City Wizards (OnGoal LLC) rather than sell to the Tulsa group, and Global Equity Partners ended up not having the capital MLS originally thought they had-- they ended up not buying DC United after all; so AEG (Anschutz Entertainment Group) went back to owning the team until the current local ownership group was put in place....
Where was the state in this process?...... LaFortune's office tried in 2003/2004 to lobby the state for an "enterprise zone" but was turned down.
The NHL has never been serious about placing a team in Tulsa.
Your NHL story was a pipedream created by Bob Funk/Express Sports back in 2007 saying he'd give the NHL Tulsa's business card.... which barely registered a blip on the NHL's radar; no expansion proposal was ever taken seriously outside of one Tulsa World article....
OKC in the NHL? Yes. The Blazers have always drawn alot more fans per game than the Ice Oilers. I always thought OKC would get the NHL and not the NBA.... then came Hurricane Katrina....
Tulsa? No. Never. Not any serious consideration for the NHL.
Never... since 1928.
Pro football has always been king in Tulsa and in the state.... yet the Oklahoma Outlaws of the USFL lasted just one season in Tulsa (1984) and averaged 21k for 9 home games before moving to Arizona in 1985....
Tulsa was to the North American Soccer League in the late 70s/early 80s what OKC is now to the NBA..... a very small market that is successful because it is the only high level pro game in town. The Tulsa Roughnecks twice had crowds of over 30k to watch games against the New York Cosmos.... they had many games where they drew between 20k and 30k... and one season (1980) in which they were drawing an average of 20k fans per game.
The NASL's owners overspent on aging stars and it is argued that the league overexpanded; Gulf & Western owned big stakes in several teams, and when the 70s oil boom turned into 80s oil bust-- eventually giving way to the OKC Penn Square Bank debacle--- the league shrunk from 24 teams in 1980 to 21 teams in 1981, to 14 teams in 1982, 12 teams in 1983, and down to 9 teams in 1984....
Over 12,000 Tulsans donated around $60,000 (tip of the hat to KRMG) to help the team make payroll in Nov/Dec 1983.... no other group of fans has ever come to the rescue of a pro soccer team in this fashion.... there was even talk of a Green Bay Packers-style public stock offering before Tulsa Cable/United Cable Television Corp bought the Roughnecks in 1984..... the league died after the '84 season, but with another new set of owners, the Roughnecks played half an exhibition season in 1985 at Driller Park, after the league had already died (IOW, if the NASL had existed in 1985 with a handful of teams, Tulsa would still have been there).
So, pro soccer didn't fail in Tulsa; the league literally imploded around us.
In 1994, Tulsa was a finalist for the original 10-team MLS-- we had more season ticket deposits than Seattle, Portland and most other bigger cities, but less than Tampa.... in 1996, the first MLS weekly highlights shows on ESPN were filmed at Winnercomm studios in Tulsa. Lamar Hunt and MLS officials came to Tulsa in 2002 to try to sell the city/mayor LaFortune on building a stadium for MLS. A feasability study requested by MLS and conducted by Conventions, Sports & Leisure came to the conclusion that the city could expect an average of 14,600 fans per game for MLS in Tulsa; the same study for Johnson County (KC) anticipated 12,000 fans per game could be expected for a team playing there....
^^^14,000 fans showed for the April 2003 Dallas vs. KC Major League Soccer exhibition game at Skelly Stadium, 3,500 of those fans gave checking/credit card info for season tickets and Tulsa eventually had 5,000 fans sign up for season tix..... the soccer stadium didn't make Vision2025, so the Ice Oilers and Talons were gifted with a brand new sales tax funded state of the art facility, leaving local soccer boosters out in the cold...
But that still wasn't the end of the story..... in the summer of 2005, Global Equity Partners had purchased DC United for $27mil and were in talks with LaFortune to use a TIF district to finance a mixed use condo/retail/stadium project in the East Village (East End) area of downtown...
In the end, Lamar Hunt found strong local ownership for the Kansas City Wizards (OnGoal LLC) rather than sell to the Tulsa group, and Global Equity Partners ended up not having the capital MLS originally thought they had-- they ended up not buying DC United after all; so AEG (Anschutz Entertainment Group) went back to owning the team until the current local ownership group was put in place....
Where was the state in this process?...... LaFortune's office tried in 2003/2004 to lobby the state for an "enterprise zone" but was turned down.
Typical.
You spent all that effort rebutting something you think I'm saying? You didn't read, nor have read my other posts. I never said we could get NHL teams, or even an AHL team.
We are, however, more successfull than all but 1 of the current CHL teams when it comes to attendance. And like him or not, Lund is making money (if not very much) when it comes to hockey.
I posted a rebuttal to what you actually posted and don't have time to read all of your umpteen gazillion posts to find out what you really meant.
I told you what happened to the Roughnecks. Simple, eh?
After you rudely called BS on the previous poster for suggesting Tulsa would be better off to pursue MLS over the NHL.
USL1 (a step below MLS) wants to expand the league to Tulsa, OKC and San Antonio to give their new team in Austin a break on their travel expenses.
They're already working with UCO to play at Wantland Stadium by 2011 and would be very interested in playing at the soon-to-be-tenentless Driller Park unless the county decides to pull a "Bell's Amusement Park" and systematically demolish a perfectly good stadium for more surface parking....
I still believe Tulsa is a better market for MLS soccer than Denver, KC or Frisco, TX (Dallas).... but the new field at Skelly is now artificial fieldturf with permanent lines and is too narrow for the league's requirements... although the downsizing to 26k fixed seats and the new pressbox with 20 luxury suites is perfect for MLS's business plans...
In this economy, unless George Kaiser becomes a sportsfan (unlikely), neither MLS nor NHL are options in the near future for Tulsa.
***and you don't have to quote my entire post, since you posted directly beneath it.
I posted a rebuttal to what you actually posted and don't have time to read all of your umpteen gazillion posts to find out what you really meant.
I told you what happened to the Roughnecks. Simple, eh?
After you rudely called BS on the previous poster for suggesting Tulsa would be better off to pursue MLS over the NHL.
USL1 (a step below MLS) wants to expand the league to Tulsa, OKC and San Antonio to give their new team in Austin a break on their travel expenses.
They're already working with UCO to play at Wantland Stadium by 2011 and would be very interested in playing at the soon-to-be-tenentless Driller Park unless the county decides to pull a "Bell's Amusement Park" and systematically demolish a perfectly good stadium for more surface parking....
I still believe Tulsa is a better market for MLS soccer than Denver, KC or Frisco, TX (Dallas).... but the new field at Skelly is now artificial fieldturf with permanent lines and is too narrow for the league's requirements... although the downsizing to 26k fixed seats and the new pressbox with 20 luxury suites is perfect for MLS's business plans...
In this economy, unless George Kaiser becomes a sportsfan (unlikely), neither MLS nor NHL are options in the near future for Tulsa.
***and you don't have to quote my entire post, since you posted directly beneath it.
No, my utter BS was from the inference made that hockey was bigger than soccer here in town. Both sports have leagues for children and adults, but which sport has a professional team?
Don't put words in my mouth, Ruf...you have a tendency to do that over at TN also.
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