Tulsa Roughnecks are back in the NASL as early spring 2015

Frankly, if a league is going to go all retro and nostalgic on us like the NASL keeps telling us they're attempting to do, the ONLY choice in Oklahoma is Tulsa, NOT Okie City... the rule of thumb is this... Tulsa has double the fanbase and quadruple the history. We are likely the only remaining city not in MLS or the current NASL where an old-NASL retro name might make sense (however, it is NOT a gimme with our fans, some of whom would rather have the name completely retired after the failure of the D-3 USL Roughnecks back in the late 90s). And you won't be hearing any debate in Jacksonville about re-naming their team the "Tea Men" anytime soon...

Please keep in mind that all this hoopla based on a single article in our local newspaper about Tulsa possibly entering the NASL alongside OKC for 2015 is coming from NASL OKC boosters and Lund family members-- and can easily be traced back to the bizarre feud going on between Lund and Funk Jr. joining NASL and USL Pro.

Our fans aren't really all that excited about the prospects of a local hockey guy (Jabba the Lund) running an NASL team the same way he ran the Tulsa Ice Oilers in the Central Hockey League... heck, here's a diehard Oilers hockey season ticket holder commenting on it a few days ago after the newspaper article appeared...
"Oh lord. Big mistake to allow Jeff anywhere near a sports franchise."
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With the exception of the Minnesota Kicks and possible exception of the Washington Diplomats, none of the cities you mentioned would have any reason to revive old defunct names from a failed league.

...and Tulsa was definitely one of them, which means they "deem such recognition"... not that it really amounts to a hill of beans looking at the average attendances from Tampa and Ft Lauderdale these days...

First of all, OKC has no soccer history to speak of. The biggest crowd ever to see a game in OKC was 9,300 for an MLS exhibition game in Edmond in 2003 when the city was being considered for an expansion spot. Tulsa drew over 14,000 fans for a similar exhibition the following week-- and 3,500 of those fans signed up for season tickets towards an MLS season ticket drive that ended with over 5,000.

However, you can be forgiven for subscribing to what I'm convinced was Commish Peterson's (naively stupid IMO) view on the subject. I believe he figured getting a team in OKC would cover Tulsa too... this from one of our Tulsa Athletics' fans back in late June... "I followed NASL Commish Peterson on Twitter and he followed me back. So I sent him a direct message to thank him for the follow and mentioned how I wish we could get a team back in Tulsa. He replied "Would OKC satisfy the fans?". Not me. An MLS team in OKC would be something I would follow but not a tier 2 team. Now in Tulsa, I would be all over it."

What does this even mean?

OKC's NASL team is NOT and will not be the state's team.
The NBA Thunder are the only exception and even that came as a surprise to many who actually know the state...
Sports leagues that average only a little over 4000 fans per game do NOT have that kind of drawing power-- anywhere.
Heck, the only way I could get any of my fraternity bro's or music school friends to go see the old NASL Roughnecks (even if it was against the NY Cosmos) was with the additional promise that there'd be a Beach Boys concert afterwards...

MLS someday?... maybe... a minor league soccer team that normally plays at Taft Stadium... er, uh... no.

 

Didn't realize Adrian Hanauer played for the old Seattle Sounders... thanks for the trivia.
/sarcasm.

 

Where did you get the idea that it's "the league trying to pursue another team in the state" when it's clearly the other way around? USL Pro, on the other hand, has been emphasizing "regional" for awhile now including the desire for a team in Tulsa from the day Holt and Funk Jr announced OKC's expansion team. And in the NASL/Lund versus USL Pro/Funk sweepstakes, stats like these get touted to NASL headquarters...

Ummm... soccer fans in NYC, Tampa, Ft Lauderdale... (heck, let's throw in MLS's Seattle, Portland and Vancouver) would be more appreciative towards Roughnecks retro than the average sports fan in OKC.

Again, what does that even mean?

Different teams in MAJOR LEAGUE SPORTS do this all the time.
You are talking about a league that averages less than 5k per game and a team in OKC that will play at a high school venue in 2015. Minor league sports franchises have zero chance to "bring the cities together."

Wrong.

If the new OKC NASL team is in the US Open Cup and playing at Taft Stadium against the Chicago Fire, I'll be in Oklahoma City wearing my Chicago Fire shirt and scarf. I assume that if a new Tulsa NASL team is in the US Open Cup and playing at Chapman Stadium against the Chicago Fire, Mr. Warmth will be in Tulsa wearing his Chicago Fire shirt and scarf.

I would have supported OKC if they got an NHL team back when it looked like that was going to happen. I'm sure there were a few Tulsans who were such bitter rivals of the old Blazers hockey team, that they'd never set foot in OKC to root for their hockey team, even if it were in the NHL. To my knowledge, not many Tulsans go to OKC to see the AHL club these days. In Tulsa, there were quite a few vocal locals who said they'd never go to an OKC Thunder game... fine and dandy, but our downtown bars were filled with Thunder fans the last two seasons during the playoffs....... unfortunately, a few years back when we really could have used some support from the other side of the turnpike for a Tulsa MLS team, OKC decided they were superior and refused to lift a finger to help our efforts.

This is why, IMHO, Oklahoma will NEVER get MLS, whether it be in Tulsa or OKC.
But the NASL is not the NHL or NBA... or MLS... heck, it's not even the AHL.

 

Wrong.

I would have had no problem with OKC getting an expansion team in USL-1 a few years ago or USL Pro today (USL was Brad Lund and SOS's first choice over the NASL)... but... as for the NASL... I'm the only Tulsa fan who's ever posted in the OKC NASL expansion threads... and when I post, it's because I know what I'm friggin' talking about...





You guys refuse to look at facts... you'd rather just twist them... Tulsa did not get "passed over."
That's what OKC people do anytime they attempt to argue their own city's superiority... case in point... the quote in the Tulsa World that said the NASL only wants teams in metro areas of over 1 million? I know for a fact that claim is false.

Tulsa is not "every city."
The number of cities in this country that actively supported their old NASL clubs would only amount to a handful.
Of those cities, the only city where kids literally went door to door to raise money back in the day so the team could make payroll was Tulsa.
The number of cities that were finalists for the original MLS numbered less than twenty.
Tulsa was one of eighteen.
Kudos to Peter Wilt for the 7k in season tickets... Tulsa had 5k in 2003 for an MLS team that failed to materialize.

Yes Virginia... this city-- its fans and the former players who built up the youth clubs for the last twenty friggin years... DESERVES A TEAM.
Unfortunately we have a new NASL that sees fit to rip off the names of old teams in an attempt to connect to a history and legacy it simply doesn't have... well, here's some history for you.... the 1982 NASL Southern Division...



Southern Division W L GF GA PT
Fort Lauderdale Strikers 18 14 64 74 163
Tulsa Roughnecks 16 16 69 57 151
Tampa Bay Rowdies 12 20 47 77 112
Jacksonville Tea Men 11 21 41 71 105

Tulsa didn't have a wealthy sugar daddy on board at the same time OKC did.
If Tulsa did, they'd have a team... especially in a retro league whose logo is recycled from the 1970s.
Especially in a league that has a Tampa Bay Rowdies team, a Ft Lauderdale Strikers team whose name was changed from Miami FC, and now a New York Cosmos team...

And I tell you what... you'd be pretty pissed too. You'd be pretty pissed too if it were OKC that had all the old NASL history and legacy and it was Tulsa that had never drawn a crowd of more than 9,300 for soccer. You'd be pretty pissed too if it was an Oklahoma City FC team that had been averaging over 3,000 fans per game last summer for PDL while at the very same time Tulsa was averaging 1,200 for NPSL. You'd be pretty pissed too if your supporters group had double the membership... you'd be pretty pissed too when you login to facebook and see that both your team and supporters group have more than double the number of followers on their respective facebook pages...

If Tulsa had secured an NHL expansion slot over OKC at the very same time the Blazers were far outdrawing the Ice Oilers, you'd also be pretty pissed... and I would have agreed with you.

Tulsa supports OKC's NBA team... OKC should theoretically support any Tulsa efforts at an MLS team... but you don't... which is why you suck.

 

There's a typo or two up in there somewhere, or maybe it's a level of snark I can't yet translate or fully comprehend...

In 1994, when Tulsa was a finalist for a league owned team, it made no attempt to secure assistance from anyone in OKC because Okie City was still in its media-induced "soccer-is-a-pinko-commie-liberal-sport-that-will-turn-your-children-gay" psychosis... Back then, when I was living on the northside of Chicago, I just assumed Tulsa was closer to #18 in the original MLS pecking order than #12 or #11 but found out differently years later... the Tulsa bid group was Charlie Mitchell, Pat Schnake, and Francis Rooney... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Rooney

Needless to say, I bet Mr. Rooney was pretty damned stoked when he first got wind of Alan Rothenberg's proposed paradigm shift in tactics for America's new pro soccer league. This shift included the future spending of tens of millions of dollars on soccer specific stadia to replace the old Woosnam-era practice of throwing obscenely large sums of money at over-the-hill international soccer stars while maintaining bad leases at cavernous stadiums that NASL franchises had no control over.

If you're asking my thoughts on Bob Funk Sr being $10 million short of getting an MLS team over Tulsa and SLC in 2003, let's just say very few people at that time would have bet that Garber would extend the season deep into the fall which effectively made the whole Express Sports' Wantland Stadium proposal to share the field with one college and three high schools untenable. IMHO, the Redhawks baseball situation gave Bob Funk Sr. an easy out...

Yes, Tulsa could have been like Tampa and Miami... or San Jose... or Kansas City, or Dallas or Denver. Truth is, we'll never really know... just like we'll never know what really happened when Manhattan Construction met with TU to discuss converting the field to grass... but I should probably shuddup now...


Tulsa's Mayor LaFortune wanted to lobby the state for an enterprise zone/star bonds at the same time the ideas for Vision2025 were being put together but that went nowhere due to OKC's bid (although Gov Henry would only mention "budget concerns" at the time). LaFortune mentioned "creative financing" and specifically wanted to use methods that helped build the Kansas Speedway in KC, KS.

And, the LaFortune administration moved forward to partner with Global Equity Partners of DC in the summer of 2006 for a TIF district that would have transformed 110 acres of downtown eyesore and surface parking into a mixed use development that would finance the 22,500 seat soccer stadium. But Global turned out to be better at spending other people's money than making it by themselves, much to the chagrin of MLS, LaFortune, and heck, even Peter Wilt and the good folks in Milwaukee. All of this was happening while OKC had zero chance at MLS... and the people at Tulsa's LLC dedicated to partner with DC knew that folks like Drew Carey were far more likely to be seriously interested in this idea than anyone who lived and/or worked in the state capital.

Sadly, yes. I am probably correct on this one. I don't want to be.
For well over a decade, I've thought that the best possible prospects for longterm success in the state of Oklahoma for professional sports would be an NHL team with OKC's name on it, and an MLS team with Tulsa's name on it.
And some limited state financial support for both.

You probably heard some conventional wisdom from former Tulsans... some as unfair as the conventional wisdom among Tulsans that OKC's MAPS only succeeded because of an outpouring of public support that followed the OKC bombing..... nice try, but largely inaccurate. America moved to the suburbs, not just Tulsa... and large swaths of south Tulsa were opened up for suburban style development with schools outside the jurisdiction of TPS. A big chunk of Jenks Public School district is inside the Tulsa city limits, and of course there's Union Public School District... listen, I believe young Tulsans in the 70s and 80s were fed a line of bull with a constant "Oil Capital of the World" and "America's Most Beautiful City" refrain. Many went to college in Norman or Edmond or Stillwater (I was the only of my graduating class to attend OCU)... and most were confused as to why there was such hubris in Tulsa when OKC was a perfectly enjoyable place to live once you knew your way around town.

In the 80s, both cities went from boom to bust... Mayor Norick (R) somehow succeeded in cobbling together and passing MAPS citywide while Democrat Susan Savage proposed a hodge-podge of watered down venues that included a natatorium, an arena, and a 5,000 seat soccer/track & field stadium downtown (that was somehow going to result in an expansion MLS club?... ugh.) The "Tulsa Project" failed miserably on a citywide vote. Then, Savage consolidated a plan called "It's Tulsa Time" which nixed the soccer and natatorium and failed narrowly on a citywide vote. Enter new Republican mayor LaFortune... and a plane trip from Mark Abbott to lobby LaFortune on the soccer stadium and the potential for MLS if we simply build the stadium first. Tulsans from the suburbs were frustrated that they didn't get to vote for/against the proposals in the 90s and were also frustrated at downtown-only projects... it also didn't help that downtown wasn't really in the middle of the city and had an elitist reputation (no BBQ or family style steakhouses downtown but plenty of quiche and sushi). The only substantial proposal for Vision2025 that wasn't included was the 22,500 seat soccer stadium, and I believe local politicians were afraid the soccer stadium part of the proposal could have become a lightning rod for opposition. The idea was never shelved, only modified...

Enter Mayor Kathy Taylor (D), who didn't quite understand that LaFortune's winning coalition of moderate suburban Republicans made a countywide vote for Vision2025 the preferred method of passage for him but wouldn't work for her. The next proposal was labeled "George Kaiser's River Tax" and was narrowly defeated countywide when the project actually would have passed on a citywide vote. That said, Taylor's behind-the-scenes work moving City Hall to the "dirty ice cube" and efforts to get a new downtown ballpark in place over a proposal from Jenks was borderline brilliant. I also believe her endorsement of the NBA Thunder was a crucial move that made way for the relocation of a WNBA team here. Too bad Tulsa has proved to be a weak market for women's basketball... I believe our NPSL game at the old ballpark against a team from Plano that calls itself "Liverpool" drew more "butts-in-seats" than the WNBA game at the BOk Center that same Saturday night...

 

October 15th, 2013
John Klein: Stars and sport still kicking 30 years later
After three decades, Roughnecks reunite, reminisce over historic season and admire soccer's growth
http://www.tulsaworld.com/sportsext...cle_4eb64b72-003e-5c84-805d-bfb64553b7b7.html

 

First, none of the "100 or so fans" actually need a "Roughneck fix." The old Roughnecks' organization is simply the "elephant in the room" or "the 800 lb gorilla" or perhaps more appropriately in Tulsa's case, the "900 ft Jesus" in the room every time the subject of pro soccer is discussed in T-town. BTW, there are far more than 100 diehard soccer fans in the Tulsa metro area.

Second, the new team and the old team must have an actual relationship with each other. And that has more to do with what has happened since 1993 than anything that took place between 1978 and 1985... http://www.metrotulsasoccer.com/index.php?ct=comp_home http://www.tulsanationals.org/custpage.php?cid=1718 http://www.blitzunited.org/

Third, I'd far rather have a team NOT called the Roughnecks (with grassroots support) than be coerced into supporting a team that has a relationship with the old Roughnecks in name-only...
http://www.tulsaworld.com/sportsext...cle_7e301e19-ba72-59d7-9bf9-54a73706b386.html

If you're a Tulsan who wants professional soccer to succeed here, you have to ask yourself a few questions:

1. "What exactly has Jeff Lund ever done to partner with Tulsa's soccer community in the last two decades he's owned the CHL's Tulsa Ice Oilers hockey team?"
2. "What is Jeff Lund's primary motivation for doing this?"
3. "Why is Jeff the only person quoted for the Tulsa World article?"

Meanwhile, back at the ranch... fearless leader (the man who, IMHO, has the most potential to one day become Tulsa soccer's PT Barnum) had a birthday yesterday...