Yeah, it's frustrating that it's going to be especially hard to get much "bang for the buck" for an 18k indoor arena every midsized city's already built when we all know the NBA and NHL are NOT coming to Tulsa..... and if somebody took the bait, they'd have to get an incredible sweetheart deal to make it happen..... then, a year or two later, the team would be lured elsewhere when some other midsized city needs a prime tenant for it's new arena.... Tulsa already has the Reynolds Center, the UMAC, and Expo Square... and all three could host minor league hockey and arena football games without seas of empty seats... Notice how one recent Tulsa World newspaper story about Bob Funk/Express Sports basically only said they'd give the Pittsburgh Penguins info on Tulsa... and it barely registered a blip on the NHL's relocation/expansion screen... and was quickly discounted because AEG/Kansas City/Sprint Center made a REAL proposal... The 18k seat arena was "the feelgood hit of the summer" in 2003 because there was so much criticism for months over the "soccer stadium" part of Vision 2025. So, I consider it a classic "bait-and-switch" when all those Tulsa naysayers used the "why can't we build an indoor arena" argument and LaFortune then... presto, change-o... gave them an arena to vote for. And I think you asked about an indoor team. That was the Tulsa Ambush (91?), who went 7-33 under coach Victor Moreland, yet still managed to average about 3300 fans per game, good for middle of the pack in the NPSL? that year... the owners were from Wichita and they gave locals in Tulsa every opportunity to buy the team and keep the team in Tulsa, but it was moved to St Louis the next year.... a couple of months ago I heard rumors that Tulsa would get an indoor team for their new arena... that would be a mistake in my opinion (Wichita Wings had indoor tradition... Tulsa drew better crowds outdoors). The worst part was the Global Development Partners deal for the East Village/East End of downtown. If they had the deep pockets they claimed to have had when they bought DC United, Tulsa woulda had a team, no matter what happened in KC... and I'm convinced they were going to be the lead investors that put Tulsa's "investor group" over the top.... which is why the day after the DC United deal fell through, Tulsa's proposal was toast... It's really odd these days driving around downtown Tulsa only to see the surreal combination of skyscrapers and huge tracks of surface parking... there's still room for a SSS across the street from McNellie's Pub-- that bar would be a natural for MLS, the Blue Dome area of downtown is a natural compared to the area around Toyota Park in Bridgeview... (and a better selection and menu than Ginger's Ale House in Chicago--in my opinion)... but the downtown activists in Tulsa like to insist that the soccer stadium would ruin downtown... yet they support a minor league ballpark, so go figure... yeah, right... enjoy more new surface parking and the prospects of holding lots of protests in front of your new hated bigbox WalMart Supercenter, dumba$$es...
Haha, I was in those indoor crowds. Good fun at the Expo Center. I remember you could see where the paint had chipped away at the bathrooms and you could see where they said "Colored Bathroom" and "whites only bathroom". Don't remember much about the actual soccer. I still wasn't old enough to care to sit in my seat and actually understand the game. I was more keen to run around the stadium and stand behind the goal watching the ball slam in. Good Times.