Okay, here's the new idea. Taking out an ad in the Sunday Oklahoma telling everyone, and hopefully those in the community with some deep pockets, to support OKC's bid for a Major League Soccer team. Go to the MLS in OKC website to find out more and if you want donate to help cover the costs. Right now the ideal is full page, color. However that would probably be incredibly cost prohibitive so I'm trying to find out how much a full page B/W would be though more realistic would be a half page b/w if we can raise enough money. Anyone can help out too. You don't need to be from Oklahoma.
Okay, so here's the new thing. The Sunday Oklahoman has been replaced by just a Daily Oklahoman. The cost for an ad in the Sunday was outrageous and I'm not sure how local companies can pay for that (though obviously they somehow manage). However going in the Daily with a full or half page is completely do able. There's also the possibility of the Oklahoma Gazette.
Good news. Since the ad is coming from a non-profit organiation, a full page ad has been discounted to $1000. If you can help out by giving even a little, please do so. A few bucks here and a few bucks there from a lot of people will ad up fast. I'm hoping to get the ad in the paper by either the Wednesday (it's a weekly) before or after the MLS All-Star game which gives me 3 or 4 weeks to raise the dough. Right now we have $260. Please help out if you can! Go to www.MLSinOKC.com to donate. For a preview of what the ad will look like, click this link for the rough version. Files are in Adobe Acrobat. There are b/w and color versions of the same ad.
This is a great thread. Do you also administer the website? You got a lot of drive, keep it up and it should pay off.
Wallydrag, are there any other investors in mind, at all? What kind of contact do you have with the official parties already involved? I thought the movement had just about died. I guess after SLC, Chivas, and probably Seattle, there's still one spot left, though. I would love to move back down there in 4 years and still have MLS. My virtual check is in the mail.
My contacts with official parties with about zero. I have taled to UCO president Jack Webb before, but obviously no one at MLS will return my emails, etc. I know that there are two investors already but they don't have enough money yet. Their identities are still anonymous and I have no idea how to find that out. The momvement has taken a big hit and stalled somewhat, but there's still a year between now and the next time the hand out a team so who knows. As Yogi Berra once said, "It aint' over till it's over."
From what I hear, the reason they're anonymous is that they don't have anywhere near the money, and they were basically just a con to keep MLS interested for a bit longer. Unless you raise enough to buy $10M in ads, this, unfortunately, won't do much.
I don't think you could use the word "con" to describe what they were doing. They were trying to maintain interest from MLS and try to get more people to invest at the same time. And it's not that they didn't have anywhere near the money. They were trying to negotiate a lower price for an expansion team but you can't do that if you dont' have anywhere near the asking price so I believe there's so substance there. And if I had $10 million to buy ads with I'd rather use it to just pay the expansion fee. The ad isn't trying to get those two guys to invest more, it's to try and get other people with that kind of money to jump on board. Hopefully after they see the Dave Checketts, a repectable and succesfull sports business man, jump on the MLS train to bring a team to another small market city in Salt Lake, they might think that maybe it would work here too.