Today is the day. I hate to say it, but good luck. Hope all goes well. If for some reason OKC gets screwed, hopefully the MLS bigwigs will give your town a team
I know this is coming from two different philosophies: OKC = seeing the marketability of the area as well as support, thus selling tix at prices equal to those for a regular season game. Tulsa = getting as many fans in to see MLS play but charging dramatically cheaper seats and giving away many tickets. Rounding up, OKC had about 10,000 fans. Tulsa had about 14,000 fans. According to today's Daily Oklahoma, to match the revenue from the OKC exhibition, Tulsa would have had to sell 27,000 tickets. Maybe that might come into play, maybe not. It just depends.
NOOOOO. You'd think you guys from OKC could stop with the trolling and congratulate us for a job well done. OKC had 9200 fans. Not 10,000. Tulsa had 4800 MORE fans. Or maybe I should just round that UP TO 5,000. It's NOBODY in Tulsa's fault that Express Sports decided to price their game much higher than most exhibitions. Proceeds from the Tulsa game went to charity. Could you guys stop the crap JUST ONE DAY! Impressive crowd. Affordable tickets for families and groups. This is about marketing and fan interest. Great to hear the story from the KC fan about seeing an advertisement on the small screen at a gas pump... Once again. This is one piece of the puzzle. And it was a great way to kick off a season ticket deposit drive. GO TULSA!
how do you accurately judge fan interest if your not selling the same thing? namely a soccer game for $6 or for $15. i honestly dont know, who was in charge of promoting the game in tulsa?
I wasn't trolling USRufnex. I was just pointing out the two different philosophies. And yeah, you did a great job today. You should be really happy with the turnout. I never said that OKC's was better and your's wasn't. I said OKC was more market oriented and Tulsa was trying to sell MLS to the people. And I do realize that this is a one day event. Touchy, touchy.
A Great Day in Tulsa! You can draw whatever comparisons between the exhibitions in OKC and Tulsa that you want - all I know is that it was a great afternoon in Tulsa. The turnout was terrific (14,000+) and the fans were really into the game all the way to the end. Additonally, somewhere above 3500 season tickets were sold today at the game. This was more than just a pledge to buy, too, since you had to provide a credit card number or check that would be charged if (when!) Tulsa is awarded a team. One of the best moments, from a true Tulsan's standpoint, was when Charlie Mitchell and Victor Moreland of the old NASL Roughnecks were introduced for the coin toss. They got a big ovation, proving to me at least that the memory of and love for the Roughnecks is still around in force. The whole thing was very professionally run and Skelly showed itself to be a fine venue. The only real glitch I saw was the looooooong lines at the concession stands. The autograph signing after the game was really nice, with hundreds of kids and adults crowding around the players (Tony Meola, of course, had the biggest mob). I think it was Ronnie O'Brien of the Burn that was on video during the news at 6:00 saying that "the crowd and the pitch were terrific" and that if this kind of turnout could be expected regularly, Tulsa ought to be in the MLS. I definitely second that! MLS EXPAND IN TULSA!!!!!!
I hate to be a jerk but here is my two cents worth regarding the numbers in Saturday's exhibition. VERY disappointing. Don't kid yourselves. If Don Garber describes 15,000 and 22,000 for two games at Miami(that had no weight of future possible expansion/transfer at the time) as "disappointing". Then 14k with possible expansion on the line, and cheapy tickets, is rather disappointing... not to mention that its is a small market. Oh and by the way, I don't know where you guys are getting your numbers on the season ticket commitments but mlsnet.com is stating "Tulsa received 2,500 commitments for season tickets. " only. I think if Oklahoma stands a chance it will be at OKC cause Tulsa has already been scratched off. PS: OKC better show at 20K at the very least, no matter what the profitablility margin/difference is. The last thing MLS need is 10 to 14K and probably less(remember this its supposedly THE expansion big event/vote so more than the norm would be expected) out in a small market in the country's heartland. If MLS is going to bend its back to get a team out in Oklahoma just to see crowds of 12-14k its better off with 12k in Houston, Philadelphia or some other larger market.
You're nuts. This was a meaningless game between two teams that the fans have no rooting interest in. I hate to be a jerk, but I'm really tired of the mindless Miami fans. Not all of them, just the crybabies.
Seriously. I hope OKC gets a team over Tulsa and that their exhbition wasn't nearly as successful as ours but that's just ludicrous talk. Tulsa did a hellavu job getting the fans out to see two teams no one cared about in a game that didn't matter.
3,500 season ticket commitments... using credit cards and checks as guarantees... THAT'S a bigger story than the larger than expected crowd.
I need to make a correction, lest the nitpickers jump in. The number of tickets pre-sold was announced in the second half to be at "over 2,500" with a desire to have more sold before the days end. The 3,500 figure was my typo. I'm not sure how the season ticket prices compare to others. As best as I can remember, the price for adults was $250.00 and for kids $195.00 each. There was also a "Family Pack" with 4 "endzone" tickets at $500.00 total.
Those are some nice, cheap tickets. For endzone seats at Crew Stadium, a SSS, it's like $265 for adults. And $500 for a family of 4 in the endzone? For a 15 game season that's a little more than $8 a person per game or a little more than $33 a game. Please don't mistake this as a dig on Tulsa. I'd love it if we have the same deal going.