--Mayor LaFortune believes any potential franchise must meet three criteria: minimum stadium regulations (incl. natural grass), arrange local ownership, and prove the ability to sell at least 7500 season tickets. --quotes above and below are excerpted from 1/31 Tulsa World (article by John Klein) http://www.ktul.com/news/stories/0103/72126.html Alright, Tulsans, former Tulsans, OKC-folk, and other interested parties, here's a chance to ask questions, voice opinions, and get info/updates on a possible expansion franchise in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Although the construction of a soccer specific stadium (est. cost- $35 MIL) has been on the mayor's agenda, yesterday officials from Tulsa Univ. discussed the possibility of re-fitting Skelly Stadium for MLS. http://graphics.fansonly.com/photos/schools/tuls/non-sport/school-bio/skelly-stadium-big.jpg Skelly Stadium holds 40,000+. Renovation would at the very least involve removal of 3 to 5 rows of seating on either/both sides. TU athletic director Judy MacLeod: "We're certainly open to anything that helps the city of Tulsa... The architects we have met with about our renovations have already studied how to make the field wider and it doesn't sound too difficult." As for changing the field from fieldturf to grass, MacLeod says, "A natural grass field is just something we have not talked about." Regarding Skelly Stadium, Mayor LaFortune adds, "There is potential there... but I know the stadium issues are very important to MLS. MLS believes it is crucial to have these soccer-only facilities." An exhibition game is set for Saturday, April 5th. The game will be between the Dallas Burn and Kansas City Wizards. Gametime is set for 2pm.
Question: How will a Saturday afternoon game affect attendance? Won't a large chunk of the potential fans be at Green Country Soccer Assoc. games?
Or watching the MLS opener on TV? Well, Edmond may be competing with US v. Japan. I think that's a bigger hurdle to jump.
That's not too bad then. Tulsa's scheduled to start at 2, and the MLS season kicks off at 3 central. I was actually thinking about coming down to Edmond, but it's easy to choose between going to Seattle to see the nats and going to Edmond to see preseason MLS action between two OTHER teams. Even when you throw Ted's Cafe Escondito into the mix.
Width at Skelly Stadium From the 1983 Seattle Sounders Media Guide and the 1982 Tulsa Roughnecks Media Guide... 1982/83 Skelly Stadium Field Dimensions: 68 yards X 110 yards 1982/83 Spartan Stadium Field Dimensions: 62 yards X 100 yards This seems to indicate that it would be easier to widen Skelly than it was when Spartan Stadium in San Jose was widened for MLS. At the time, Skelly's field dimensions for the NASL were wider than Toronto's Exhibition Stadium (65 X 110), matched the width of Tampa Stadium (68 X 116) and was comparable to the 70-yard widths of Giants Stadium for NY, Wrigley Field in Chicago, the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, the Kingdome in Seattle, and the old version of Lockhart Stadium in Ft. Lauderdale amoung others... I seem to remember players complaining about the width of the field but maybe that was due to the fact that the stands were literally on top of the teams' benches... and the thin carpet-burning qualities of the thin astroturf and large crown... If that crown is still there, then THAT is just as much of a reason to rip out the field as the decision to opt for grass over the current fieldturf. Take 3-5 rows off each side and you would presumably have more than enough room for corner kicks and a field that could be widened to around 75 yrds wide. ...oh, and there's still a Taco Bueno and a Taco Bell on 11th street across from the stadium...
the old crappy turf was replaced two years ago with that new turf that looks and feels like grass. Consequently, the huge crown was either elminated or lessened. I don't notice it as much when I watch TU football games. Back in the NASL days the sidelines did come within 3 feet of the sideline.
just to add to my previous comments- I just bought my tickets to the exhibition game. I asked the lady at the ticket office how sales were going and she said they were going well. She didn't give me an estimate on the number. I was able to get pretty good reserve seats, but they are on the 30th row. Hopefully that means most of the the seats are already taken below row 30. I find it interesting that OKC has a set a goal of 8k in attendance and 6500 season ticket pledgings. I had heard numbers in Tulsa being thrown around at 7500 pledgings for season tickets. My thoughts are that Tulsa will have more than the 8k for the exhibition game. A few months back one of the pro womens team(the one with Brandy Chastain) came and played at Broken Arrow High School's stadium and they had somewhere around 8-10k.
One of the things I fear aboutTulsa though is that their cheaper ticket prices will "stuff" the seats with people that wouldn't have payed real MLS ticket prices. In OKC the ticket prices are reflecting what they would be for a real team and these are for much crappier seats that at Skelly. The cheapest tix at $10 are for people to sit on the grass as opposed to real seating. There's two months to sell tix so I'm sure there will be plenty of time to get a good number sold. BTW, has Tulsa ever had any rallies or public meeting of support for MLS? Does the local media stay on top of it often?
I think tickets priced at $14, $12, and $9 are not all that cheap for a meaningless exhibition game. The "cheap" part of the equation is giving $6 tickets to TU students and $6 per ticket for groups of over 24. But really, groups of over 24 would stand to get discounts for regular MLS games anyway. If I still lived in OKC and it was just me, maybe I'd pay $25 to see an exhibition game at Wantland. But if I took a few friends with me, there's no way we'd pay much more than $10. You may be able to get some people to "bite" at $15 or $20, but at $25 per ticket at Wantland you risk the prospect of hundreds of empty seats in the west stands while most of the crowd pays $10 a pop to sit on the grass. There's two months to sell tix so I'm sure there will be plenty of time to get a good number sold. Searching the archives, the Tulsa World has had approximately 17 stories since 7/21/02 that dealt with MLS expansion to Tulsa, the mayor's delegation's visits to the MLS all-star game and MLS games in Columbus and Kansas City, a meeting of potential investors with Hunt in Aug, the city's $100,000 feasability study for MLS, etc. etc. Although OKC seems to have had more public discussion and "rah-rah" enthusiasm, Tulsa's media coverage has been in some ways more negatively detailed. An informative article that covered 12 other city's past/present efforts at gaining MLS franchises appeared in Sept-- it examined Rochester's failure to secure a new stadium despite a wealth of fan support and state funds, Seattle and Houston's efforts, as well as other failures in intiatives to build stadia in Milwaukee and Winston-Salem. Another good article was an interview with former Roughnecks' GM Noel Lemon detailing the HUGE behind-the-scenes efforts it took to secure fan support in "college football country." Wallydrag-- one way to try to keep up in OKC is to tune in to AM740 KRMG between about 4pm and 6pm if I'm not mistaken. They have news and a call-in show with Wes Minter... he's discussed the new stadium with the mayor... etc.
Good Luck listening to Wes Minter. Although I agree on some things with him that guy is boring! Anyway regarding earlier comments about MLS in Tulsa, I doubt most people in Tulsa even knew what MLS was before the news stories. Just talking to some of the soccer parents in this city and getting that blank "people play that sport for money?" look tells me about awareness. Hopefully we'll get the local sportscasters to quit calling the Burn the "Dallas Sidekicks" and people will get off there a**(plural) and come to the game...
Boring, yes. He's generally an anti-tax, "proud capitalist" conservative who's not lived in Tulsa a very long time, but AM740 was about the only Tulsa radio station I could get to come in clearly from OKC... he interviewed Mayor LaFortune in Sept. about the possible new stadium, then spent time ridiculing it unless it was 100% privately funded... he likes to think that the only things Tulsans care about are road improvements. The first story from The World consistently referred to the league as "the MSL"... Exactly. The real Roughnecks (NASL version) have been gone for 20 years now. Any possible fanbase would almost need to be built from scratch. Unfortunately, as of this past weekend, the Tulsa World not only knows about the Dallas Burn, they also know that they will play at a high school stadium rather than the Cotton Bowl this season. Thanks, HSG. World sports editor John Klein replied to an email I sent warning that just because the city succeeded in the NASL doesn't mean it would automatically succeed in MLS. Klein agreed but pointed out that MLS is "in dire need of money and fans" and that the only professional league in more financial trouble than MLS is the WUSA. He added that these leagues and the NHL are shaky deals right now for cities to heavily invest. Here's another blast from the past: From the 1982 Tulsa Roughnecks Media Guide: After a year and a half of ownership the Roughnecks' owners still find themselves fervently committed to the future of soccer in the United States. "Professional soccer in this country is still experiencing the agony of establishing itself but one needs only to examine the history of all professional sports to realize that the NASL has traveled further in less time than any other sport... and that's fact, not public relations fantasy!" When the four purchased the Roughnecks in October of 1980 they announced that their mutual committment was to assure that Tulsa would retain its only major league sports franchise and their combined feelings on the subject remain unaltered. "There is no doubt that professional soccer will succeed in this country and when the day comes that the sport takes its destined place it is our singular goal that the Tulsa Roughnecks will be there." Those local owners were Michael Kimbrel, Carl Moore (father of Joe-Max), Fred Williams, and Rick Loewenherz.
I find it downright weird. Both season ticket figures are quoted as being requested from MLS as "a threshold." Hunt or Garber or somebody from league offices seems to quote these numbers almost arbitrarily to Tulsa and OKC officials as a requirement, yet I've never heard any rhyme nor reason for a specific season ticket "requirement" or "threshold" for other MLS expansion cities. I've heard the 7500 figure thrown around for Tulsa since August and 6000 a few weeks ago for OKC until the 6500 ticket figure surfaced this past week. Tulsa's 7500 has been modified of late to read: "the ability to sell 7500 season tickets." Will MLS grade using a "learning curve"??? I certainly hope so. But Saturday afternoons for some reason have never been a particularly good time to schedule events in Tulsa. Saturday nights have always reigned supreme. NY versus the Oklahoma Outrage... "Daddy, daddy... why don't the Roughnecks have a team for girls?" "Daddy" bought his daughter a team and the W-league's "Outrage" was born... Didn't realize the crowd was quite that big (Lived in Foyil, OK at the time). I wanted to go but couldn't. I saw a few highlights on tv and it looked like a nice crowd. I never heard an official attendance figure. I think BA's high school stadium looks quite a bit bigger and nicer than the current version of Wantland... so does Union's... etc... That's one reason why I'd think anything around 8K THERE should probably be considered a success.
About half that, actually. 3/31/02 Tulsa World: "A crowd of more than 4,000 saw the New York Power..." Score from Broken Arrow: New York Power 7, Oklahoma Outrage 0... crowd noise sounded like a buncha girls... OH, WAIT!
thanks for the correction on the asttendance numbers. I tried to find the artivle in the Tulsa World archives. I have an update on Tulsa ticket sales. I guess they arent going as great as the ticket girl lead me to beleive. My buddy asked the ticket office and they said they have sold 400 tickets thus far. I am not too surpirsed as the local tv stations have provided the only prmotion by talking about it in the sports cast and listing the number for tickets. My hope is that as the game gets closer and weather improves and it's talked about more, momentum will build....
I hope you guys get a huge draw, but be ready for a letdown. MLS exhibitions in St. Louis have been woefull underattended in the past (4-6K). It looks like MLS is getting a lot of media attention there, so maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised. Good luck, anyway.
Uh-huh. You know, if Tulsa gets a crowd in the 4-6K range, then it, like St. Louis, will no longer be in the running for a team. Case closed. A 3/30/02 womens exhibition (see above) at a high school stadium in Broken Arrow attracted "over 4,000" fans and had zero publicity until a couple of days before the actual game. For what it's worth, an NASL exhibition over 25 years ago attracted over 10K. Expectations are high. They should be. They need to be. Or Tulsa has no business being on MLS's "shortlist."
This is great news, now the only thing we need are the investor/operators to push and shove each other out of the way to be first
Honestly, I'm not worried about investors at this point... this has been handled very smoothly through the republican-business-partnership oriented mayor and the chamber of commerce. Tulsa's biggest employer, Williams Companies has taken some big hits the last year or so (Enron guilt by association)... I'm not sure any ONE investor would have the kind of $$$ to go it alone... I'm expecting a "local ownership group" recruited by the chamber of commerce will emerge only AFTER the stadium issues are dealt with... in fact, I wouldn't expect to find out ANY names publicly until AFTER the city lands a team. OKC/Edmond has Bob Funk/Express Sports publicly committed... Looks like the mayor of Tulsa may just keep pushing.
If you haven't been there yet try http://mlsinokc.com/ It has several articles and email adresses of those in power to contact about putting a team in OKC. The site also has some images of a projected stadium design. The site's not fancy, but it works. For the record, I really want one of the teams to be in OKC, but if I must, I'll buy my Tulsa season tickets and make the drive. Go OKC/Tulsa!!!
How far a drive is it ? if its a short drive, does it make sense to have a team in each city. ? when is this stadium / project coming to vote?
The drive is about 2 hours, not bad. I really don't know when it's coming to a vote. My guess would be right before we know if we get a team or not. As for having 2 teams in the state, we aren't trying to get 2, we're just trying to get one of the teams in either OKC or Tulsa. Although it would be great to get 2. I don't know if we could support 2 teams in this state. One, on the other hand, would be easy to support.
Can someone from the area compile a short list of who in Tulsa would have the resources to become an Investor? At this point a quarter of a billion in perosnal net worth would have to be a starting point. Horowitz had 60mill and it clearly wasn't enough. MLS isn't going to move into any new markets unless someone else is going to pick up the tab. What are the choices?
Frankly, I think judging potential support by one exhibition game is pretty shaky anyway, especially if the bar is set too high. There's just no way a single pre-season game between out-of-town teams (big Euro or Latin American teams excepted, of course) can draw as much as regular-season games played by a hometown team. I'd be interested to know exactly how MLS considers this issue when looking at potential markets. If an exhibition can draw half as many people as the desired target attendance for a team, that doesn't seem too bad. 4-6K isn't great, but I would hope that it wouldn't be a decisive door-closer...especially in a town with lots of action on the stadium and ownership front, like Tulsa.