...Then maybe certain conspiracy theorists would be happy.

Not without a new conspiracy to obsess over they wouldn't. If there ain't nuttin' to fret over, they'd be as miserable as tadpoles in a dry crik.

Can I get an electrical socket with my name on it? Just wondering...

I understand that Midfirst or CHK wants to have their name on the new building or are waiting for the new collective bargaining agreement to come out, but think of all the advertising this company that supposedly already has a deal is losing; especially with the playoffs coming up and all the national attention is brings.

They have waited too long in my opinion. Case in point: look at what the #1 Facebook “Check-in” location is: Yep, the THUNDERDOME. People are going to just start calling it whatever they want because it doesn’t have a name! And waiting till the renovations are complete is insane.

But I DID drive by there yesterday and they HAVE started the new SW grand entrance. Its torn to hades like everything else downtown!

We should solicit a Seattle company to advertise on our urinals.

Can I get an electrical socket with my name on it? Just wondering...

Will it come with a plaque that says "OKCisOK4me Power Outlet"? You can get 110 vots for $100 but for $150 they will bump it up to a 220 volt outlet.

Just for the record, Chesapeake has acquired all of the domains for Chesapeake Arena.

Will it come with a plaque that says "OKCisOK4me Power Outlet"? You can get 110 vots for $100 but for $150 they will bump it up to a 220 volt outlet.

Heck yeah! That would be awesome, lol.

The new logo, FWIW.

842

Aren't you the same guy that guaranteed us the name would be MidFirst Bank Center?

Aren't you the same guy that guaranteed us the name would be MidFirst Bank Center?

Yeah, but I had nothing to back that up.

There's now plenty of evidence to back up that it's going to become Chesapeake Arena. Chesapeake already filed for trademark status for the name, and now has the rights to multiple domains for that name. Of course, who knows.....they could be using that name for an arena is some other city. But, I highly doubt it.

Gotcha, I thought you had actual info in regards to Midfirst.

I didn't go back through this thread and look though.

CHK makes sense, I've got no problem with that.

Going to really really miss the name Oklahoma City Arena! jk

Going to really really miss the name Oklahoma City Arena! jk

How about this:

Oklahoma City Arena
c/o City of Oklahoma City
100 Oklahoma City Blvd
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73102

Gotcha, I thought you had actual info in regards to Midfirst.

I didn't go back through this thread and look though.

CHK makes sense, I've got no problem with that.

Going to really really miss the name Oklahoma City Arena! jk

I thought it was going to be Midfirst, but that was just based on rumor.

There's nothing to say for sure that it's going to be Chesapeake Arena, but the evidence is pointing in that direction.

Here are the links in reference to trademark status being filed:

http://www.trademarkia.com/chesapeake-arena-85249842.html

http://www.markify.com/trademarks/uspto/chesapeake+arena/85249842

And the domains:
http://whois.domaintools.com/chesapeakearena.org
http://whois.domaintools.com/chesapeakearena.biz
http://whois.domaintools.com/chesapeakearena.us
http://whois.domaintools.com/chesapeakearena.net
http://whois.domaintools.com/chesapeakearena.info

I don't think Chesepeak Arena is for the Oklahoma City Arena. They won't own the arena or the name so there would be no way for them to trademark it. According to their trademark application it appears they might be building an actual arena somewhere.

http://www.trademarkia.com/chesapeake-arena-85249842.html


Goods and Services: Arena services, namely, providing facilities for sports, concerts, conventions and exhibitions

You guys do realize that companies get trademarks on speculation. They could just be covering their bases for the future...

Plus over 60% of medium to large companies own [CompanyName]Sucks.com for their own company name

They could have bought that domain name just in case Baltimore ever wanted to build a new arena or any other city in that area.

You guys do realize that companies get trademarks on speculation. They could just be covering their bases for the future...

You have to be using it in commerce (or planning to use it in commerce). You can't just go around trademarking stuff because you feel like it.

City should rename it the "OK Corral" and be done with it. People all over the country would instantly think "oh yeah that's Oklahoma" when they hear the name and it would stick forever. Maybe I should contact Berry Tramel and ask him to start using it in his articles.

I can hear/read him now, "The Boomers at the OK Corral. ..."

Please STOP the madness of Tramel. Don't feed the troll!

I welcome Chesapeake Arena, it does have a nice ring to it and we could nickname it "The Peake" or the like.

But I will miss that worldwide brand name that we got on the cheap; FORD Center!!!

City should rename it the "OK Corral" and be done with it. People all over the country would instantly think "oh yeah that's Oklahoma" when they hear the name and it would stick forever. Maybe I should contact Berry Tramel and ask him to start using it in his articles.

The OK Corral which is famous is in Tombstone Arizona

Here's the unofficial logo that was sent to me from a friend who works for Chesapeake.

844

Here's the unofficial logo that was sent to me from a friend who works for Chesapeake.

844

Wow, a lot of work went into that logo. Must have taken hours to replace Energy with Arena. LOL

Lol!!!!

LOL!!! It came from the administration office at Cheapeake, so not sure how legit it is. Take it for what it's worth.

That's what I was thinking!!!

Official announcement on new arena name coming soon.

Mark Rogers, on the Sports Animal, said the scuttlebutt he's hearing has it as Chesapeake Arena. If redrunner is right, I guess we'll know soon.

Chesapeake Arena will be the name. I've gotten word.

Chesapeake Energy Arena

http://www.nba.com/thunder/?tmd=1 Here it is.

http://www.nba.com/thunder/news/release_arena_110721.html news release

I hope there's some good 'insider' reporting on this. I'd like to know more about the process by which Chesapeake ended up buying naming rights held in part by its own CEO.

I hope there's some good 'insider' reporting on this. I'd like to know more about the process by which Chesapeake ended up buying naming rights held in part by its own CEO.

Well, I'm sure they would have MUCH rather had a company from outside the ownership group so that it would be a nice injection of cash not from their own pockets... but apparently what Aubrey considers a good price for some quality advertising, was also the best deal they could get, or it would be named something else.

Well, I'm sure they would have MUCH rather had a company from outside the ownership group so that it would be a nice injection of cash not from their own pockets... but apparently what Aubrey considers a good price for some quality advertising, was also the best deal they could get, or it would be named something else.

it is cash from outside the ownership group .... chesapeake energy DOESN'T own the Thunder Aubrey does ...


that 31 mil (11mil to the city) over 12 years is a nice bit of cash ..

Hmmmmm....not to boast, but many people questioned me when I said it was going to be named Chesapeake Arena, based on the tradmarks being filed in February for the name and the domains being parked. Guess I was on the right track.

it is cash from outside the ownership group .... chesapeake energy DOESN'T own the Thunder Aubrey does ...


that 31 mil (11mil to the city) over 12 years is a nice bit of cash ..
The City "gets" $409K/yr x 12 years = $4.9MM

The City loses $100K/yr over what we were getting under the Ford agreement. The City doesn't even get to keep the $409 but by the terms of the lease, has to be put into the capital improvement fund for further upgrades for the teams benefit (and is losing $19.5MM/yr on the avg yearly cost of improvements made to an arena that was then 5 years old.)

But definitely a nice chunk of change for the Team. It is right in line with what their consultants said they could get for Naming Rights when they were trying to get out of Seattle. Quick-n-dirty math projected out over the (up to) 30 year term of the lease puts the Naming Rights at $90MM+. Similar to Memphis, a slighltly smaller market, that I said all along we could get and the improvements would have been paid for without the 15 month tax. That $90MM figure was dismissed as being unrealistic here.

Would be nice if (just as the team's owners could have done from the beginning), was take the Naming Rights money, put it into the capital improvement fund and pay for any future improvements to the arena/new arena with their own money. they want the Naming Rights money? No problem. Build your place of business and own the building yourself or at least pay for the improvements that they insisted they have. Expect the taxpayers to do it and the taxpayers should keep the money from a building they built.

Larry did you miss the part about + the consumer price index increase every year? So the amount doesn't stay stagnate for all 12 years. Even if it did, who cares, it's a profit for the City of OKC, and they shouldn't be in the business to make money off private ventures anyway.

I think we shoul dhave a large gas flare installed on the top of the dome-portion! And gas lamplights on the outside.

Larry did you miss the part about + the consumer price index increase every year? So the amount doesn't stay stagnate for all 12 years. Even if it did, who cares, it's a profit for the City of OKC, and they shouldn't be in the business to make money off private ventures anyway.

As I said, it was quick and dirty math. I know the article said the Thunder gets the 3% increase but I would have to check to see if the City gets the same percentage increase or not (as you said, the City is apparently tied to the consumer price index). For the sake of calculations, lets say it is the same 3% the Thunder gets (not dollar amount), When you factor in the 3%/yr increase per year, it isn't until year 8 that the City gets the back up to the $500K/yr that we were getting with the Ford Center. Over the 12 years, it still leaves the city with less than what we would have gotten with the Ford Center over the same 12 yr period. Similar to the double digit increases we have enjoyed with the Sales tax collections. But even with all of those increases, we still aren't where we were before the recession. We are still in the cellar.

Not sure why you think it is profit to the City when the City doesn't even get to keep it. The Mayor & City Manager described the lease (including the naming Rights) as "break even". The revenue, instead of rightfully going to the entity that built/improved/owns the facility was instead given away to a private for-profit business (that can clearly afford to pay its own way).

If what you are saying is Government had no business in building the Arena to begin with, I agree with you, but since we did, we should be getting the revenue from it and not giving it away. At the bare minimum, a profit sharing agreement like we had with the Hornets was called for. This is what we were lead to believe would happen by our self-described "sophisticated" negotiators. Except one crucial member of the negotiating team switched sides. Want to guess who that was?

If the Thunder owners want naming rights to an arena, they should build it, maintain it and improve it themselves instead of expecting the taxpayers to do it all for them. Bennett is on record that he doesn't think an arena can be run at an operational profit (even though the Ford did exactly that)... he doesn't want to own the building. I don't blame him for trying it. How many of us would turn down getting someone else to pay for our place of business? How many of us would turn down $3MM+/year for the next 12 years? But how many of us would give away that same $3MM/year? Undoubtedly, there are many who say they would but when you put the money in their hands, would they be so quick to give it away?

As I said, it was quick and dirty math. I know the article said the Thunder gets the 3% increase but I would have to check to see if the City gets the same percentage increase or not (as you said, the City is apparently tied to the consumer price index). For the sake of calculations, lets say it is the same 3% the Thunder gets (not dollar amount), When you factor in the 3%/yr increase per year, it isn't until year 8 that the City gets the back up to the $500K/yr that we were getting with the Ford Center. Over the 12 years, it still leaves the city with less than what we would have gotten with the Ford Center over the same 12 yr period. Similar to the double digit increases we have enjoyed with the Sales tax collections. But even with all of those increases, we still aren't where we were before the recession. We are still in the cellar.

Not sure why you think it is profit to the City when the City doesn't even get to keep it. The Mayor & City Manager described the lease (including the naming Rights) as "break even". The revenue, instead of rightfully going to the entity that built/improved/owns the facility was instead given away to a private for-profit business (that can clearly afford to pay its own way).

If what you are saying is Government had no business in building the Arena to begin with, I agree with you, but since we did, we should be getting the revenue from it and not giving it away. At the bare minimum, a profit sharing agreement like we had with the Hornets was called for. This is what we were lead to believe would happen by our self-described "sophisticated" negotiators. Except one crucial member of the negotiating team switched sides. Want to guess who that was?

If the Thunder owners want naming rights to an arena, they should build it, maintain it and improve it themselves instead of expecting the taxpayers to do it all for them. Bennett is on record that he doesn't think an arena can be run at an operational profit (even though the Ford did exactly that)... he doesn't want to own the building. I don't blame him for trying it. How many of us would turn down getting someone else to pay for our place of business? How many of us would turn down $3MM+/year for the next 12 years? But how many of us would give away that same $3MM/year? Undoubtedly, there are many who say they would but when you put the money in their hands, would they be so quick to give it away?

Good discussion in this thread, but does anybody else agree that two threads on this topic is unnecessary?

Hmmmmm....not to boast, but many people questioned me when I said it was going to be named Chesapeake Arena, based on the tradmarks being filed in February for the name and the domains being parked. Guess I was on the right track.

For not wishing to boast, you dinna do a have bad job of it. <vbg>
Decent call all in all, given all the MidFirst talk that went on.

Mike, you are correct...but the two threads are in different sections of the site...