Is OKC Still Pursuing NBA/NHL Team

[swake]

So the environment of a city is not substantive? Including the style and conditions of buildings? And the ease of which they discarded and abandoned vs restored?

This is at once the problem today with downtown Tulsa and strength of midtown Tulsa.

And it is the weakness of BOTH Bricktown and midtown OKC. See the toss away build quality of the theater, Bass Pro and the Roadhouse. Not to mention the new Marriott and the Ford Center. Bricktown has abandonded the reuse or at least the consistent build quality of the older sections.

I would counter that this is just as substantive and more important that say for instance good roads.

[PUGalicious]

Perhaps you would like to begin a new thread to discuss this topic and allow this thread to resume the original topic.

[HOT ROD]

I thought Portland Metro was 1.5M in 2000. I know their TV market is the whole state of OR plus Southern Washington (appx 5M).

OKC was 1.15M in 2000, pretty close IMO. Also, Portland has the same ''feel'' as OKC - being that I used to live in OKC and currently reside in Seattle (and visit Portland once or twice a month for SHOPPING - no sales tax!!!!), it feels like OKC there just a bit more dense!

I think OKC could do the same as Portland! in more ways than just an NBA franchise (PDX only major league franchise)! Maybe for OKC, NFL and certainly NHL makes more $en$e, but OKC can get market agreements to broadcast in the state and regional markets *to expand its 1.7M reach to 5M (like Portland).

With a creative plan, it could be done.

[HOT ROD]

I don't know how true that is. I haven't been to OKC in quite a while, mainly because I have no desire to do so. There isn't much of anything in OKC, that I want to go to, that isn't in Tulsa.

Sorry.

Funny, last time I was in Wichita (Feb 2005) I did not see anything about Tulsa (advertised, print, nothing!!!). I saw lots of things about OKC and more about KC.

I saw commercials on local tv, saw the newspapers and print (even the OKC Trader - bizarre), and generally got the feeling that OKC was the closest big city to Wichita; which IS true!

Not to put down ICT or anything, just stating an observation and a correlation - that Wichita could easily be an extended market for an OKC major league team.

[In_Tulsa]

Funny last time I was in Little Rock and KC I saw alot about Tulsa and I don't believe I saw anything about OKC.

[PUGalicious]

Last time I was in KC weekend before last, I didn't see anything about Tulsa or OKC.

[swake]

Where did you get 1.7m for OKC?

You know, for an MBA you play very loose with numbers.

[flyingcowz]

I was wondering that too.

Last time I checked OKc was around 1.25 M ib the metropolitan area.

[BDP]

I also can't think of anything that OKC has that Tulsa does not. I can think of stuff Tulsa has that OKC does not have.

That's where it comes from. Tulsans seem to think they have all this stuff OKC does not have, but 1) they don't realize how much OKC has, because they would never come here in the first place and 2) they seem to think that Tulsa is some type of preservationist utopia where everything looks good and is kept up nice and that none of OKC is. It just isn't true.

There are good parts to Tulsa and some great architecture. There are cool neighborhoods with some good local restaurants. You got Cherry Street and Peoria and some of the best art deco in the region.

But there is also plenty o’ crap. There are run down neighborhoods next to some of the nice ones. There are neglected high rises and industrial areas. There are big box store wastelands. And there is suburban monotony. And even some of its more happening places can be plagued with sleepiness.

If you don't like OKC, that's fine. I don't think OKC is pretending to be something that it is not. But don't give me this Tulsa has so much more than OKC crap. That's really just ignorance. OKC has changed a lot in the last ten years and it hasn't really stopped adding to itself. There is actually energy in this town now.

Don't get me wrong, Tulsa is a nice town, but if it continues to float on its own impressions of greatness, it could go the way of OKC in the 80s and 90s. Again, I have never been to two cities that are more alike, for better or worse, than OKC and Tulsa, but one has been changing and improving a lot faster than the other. But there are signs that Tulsa could be in store for some improvement as well, so in the end, it’s all good.

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Back on topic, could someone kind of line item how we get to a 5 million person market in this discussion for me. I'm not disputing it, I just want to know exactly how far we going with this. Can we get an average median income of this market also?

[chrisok]

I was looking through some older threads, and came across this one. One month since the last post. Things sure change quickly don't they.......

[HOT ROD]

Where did you get 1.7m for OKC?

You know, for an MBA you play very loose with numbers.

If you remember, I said PDX has 1.7M and an audience of 5M. ... Not a play on the numbers, you just misread my statement.

[HOT ROD]

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Back on topic, could someone kind of line item how we get to a 5 million person market in this discussion for me. I'm not disputing it, I just want to know exactly how far we going with this. Can we get an average median income of this market also?

Well, I argue that OKC can have a 5M market reach like PDX given the population of this state and surrounding areas that could be considered market reach.

OK = 3.6M
Southern KS = 600K
TX Pan = 300K
Little Rock Westward = 500K+

Cities included are Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Wichita, Little Rock, Amarillo, Lawton, Wichita Falls, FT Smith. If we take these regional cities - where OKC already has a significant presence for one reason or another - and use it as market for a media franchise of sorts, that gives us a 5M reach.

Granted, I used "ROM - rough order magnitude/estimates" in the pops; but typically regional cities support the major league city just as OKC has done for many years in supporting Dallas, KC, and Denver (to a much lesser extent) based teams.

I would now argue that given OKC with a major market franchise, there would be somewhat of a division as those cities closest to OKC would be more apt to support an OKC based team. Hence 5M as a rough estimate which is very plausible given my PDX example (where they use their state plus Sw Washington as a Modified Value Added Base).

OK, enough finance/marketing. Im glad OKC has a major market franchise now, hopefully everyone will support the team. It bodes well for the region and sport as a whole! Maybe if OKC gets a permanent franchise, my extended market idea could be assured if there were exhibition games in the region. But that is years away!