New Downtown Arena

[jackirons]

Here are the 10 richest in Oklahoma (Posted on March 25, 2023, MONEY INC https://moneyinc.com/richest-people-oklahoma/

Clayton I. Bennett who is among the Thunder ownership group isn't listed--although reports say his net worth is $400 million. Tom Ward - $273 million was listed as #10.

Wouldn't expect this ownership group to contribute much if any toward a new NBA spec arena. OKC will be pressing for a long-term commitment if a $500 million or more arena (comparable to Milwaukee's Fiserv Forum arena $524 million) is built on the PSM site.

Clayton I. Bennett, Chairman, Oklahoma City Thunder Chairman, Dorchester Capital - $400 million net worth.
George B. Kaiser, President, GBK CorporationChairman, BOK Financial - $13.2 Billion net worth
G. Jeffrey Records, Jr., Chairman and CEO,MidFirst Bank $7.2 million house in Los Angeles. Net worth N/A
William M. Cameron, Chairman and CEO,American Fidelity Assurance Company. Net worth $9 million
Robert E. Howard II, Chairman, Howard Investments. Net worth $6 million
Jay Scaramucci, President, Balon Corporation. Net worth N/A
Everett R. Dobson, Managing Partner,Dobson Partnerships. Net worth $5 million

Taken from various sources--you know as well as anyone why this information isn't reported with any amount of frequency.

Bill Cameron is worth at least a few hundred million, maybe a billion+. The $9 million dollar estimate is way off.

[Urbanized]

I’m probably personally acquainted with a couple dozen people worth between $5 million and $9 million, and none of them are named Records, Cameron, Howard or Dobson. You too, the reader, are probably also personally acquainted with far more people with this type of net worth than you know. That’s really not a lot of money these days, honestly.

Anyone who has any concept of how true wealth works would dismiss the numbers cited above in this thread out of hand. As in, it’s literally impossible that those numbers are accurate. The truly wealthy pay lots of money to highly-qualified professionals to make their net worth inscrutable to outsiders. This is especially easy to do when their equity is private.

With all of that said, and back to the topic at hand, the Thunder is pushing for a new building and for the City’s ownership and funding of said building not out of rapacious greed but out of a need to keep up with the costs of running a franchise, now and in the future. They are pushing for this in order to secure OKC as a home for the team for decades to come, not just for the next five years. Sure, they want to make money, too. People like this aren’t in the business of losing money, even if it would buy them some community warm fuzzies. That’s not how they got where they are in life.

But make no mistake that facilities are an arms race, and the smaller the market the more likely it is that a team will need the community to be a partner in order to maintain the status quo. Major league pro sports are insanely expensive, and not likely to get cheaper in the future.

[BoulderSooner]

You said there are multiple billionaires [“closer to 4 then (sic) 1”]. Please name them and cite your source. I’m genuinely interested in this, and everything I see when I search is much closer to Laramie’s estimation than yours. Can you name the specific billionaires and tell us where you got the information to back it up? Or are you just making it up based on your gut?

the Records family are the sole owners of the MIdfirst empire ..

the Cameron family are the sole owners of the American Fidelity/First Fidelity empire

Bob Howards real estate in midtown okc alone is worth millions and millions of dollars .. he is almost for sure a Billionaire ..

[Urbanized]

I’ll also point out another thing about the investors behind the Thunder: from a strictly self-interest business perspective, the thing that makes the most money sense by far would be for them to sell the team. They’d make out like bandits if they did. If they were ONLY in this to make money - purely a greed motivation - they’d sell the team for ten times what they originally paid, and walk away with no regrets.

The fact that instead they’re working to secure the team a long-term home, one that leverages all currently-known revenue streams available in a state-of-the-art NBA building, is defensibly a community service. Selling the team would almost certainly lead to a move from this market, now or later. And OKC would likely never see another major league franchise with a failure such as this on our resume. It’s legitimately important for the future of the city.

[BDP]

We are talking about an Arena here not just a basketball gym, and how fortunate is OKC to have a full time tenant for the future arena.

Agree. Framing it as just for the Thunder is short sighted, imo. If managed correctly, it will be used as much or more for non-Thunder events than for Thunder games. But the reason OKC could have a world class arena for all kinds of world class events is because the Thunder is there as an anchor tenant.

[chssooner]

Honest question: Have you never been to a non Thunder event at Paycom? We are talking about an Arena here not just a basketball gym, and how fortunate is OKC to have a full time tenant for the future arena.

Exactly. OKC citizens don't know the benefits of a truly top-notch arena, interesting of getting top tier events, because, well, we've never had one. Even new, the Ford Center was limited. Can only put so much lipstick on a pig before you start to realize that it is what it is: just a pig.

[Laramie]

Bill Cameron is worth at least a few hundred million, maybe a billion+. The $9 million dollar estimate is way off.

When I looked up the sources, they IMO were incorrect. You're correct Bill Cameron is worth more and also G. Jeffrey Records is a three figure millionaire--come to find out that he owned more of the team than any one Thunder owner among the four original owners. He sold shares to Jay Scaramucci, Everett R. Dodson and more shares to Clay Bennett and still owns a good part of the Thunder. IIRC, G. J. Records bank MidFirst services the Thunder accounts.

Tom Ward sold his 19-23% shares to Tulsa Billionaire George B. Kaiser.

Please disregard those figures beyond Bennett and Kaiser all of these owners in the group are three-figure multimillionaires.

My sincere apologies if I caused any confusion on my part. THUNDER UP!

[warreng88]

Is anyone going to the State of the City address today? Would love for someone to report back on the info given out by Holt.

[BoulderSooner]

Is anyone going to the State of the City address today? Would love for someone to report back on the info given out by Holt.

it is going to be streamed live on OKC's facebook page

[Anonymous.]

Link to stream:

https://www.facebook.com/cityofokc/v...8892300991123/

[jn1780]

I wonder how many of the 110 people currently viewing the stream are from OKCTalk?

[king183]

I was following someone live tweeting it on Twitter and from that source it seemed like very little new information was revealed today. It sounded like Holt simply made the case that we need a new arena and that was it. Is that what others saw/heard?

[warreng88]

I am watching it live now and he hasn't talked about specifics yet, just info on the NBA and our past as an NBA city.

[BoulderSooner]

I was following someone live tweeting it on Twitter and from that source it seemed like very little new information was revealed today. It sounded like Holt simply made the case that we need a new arena and that was it. Is that what others saw/heard?

it is still going currently ...

[Plutonic Panda]

He’s talking about it now

[AnguisHerba]

Some folks online accidentally watched the 2022 State of the City and thought that was it.

[BoulderSooner]

Some folks online accidentally watched the 2022 State of the City and thought that was it.

plan before the end of the summer vote before the end of this year .. taxes will not be raised ownership will significantly contribute


world class arena ..

[jn1780]

Some folks online accidentally watched the 2022 State of the City and thought that was it.

Well they weren't wrong. In the final stages of coming up with a plan to put up for vote by end of the year.

[Plutonic Panda]

It looks like some of the Maps 4 funding could go to this.

[Tydude]

Mayor Holt just announced that the funding for the new Arena will come from the remaining money from the Maps 4 and the rest of it will come from the Ownership group.

[BoulderSooner]

It looks like some of the Maps 4 funding could go to this.

we already new that

[BoulderSooner]

Mayor Holt just announced that the funding for the new Arena will come from the remaining money from the Maps 4 and the rest of it will come from the Ownership group.

not what he said .. there will be a vote for new funding also

[warreng88]

New arena proposal.
No tax increase.
Ownership contribution.
City will secure a longer lease than originally (15 years).

No other details that I could hear. Didn't mention dollar amount, location or contribution from ownership.

[Plutonic Panda]

we already new that

That will be good. I did not know that

[BoulderSooner]

not what he said .. there will be a vote for new funding also

plan is to open the arena this decade