New Downtown Arena

[Laramie]

If we lose our well-established high profile NBA franchise; then our only campaign to remain Big League will be to solicit the NHL Phoenix Coyotes to play in the Paycom Center once the Thunder leaves.

OKC's NBA team evaluation $3.05 billion. Our local ownership group invested $350 million in the NBA Supersonics to bring Big League sports to our city.

Closes franchises to OKC: Dallas Mavericks,, Houston Rockets, San Antonio Spurs, Denver Nuggets, Memphis Grizzlies & Phoenix Suns.

Plan II if arena vote fails . . .

Arizonia Coyotes team evaluation $675 million. Our only chance of remain Big League will be to go after the NHL Coyotes; whose owner in not local; we would still need to build an NHL specification arena more viable than Paycom Center.

Closes franchises to OKC: Dallas Stars, St. Louis Blues, Colorado Avalanche, Nashville Predators and Las Vegas Golden Knights.

Personally, IDK the NHL's policy off hand; but I wish there were some way our city could partner with Tulsa (BOK Center) to bring the NHL Coyotes to Oklahoma with half the games in Tulsa and half in OKC. Maybe if we included 20/21 NHL games in the proposed new arena we could have both NBA and NHL. Afterall, OKC-TUL are considered the same sports TV market.

Forgive me guys, I don't want to lose our Thunder and since we're going to need a new DT arena, just trying to think outside the box.

[caaokc]

I don’t see pro sports coming back if this vote fails and the Thunder leave.

[Urbanized]

^^^^^^^
Someone who gets it.

[SoonerDave]

Possibly a dumb question, but is there legit concern on the part of people who might know that this thing *could* fail?

I'd normally expect this to pass something like 70-30, but some recent TV comments and appearances by Mayor Holt and others sure make me wonder if there is legit concern it might not pass.

[Jake]

Possibly a dumb question, but is there legit concern on the part of people who might know that this thing *could* fail?

I'd normally expect this to pass something like 70-30, but some recent TV comments and appearances by Mayor Holt and others sure make me wonder if there is legit concern it might not pass.

I don't think this will fail but I'd be shocked if it passed with anything close to 70% of the vote.

[Urbanized]

It’s polling favorably, but the question is whether or not yes votes are as motivated to drive to the polls as are the no votes. Personally I won’t feel good about it until it’s in the books.

[pickles]

I don’t see pro sports coming back if this vote fails and the Thunder leave.

This is correct.

I think there are a lot of people who simply don't understand that it takes incentives to get meaningful resources to this city - people, businesses, brands, etc. This is not a destination. Recruiting human capital to this city is a major challenge.

Our brand as a city has been massively improved by the presence of the Thunder and by MAPS - by public investments.

There are too many people who are simply not bright enough to understand that the business decision to bring the franchise to Oklahoma City was essentially an angel investment in the city. The franchise could easily increase its value by moving to Nashville right now.

We will receive and deserve total ignominy if this vote fails.

[jn1780]

This is correct.

I think there are a lot of people who simply don't understand that it takes incentives to get meaningful resources to this city - people, businesses, brands, etc. This is not a destination. Recruiting human capital to this city is a major challenge.

Our brand as a city has been massively improved by the presence of the Thunder and by MAPS - by public investments.

There are too many people who are simply not bright enough to understand that the business decision to bring the franchise to Oklahoma City was essentially an angel investment in the city. The franchise could easily increase its value by moving to Nashville right now.

We will receive and deserve total ignominy if this vote fails.

The pro arena side have been doing a great job showing OKC and Oklahoma's weaknesses. I don't know if we're going to get another hit from the NBA bong 10-20 years from now when inflation makes whatever exit penalty that gets agreed upon not seem so bad to future owners. Like I said several posts up, this should be seen a warning. We may not always be able to buy ourselves "Big League Status". With said, I would still vote yes.

[Urbanized]

This is correct.

I think there are a lot of people who simply don't understand that it takes incentives to get meaningful resources to this city - people, businesses, brands, etc. This is not a destination. Recruiting human capital to this city is a major challenge.

Our brand as a city has been massively improved by the presence of the Thunder and by MAPS - by public investments.

There are too many people who are simply not bright enough to understand that the business decision to bring the franchise to Oklahoma City was essentially an angel investment in the city. The franchise could easily increase its value by moving to Nashville right now.

We will receive and deserve total ignominy if this vote fails.

Great post; nails it. The last line is true and powerful. If we bungle this opportunity we will be consigned to the dustbin from a national perspective, ESPECIALLY among sports media and sports followers. All of whom will be more than happy to give OKC permanent punchline and cautionary tale status.

[okcrun]

This is correct.

I think there are a lot of people who simply don't understand that it takes incentives to get meaningful resources to this city - people, businesses, brands, etc. This is not a destination. Recruiting human capital to this city is a major challenge.

Our brand as a city has been massively improved by the presence of the Thunder and by MAPS - by public investments.

There are too many people who are simply not bright enough to understand that the business decision to bring the franchise to Oklahoma City was essentially an angel investment in the city. The franchise could easily increase its value by moving to Nashville right now.

We will receive and deserve total ignominy if this vote fails.

Wonder how many restaurants and bars in bricktown/downtown survive if they leave? During the pandemic remember hearing a lot of them struggling not only because of the pandemic itself obviously but the fact there weren't home thunder games for a season. Obviously most places have never recovered to pre-pandemic levels and I would assume most random weeknight business comes from people attending events like the thunder games. Feel like a lot of "No" voters are going to come to realize in a few years they wouldn't have voted no if they realized all of the collateral damage that would come.

[SoonerDave]

It’s polling favorably, but the question is whether or not yes votes are as motivated to drive to the polls as are the no votes. Personally I won’t feel good about it until it’s in the books.

Well that's what led me to even ask the question. The tenor of some of the ads plus some live interviews with Holt implied a sense of urgency I didn't expect at all. I'm sure they're doing their internal polling and have a good sense of the direction things are going, but it seems to be the public "reaction" in terms of advertising direction on the pro side seems to be much more cautionary than I ever would have expected.

I think a 60/40 pass rate is probably where things are going right now. I *know* nothing, to be clear, but I've seen enough of these kinds of votes to kinda gauge how each side is going, and purely the reactions from the pro-arena side make me wonder what they may be seeing from their own data. It may be nothing more than a "get out the vote" issue. I honestly didn't realize there was truly organized opposition until I saw the guy on the news this morning.

[Laramie]

Great post; nails it. The last line is true and powerful. If we bungle this opportunity we will be consigned to the dustbin from a national perspective, ESPECIALLY among sports media and sports followers. All of whom will be more than happy to give OKC permanent punchline and cautionary tale status.

Agree 100% - Nothing like Oklahoma City being on the brunt end of a joke; it won't be pleasant.

[LocoAko]

Well that's what led me to even ask the question. The tenor of some of the ads plus some live interviews with Holt implied a sense of urgency I didn't expect at all. I'm sure they're doing their internal polling and have a good sense of the direction things are going, but it seems to be the public "reaction" in terms of advertising direction on the pro side seems to be much more cautionary than I ever would have expected.

I think a 60/40 pass rate is probably where things are going right now. I *know* nothing, to be clear, but I've seen enough of these kinds of votes to kinda gauge how each side is going, and purely the reactions from the pro-arena side make me wonder what they may be seeing from their own data. It may be nothing more than a "get out the vote" issue. I honestly didn't realize there was truly organized opposition until I saw the guy on the news this morning.

I've been sensing the same thing, although I typically always have a big bout of nervousness immediately before elections. More and more people I know from across the spectrum are coming out against this thing (for both misguided and real reasons, IMO), and the advertising blitz and tenor from the campaign/mayor has been a bit more urgent than I anticipated. If yard signs could vote—which they famously do not—I'd feel very confident in its passage, but among actual voters... I'm not so sure.

[caaokc]

I have no idea how it’s gonna go, if I had to guess, yes will pass with 52-55 percent

[king183]

Well that's what led me to even ask the question. The tenor of some of the ads plus some live interviews with Holt implied a sense of urgency I didn't expect at all. I'm sure they're doing their internal polling and have a good sense of the direction things are going, but it seems to be the public "reaction" in terms of advertising direction on the pro side seems to be much more cautionary than I ever would have expected.

I think a 60/40 pass rate is probably where things are going right now. I *know* nothing, to be clear, but I've seen enough of these kinds of votes to kinda gauge how each side is going, and purely the reactions from the pro-arena side make me wonder what they may be seeing from their own data. It may be nothing more than a "get out the vote" issue. I honestly didn't realize there was truly organized opposition until I saw the guy on the news this morning.

As a seasoned, former campaign operative, I can confidently tell you nothing in the ads or PR campaign indicates the "yes" side is worried. This campaign is very typical. Refer to my earlier post on this topic when people were freaking out that they had not yet seen ads for the "yes" side and it's going exactly as I predicted it would. With that said, even though they are not worried, they also aren't complacent. As any good campaign does, they are going to act as if this thing could come down to one vote, even if their polling tells them they are in good position. That means a flood of phone calls and text messages today and tomorrow, as well as people working the streets tomorrow. When you have polling showing you with a 60-40 lead (not saying that's what the polling says), you don't pack up and go to sleep ( though we can point to a very prominent example of this happening ~7 years ago); you keep with the strategy and push hard right until 7 pm.

[Laramie]

.

Thunder to Oklahoma City

[Ginkasa]

I've been pretty nervous about this thing passing. To be clear, I don't have any real insight. This is entirely anecdotal. But the general response I see online (even to an extent on this forum) has been pretty negative with, I think, some shortsighted if well intentioned opinions. In real life, an unfortunately large percentage of people I know have either been ignorant of the vote or been against (again, with well intentioned but short sighted opinions). I've been pretty successful convincing the people I know in real life to vote yes, but I don't have that big of a reach lol

[BDP]

Milwaukee is only an hour and a half and a train ride from Chicago so I've never really liked that comparison.

It also doesn't make sense to compare the deals either. The state didn't just hand Milwaukee free state money for the arena. Much of that contribution is paid for by a special tax district around the arena. So, most of the sales tax revenue generated closest to the arena actually goes to the state and the Wisconsin Center District, not the city of Milwaukee.

The Milwaukee BucksÂ’ playoff run paid off in big bucks for state and local governments, which scored about $3 million in taxes from the teamÂ’s NBA championship, according to a Milwaukee Magazine analysis.

Almost all of that tax revenue went to the state and the Wisconsin Center District, which raked in more than $1 million each. By contrast, none of those tax dollars went to the City of Milwaukee – which shouldered much of the public safety costs for the Bucks-in-Six victory parade through downtown and the Deer District celebration – while less than $200,000 wound up in Milwaukee County coffers.

https://www.milwaukeemag.com/where-d...t-to-the-city/

Every deal is different and people really shouldn't take the upfront numbers at face value. Basically, if there is another deal proposed when this fails that involves other revenue sources, no one should expect that everything else would be the same and that the other sources are not going to recoup that contribution through arena operations or through tax districts that divert sales tax away from the city. The would be more unprecedented than a city paying for its own arena. Even SoFi Stadium has tax breaks mechanisms with the city of Inglewood for certain aspects of the project.

If Oklahoma City can get the Thunder owners to write a bigger check and / or the state to contribute without anything else being changed in this proposal, it would probably be the best deal ever in which the municipality was involved. From what I've seen / heard, though, even that would not change most of the the No vote anyway, because the Thunder would still be benefiting from a new arena in some way.

[AnguisHerba]

If the Chamber member companies can turn out their employees to vote, it will pass. If they can’t, then it could be a narrow defeat. MAPS 3 passed with 54%, MAPS 4 passed with 72%.

[Bellaboo]

Agree 100% - Nothing like Oklahoma City being on the brunt end of a joke; it won't be pleasant.

When the Thunder moved to OKC, there was only one no vote of the 29 other team owners and that was from Mark Cuban, in which he was protecting his Mavericks interest.
His statement was 'We don't need a Dustbowl' team.

Now that's perception.

[Shortsyeararound]

When the Thunder moved to OKC, there was only one no vote of the 29 other team owners and that was from Mark Cuban, in which he was protecting his Mavericks interest.
His statement was 'We don't need a Dustbowl' team.

Now that's perception.

Those would be great shirts to have!
Ment apparel if you are on here- get to making them!

[Dob Hooligan]

When the Thunder moved to OKC, there was only one no vote of the 29 other team owners and that was from Mark Cuban, in which he was protecting his Mavericks interest.
His statement was 'We don't need a Dustbowl' team.

Now that's perception.

There were 2 no. Paul Allen of Portland was the other.

Mark Cuban said "We don't need a Dustbowl Division. We will have OKC, Memphis, Dallas, San Antonio and Houston all together." I think he left New Orleans out.

[soonerguru]

I am voting yes. I wish the owners were putting up more, but a good friend who is a major insider told me unequivocally that if this doesn’t pass, The Thunder are gone.

So, I understand people’s trepidations, but losing the Thunder would be a death blow.

[Tyson]

I am voting yes. I wish the owners were putting up more, but a good friend who is a major insider told me unequivocally that if this doesn’t pass, The Thunder are gone.

So, I understand people’s trepidations, but losing the Thunder would be a death blow.

It is a touchy and avoided topic according to my friend who works in customer service for the Thunder. Management has been really stressed, supposedly. I can't imagine how much pressure there is right now for everyone involved.

[PhiAlpha]

I am voting yes. I wish the owners were putting up more, but a good friend who is a major insider told me unequivocally that if this doesn’t pass, The Thunder are gone.

So, I understand people’s trepidations, but losing the Thunder would be a death blow.

It’s a true case of “F around, find out” for the people who love the Thunder or having professional sports in general but are voting no.

It’s pretty simple: If you think the Thunder are valuable to the community and want them to stay, vote yes. Your principles and hate for rich people aren’t going to keep the team here.