OKC basically paid him millions to put Prairie Surf in the old Cox Center; now the Thunder are paying him to leave.
Getting tons of public money for the new Wheeler Bio HQ at Innovation Plaza, which bears little resemblance to what was proposed.
OKC is paying for a stadium for his new soccer team.
Someone else needs to step up and fill that role or that is what happens. Who is showing they are willing to step in to do the higher risk visionary stuff? Who is making plans and proposals? Did anyone else try to work a deal with the Funks or the city? Was Kanady the best or just the only one competing? Is there more than a casual connection between Kanady and the ones doling out the money?
MAPS 4 Multipurpose Stadium has a $71 million budget scheduled to break ground sometime in 2025. Maybe by the time the City is ready to break ground in 2025, there will be an additional $29 million ($100 million project) to add to the budget.
OKC needs to build a minimum 20,000 seat stadium making it MLS ready upon opening. The new USL ownership (Echo - Christian Kanady) could use the lower level 8,000 seats.
OKC could make the stadium available for larger events like OSSAA high school football championships in 6A, 5A, 4A classes.
Also open up the potential for UFL spring football games https://www.theufl.com/teams.
Former OU football coach Bob Stoops may want buy or bring a UFL franchise to Oklahoma City area having an option of using the lower bowl 40,000 capacity of Oklahoma Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium or the MAPS 4 - 20,000 seat Multipurpose Stadium.
This is very exciting!!!! And i'm super glad I'm not the only one seeing this for OSSAA. If you can host football....you can host marching band events and THAT is where i get excited. LOL
This what I've always thought about this, as well. A 20k stadium in downtown OKC could be used for:
ALL of the HS football championships
ALL of the HS soccer championships
Small college football games (Think SNU vs. OBU)
USMNT / USWNT soccer games (probably friendlies)
NCAA FCS Championship game. Right now it's played in Frisco, TX in a 20k soccer stadium.
UFL football
Major League Rugby
Major League Lacrosse
etc...etc...
Good job, Borchard: You've expanded on the use of a 20,000 seat stadium. Agree 100%.
Now it's up to us to begin lobbying for a 20,000 seat stadium that's also capable of future expansion and additions.
BTW, I had the pleasure of meeting Borchard in McNellie's Midtown a number of years ago prior to the debate
on Rayo OKC and Energy OKC debacle over Taft Stadium. Very knowledgeable person about soccer on the International and local level. New ownership restores my quest for OKC starting a new version of Energy OKC in
the USL and hope that we'll eventually move toward a larger MLS regulation stadium which can be used for a number of events mentioned by Borchard.
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