Oklahoma City (Multipurpose) Sports Stadium

[Laramie]

Oklahoma City (MAPS IV) 2017-2024

Where do we go from here with the future of sports & entertainment in Oklahoma City; if we could put some kind of venue on the MAPS IV ballot in 2017.

Should OKC build for the future now or should we until later like MAPS V (2025). What would excite your future interest?

A basic structure (multipurpose) venue ($100 - $150 million) in the 20,000-25,000-seat range (stadium expansion option) that could handle high school football playoffs, collegiate football and the possibility of MLS expansion/relocation .

A basic structure (multipurpose) venue ($200 - $400 million) in the 40,000-70,000 seat range (stadium expansion option) that could handle the above mentioned activities; preparation for the NFL radar for 2025-2030.

[mugofbeer]

I think this is a concept worth exploring for a future MAPS program.

[ljbab728]

As nice as it would be, I don't think it would find favor with the public right now and could jeopardize the passing of the next MAPS plans.

[bige4ou]

Good concept but if you're going to do it… do it. Put in the money for a good state of the art stadium. I would say retractable roof because then that could potentially put you in the bidding discusion for the Final Fours, NBA All Star Games, ETC. Definitely not there yet but I would bet by the time the next Maps arrives it will be time for this.

[HangryHippo]

I would love to see something like this, but I don't think it's right for MAPS IV. I'd like to see MAPS IV devoted entirely to mass transit.

[benjico]

I would love to see something like this, but I don't think it's right for MAPS IV. I'd like to see MAPS IV devoted entirely to mass transit.

Agreed. Transit should be the key issue. I would love to also see initiatives created to help individual neighborhoods and include some lower income areas. Create opportunities for growth in all of OKC, not just downtown for the middle class. Lots of important areas we can impact with MAPS IV that should have priority over the NFL pipe dream.

[Laramie]

Agreed. Transit should be the key issue. I would love to also see initiatives created to help individual neighborhoods and include some lower income areas. Create opportunities for growth in all of OKC, not just downtown for the middle class. Lots of important areas we can impact with MAPS IV that should have priority over the NFL pipe dream.

Benjico, your concern has sound merit. Ask yourself, how much public transit have you used or do you use; would you take advantage of it if we had it?

It will take Oklahoma City time to transition over to public transit. OKC is spread out; therefore the route matrix need to be formulated for those who will need or use transit in the form of street cars & buses.

Our city has been long overdue for some kind of outdoor sports venue, expanded upgrade in transit and city-wide beautification. Transit will be a key; MAPS' appeal has always been the infusion of many project initiatives that appeal to all voters.

MAPS III was $777. MAPS IV will probably be in the neighborhood of $800 million. We should continue to build on city-wide beautification & transit.

Highlight gateway entrances to our unique districts like Paseo, Asian, Stockyard City, Bricktown, Eastside & Southside etc., we need to examine our city as you would in a colonoscopy. Please forgive the word choice. Impressed with the direction OKC is headed. Clean & beautiful our city; because transit and a sports stadium will be counter image productive if our city looks like the pits.

[borchard]

My thoughts are thus:
I would love to see an outdoor sports venue built.
It NEEDS to be built somewhere in the downtown/ core to shore area.
I think it needs to be the 20K seat model, so it can be used NOW for soccer (USL/NASL/MLS/US Nat'l team), high school football, small college football, concerts, etc... Building a 40-70K seat stadium now, in hopes of getting NFL in 10-15yrs, would be a mistake IMHO. Build it in such a way that it can be easily expanded, if the need arises.

[mugofbeer]

Maybe both. Mass trans may take 10+ years of collection before construction starts. A stadium could pacify in the short term. OKC needs a good, expandable stadium

[C. B.]

Any chance this parking lot could be sold & developed into a SSS?
I dropped in RSL's stadium as a scale reference.

[SoonerDave]

I have a tough time seeing a return on a 20K-seat stadium. If there's a notion that a large-scale sports venue is needed, you need to go up to a minimum 30-40K seat venue, or one that has some truly unique architectural features that allows for reconfiguration into variable capacities. I am squarely on the side that OKC will *not* be a legitimate NFL target in my lifetime, but given the NCAA's predisposition to approve nearly anyone with the application fee that wants to run a bowl game, you'd have to aim that size to create a credible venue. Beyond that, I *do* think that we at least need to keep MLB possibilities on the map, even I find that likelihood only slightly better than the NFL. I can't fathom that either OSU or OU would trade a home game for an "OKC" home game, either, especially given the sudden softness in CFB attendance in general.

I'm the wrong person to ask about soccer. It's entirely lost on me, although I realize it is increasing in popularity among the younger crowd. I'm just not at all convinced you could consistently populate a 20-25K facility for it.

More broadly, I'm not sure *another* sports facility is a good idea for a MAPS X+1 venture. We kicked off MAPS with the current Bricktown Ballpark; I think selling another such park (for whatever sports) is a tenuous proposition at best.

[borchard]

I have a tough time seeing a return on a 20K-seat stadium. If there's a notion that a large-scale sports venue is needed, you need to go up to a minimum 30-40K seat venue, or one that has some truly unique architectural features that allows for reconfiguration into variable capacities.

The only example I can think of is Toyota Stadium (formerly Pizza Hut Park in Frisco). It holds 20K and for the last several years it has hosted the NCAA FCS Championship game. They also use it as a stop for Jimmy Buffett every summer.

I am squarely on the side that OKC will *not* be a legitimate NFL target in my lifetime, but given the NCAA's predisposition to approve nearly anyone with the application fee that wants to run a bowl game, you'd have to aim that size to create a credible venue.

I also do NOT think OKC will EVER get an NFL team. I also don't think we'd have a great chance to get a D1 Bowl Game. But D2 is definitely a possiblility.

Beyond that, I *do* think that we at least need to keep MLB possibilities on the map, even I find that likelihood only slightly better than the NFL.

I don't think we have any better chance at baseball

I can't fathom that either OSU or OU would trade a home game for an "OKC" home game, either, especially given the sudden softness in CFB attendance in general.

Me neither. But like I said D1 isn't what I think we should shoot for.

[Laramie]

We enter a different era of sports finance--TV money & advertising is what now drives these events. Tickets sales revenue from seats is the gravy. Look at what the Thunder gets in total ticket sales revenue vs. their share of the NBA's $2.6 billion per year.

The New York Times reports the deal's value at $2.66 billion per year. ESPN's current relationship covering NBA games on television began in 2002, when the network won the rights from NBC. TNT has been covering the NBA since 1988.

NBA extends television deals with ESPN, TNT

Sports bring big money to OKC and local businesses | okc.BIZ

Read an article that cited:

In their second season since moving from Seattle the Thunder made the playoffs, where they were eliminated in the first round by the Lakers. Although the Thunder do not operate their arena, the team still gets roughly $20 million more in premium seating revenue a season from the Oklahoma City Arena than they took in from Key Arena in Seattle.

Forbes current value of the NBA Thunder is $930 million.

Oklahoma City Thunder on the Forbes NBA Team Valuations List

Some will argue about the economic impact of the Thunder on OKC. Just think where this city would be without our NBA franchise; had we not invested in a basic arena structure, where would the Devon Tower be located? Answer: Houston, Texas

[OKCisOK4me]

I voted no because MAPS shouldn't be about building stadiums anymore. If there are investors for a major league sports team that can honestly see a team doing well here (staying out of the red) then they need to build a stadium on their own.

How many cities have built a stadium with tax dollars hoping to bait a pro franchise (and don't say us with the Ford Center cause that's a given)?

I agree with MAPS IV being solely focused on mass transportation.

[Laramie]

I voted no because MAPS shouldn't be about building stadiums anymore. If there are investors for a major league sports team that can honestly see a team doing well here (staying out of the red) then they need to build a stadium on their own.

How many cities have built a stadium with tax dollars hoping to bait a pro franchise (and don't say us with the Ford Center cause that's a given)?

I agree with MAPS IV being solely focused on mass transportation.

New York, Los Angeles & Columbus are the only MLS cities that had stadiums built with private funds.

The majority of stadiums used by Major League Soccer teams were built with varying shares of public dollars, according to a stadium background sheet provided by MLS spokesman Dan Courtemanche. But there are a few MLS stadiums built without a public subsidy.

Stadiums built without public money a rarity in U.S. | Las Vegas Review-Journal

Didn't post this in the Development & Buildings section because they would have shredded it without any research. I'm all for transit because it will be the future of our city, a good investment; however, I'd be willing to bet that many of the posters who want transit do not current use the services of mass transit.

[bige4ou]

Orlando City to privately finance soccer stadium, pay back city - Orlando Sentinel

See Orlando's model for getting their team/stadium. Pretty simular to OKC. 100% paid by the team. Still quite a few years for the Energy to get to the point where Orlando was when they began MLS talks but if the ownership has it in their minds that they want to make that a reality then it's possible. I wouldn't think a soccer stadium would have to be part of a Maps in order to happen. Just a strong effort from the Energy ownership to engage strong in the process. I believe this will be in the works before the next Maps gets here anyways. MLS is growing and is already starting to become more and more popular so this would be great for our growing city.

[borchard]

I voted no because MAPS shouldn't be about building stadiums anymore. If there are investors for a major league sports team that can honestly see a team doing well here (staying out of the red) then they need to build a stadium on their own.

How many cities have built a stadium with tax dollars hoping to bait a pro franchise (and don't say us with the Ford Center cause that's a given)?

I agree with MAPS IV being solely focused on mass transportation.

I guess I disagree with this. I think a MAPS vote that is SOLELY about one issue will almost surely fail. I don't think it matters what that issue is. That is how most of the MAPS votes have succeeded; they are a bundle of projects, with support from people for at least ONE of the items on the list. With MAPS 1 maybe I wasn't really jazzed about the arena, but I REALLY thought we needed a new baseball stadium, then I would vote for the whole package. Or, maybe I saw the river as a giant eyesore that needed to be addressed, but I really didn't care much about baseball, I would have voted for it as well.

[Laramie]

Good article on Orlando bige4ou:

Orlando already has an MLS franchise. Their current venue the Citrus Bowl is thought to be oversized for what the MLS needs. The Orlando MLS franchise averages 36,911 second to Seattle (40,067); The privately funded 25- to 28,000-seat downtown soccer-specific stadium will be a great investment; Orlando (2,321,418) has a metro with 1 million more residents that OKC. MLS Attendance

The MLS will expand by 4 team by 2020.

Three things you shouldn't expect:

1. Oklahoma City to get one of those 4 franchises because there are too many cities ahead of us in the game.
2. Funk's ownership: Have doubts if they will ever bring MLS to OKC.
3. MLS to enter the OKC market; you will need some kind facility; Taft Stadium (7,500-seats) wouldn't make a temporary home.

Rio Tinto Stadium (SLC - Sandy, Utah): capacity 20,213 - Construction cost $110 million (completed 2008)

Financing for Rio Tinto Stadium (SLC area).

On February 2, 2006, in which 15 percent of the hotel taxes collected in Salt Lake County between July 2007 and 2017, equaling about US $2 Million a year, would be diverted to the project. The bill was passed by the Senate, allowing for the club to announce the commencement of building what was then known as "RSL Stadium".

Put something in place, like a 15,000-20,000 seat facility in downtown/Bricktown/riverfront. You have a better chance for the next wave of expansion which should come around 2020-25; then, like MAPS for HOOPS extension which brought the Thunder you could upgrade the facility.

MLS is the only major league where OKC will have a realistic chance to obtain; our city is diverse, let's plan for the future.

Why not invest $100-$150 million now? Come 2025 (MAPS V), a stadium will cost you in the $200-$300 million range.

I think a MAPS vote that is SOLELY about one issue will almost surely fail. I don't think it matters what that issue is. That is how most of the MAPS votes have succeeded; they are a bundle of projects, with support from people for at least ONE of the items on the list.

You will definitely see the end of MAPS if the MAPS IV initiative is transit only.

[okatty]

This isn't exactly on topic but I thought it was interesting. Sorry for long post but can't get free link to work.

CLEVELAND — The billionaire owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, Dan Gilbert, is a lucky man. When LeBron James, his transcendent native son, left for Miami, the owner threw an impressive tantrum, going on about “cowardly betrayal.”
Despite that, James felt the tug of home and returned to Cleveland to revive Gilbert’s moribund franchise. In the N.B.A. finals, James resembled a Sherpa as he strapped a depleted team to his back and tried to drag it to the summit.
Gilbert made a splendid pile of cash off the Return. According to Sports Business Daily and Forbes, the Cavaliers’ revenue jumped by $67 million last season, while team salaries increased by just $15.2 million.
In the off-season, Gilbert dug his fingers into another pile of money, this one made up of taxpayer dollars. A year earlier, Gilbert and his fellow sports billionaires here — Larry Dolan, who owns the Indians, and Jimmy Haslam, who owns the Browns — had worked together to push through a referendum that extended a countywide “sin tax” on cigarettes, beer and liquor.
Over the next 20 years, taxpayers in Cleveland and Cuyahoga County will sluice $262 million into improvements for the city’s arenas and stadiums. This straitened city has already pumped $800 million into its sports stadiums.
Sweet deals for team owners are a distinguishing feature of pro sports capitalism. Costs are socialized, and profits remain private. Cleveland’s owners argue that this is only just: The stadium and the arena are publicly owned, and like any landlord, the city and the county should look after repairs and improvements.
Their logic does not apply more broadly. The team owners took control of the process of auctioning off naming rights for these public stadiums. The Browns sold their stadium’s rights for $100 million to FirstEnergy Corporation; the Indians will get $58 million over 16 years from Progressive Insurance; Gilbert’s home loan business paid a terrific sum to Gilbert’s team to name the place Quicken Loans Arena.
The owners shared not a penny with the hard-pressed city.
The Cleveland Indians have their hearts set on a new sound system. The Browns’ Haslam — whose truck-stop company, Pilot Flying J, just last year paid a $92 million fine to avoid a federal fraud prosecution — has compiled a list of improvements to be funded out of the public purse.
That sports teams, which are active charitable givers, have an umbilical tie to civic identity is not a fanciful notion. That this means that teams are drivers of economic progress, however, is a hallucination.
When James decided to return to Cleveland, city leaders and a few journalists retailed a narrative about L’Effect LeBron. They estimated that his return would pour many tens of millions of dollars into the city and speed the “Cleveland Renaissance.”
Cleveland has charming, leafy neighborhoods, fine museums and theaters and splendid lake views. More college-educated young adults are moving downtown, and there is indisputably more investment, building cranes and vibrancy to be found in Cleveland than a decade ago. At the same time, in the last month for which figures are available, Cuyahoga County’s job growth rate was 0.0.
The city’s poverty rate hovers near 37 percent, and the infant mortality rate is 13.0 per thousand births, compared with about 4.0 in New York City, which has no shortage of poverty.
Public schools have absorbed cut after cut.
I called George Zeller, who has analyzed the economy here for decades. He declined to talk renaissance, saying no such animal existed. “The theory that all of these sports teams are producing a gigantic boom is completely false,” he said.
Yet sin-tax dollars tumble into the hands of billionaires who employ millionaires.
The day after the end of the N.B.A. finals, I walked into the Cleveland office of Peter Pattakos. An ebullient lawyer, a sports fan and an Akron native, he helped lead the battle against the sin-tax extension. Ask a question, and he’s off at a sprint.
“It’s outrageous that these are public entities and we let these billionaires derive untold profits,” he said. “They kept saying, ‘Keep Cleveland strong,’ with the implied threat that they’d leave town if we didn’t underwrite their stadiums.”
The anti-sin-tax campaign was a peasant crusade. Pattakos’s ragtag band suggested a $3 surcharge on sports tickets. The owners rolled their collective eyes.
“Proposing to punish Cuyahoga County families and sports fans by imposing a new, large ticket tax to pay for major repairs,” the owners complained in a news release, “is terribly flawed.”
A surcharge, they complained, would make it even more difficult for families to buy tickets. That argument has an out-of-body quality, as the owners set the prices. (The Cavaliers will raise ticket prices 15 percent next year, the first such hike in five years.)
The teams’ owners and supporters outspent opponents, $3 million to $30,000. The vote to extend the sin tax, however, was not a blowout. Voters in the city of Cleveland rejected it; suburban voters carried the election.
Pattakos motioned for me to follow him, and we clattered downstairs. He led a walking tour of the Warehouse District. We passed handsome restaurants and bars, and lots of for-rent signs on vacant storefronts. Job losses are like a river eroding the shore.
“You’re telling me we should spend our tax money fixing up stadiums?” he asked, over his shoulder.
The Gateway Economic Development Corporation of Greater Cleveland acts as the landlord for the basketball arena and the Indians’ field. (The Cavaliers and the Indians pay Gateway’s operating expenses, about $3 million per year.) I placed phone calls and sent detailed emails to its executive director, Todd Greathouse. The next peep I hear from that office will be the first.
In editorializing for the sin tax, The Cleveland Plain Dealer argued that the city had a landlord’s responsibility to pay for upkeep. Left unexplained was why the landlord had never tried to renegotiate terms with ever more wealthy teams.
(Note: The Indians offer a sort of exception. They rank next to last in the American League in attendance. The night I attended a game, the crowd had the feel of an extra-large backyard barbecue, and 25 percent of the fans seemed to be rooting for the visiting Chicago Cubs.)
Over the winter, the Cavaliers’ emissaries arrived with a new proposal. They wanted locals to split the cost — in addition to the sin-tax dollars — of overhauling their arena. Adam Silver, the N.B.A. commissioner, added his voice, saying that the league would love to have the All-Star Game in Cleveland, if only its burghers would ante up again for the billionaire owner.
The Cavaliers’ chief executive says the overhaul would add to Cleveland’s “economic momentum.”
To be a wealthy sports owner is to feel no burn of embarrassment.
Email: powellm@nytimes.com

[Dustin]

MAPS IV should be for mass transit and general transportation.

[borchard]

MAPS IV should be for mass transit and general transportation.

And honestly if that's all it contains, it will fail

[Snowman]

MAPS IV should be for mass transit and general transportation.

If by general transportation you mean city roads and bridges, that usually happens with GO bonds, which the last round was more than thus sum of all MAPS3 funds before inflation.

[SoonerDave]

And honestly if that's all it contains, it will fail

If you want to know why MAPS3 succeeded, it was because TPTB learned this very lesson: you never make a city-wide notion like MAPS about one single issue. You may well have only one or two primary notions in mind, but to get it passed, you must logroll a *bunch* of things, each of which draws some support that, in turn, gets enough voters out to create what amounts to the electoral equivalent of a quorum.

OKC pols knew waaaay in advance that a MAPS3 based solely on a convention center had virtually zero chance of passing, even though that was the driving force behind MAPS3. But they also knew that things like senior centers and railway and other notions each had their own level of support (along with the other items), and, voila you have MAPS3 passing. In a way, it's almost a populist version of how Congress gets what we'd call "pork barrel" legislation passed; the legislation may stink, but if you glue a few roses to the barrel, you turn a few of those nays into yays.

Not saying that's right or wrong or whether MAPS should or shouldn't have been done that way; the political reality is that's precisely how it was done....

[warreng88]

Yeah, if MAPS IV contains only mass transit, it will fail. It has to include a few other things to appeal to everyone, not just people who want mass transit. People are going to complain that roads are too bad and we need to fix those before focusing on mass transit (even though focusing on mass transit would cause for less cars to be on the road, thus negating to need to fix the roads every few years). So, with the GO Bond coming due in 2017, that will need to be coupled with MAPS IV to include road improvements and I would guess bus system/stop improvements, more sidewalks, trails, etc.

[mkjeeves]

Unequivocally, no.