Oklahoma City's Media Market (NBA team)

[Bob&Frank&Ted&Bob&Alice]

Oh my God

[dawgvarik10]

do you guys think durant would really resign with us if we had the team in 2011?

[HOT ROD]

OK, this thread has had some time to populate - let's review the results and come up with some numbers:

Oklahoma City's NBA/Expanded Media Market =

100% Metropolitan Oklahoma City 1.3M *duh
90% State of Oklahoma (exculding the two metro areas) 1.6M *pretty reasonable also
69% Wichita and S. Kansas 650K *I agree, wichita will support/watch/buy
67% Tulsa Metro 900K *Im surprised this is only 67%. I think peeps not being honest
65% Fort Smith Metro and W. AR 350K *Im surprised this is so high actually
49% Amarillo/Lubbock/W. TX/Panhandle Region 1M (this is a conservative guess actually)

Taking the top 50% = 5.8M people

If you consider, that Washington (not including SW) = 5.5M people

the two markets are pretty dang close.

I know there are some who might say Seattle's market extends into Vancouver BC 3M+, Victoria BC 500K, ID 2M, MT 500K, and AK 400K; but I disagree. This is because the Sonics are not shown on TV in these areas and therefore there certainly is NO television market/advertising going on for them (which is the reason SW WA gets cutt off as well since Portland Trailblazers have that part of the state).

Nope, the Sonics market almost exclusively to WA (except SW) and N. ID, which for all intensive purposes = 5.5M people.

I figure, and agree, that the Oklahoma City franchise would market (advertise, televise) to the top 50% areas listed above; perhaps also to SW Missouri and Rural KS but NOT to DFW - so Im pretty confident that OKC's Market will be 5.8-6.0M people (which is ACTUALLY BIGGER than what Seattle Sonics Markets to),

This is in contrast to the Seattle Mariners (who market to all of WA, OR, BC, ID, MT, AK and to some respects Japan) and the Seattle Seahawks (similar large market area). Seattle can NOT lay claim to the same market for these two teams for the NBA; I can confirm without a doubt that they don't market outside of WA and ID (I think they used to until Vancouver got a team and they haven't been back to marketing in Vancouver since).

anyways, it is nice to see how the vote came out and even much nicer to confirm that the OKC market is actually bigger than Seattle's NBA market.

I think the team will be JUST FINE in Oklahoma City, but I am positive they will need to give some pre-season games to Tulsa, Wichita, Lawton and perhaps an annual rotation between Amarillo/Lubbock, FT Smith, and Joplin/Branson? .. to keep everyone in the region happy. This is NOT unlike how the Sonics currently have preseason games in Spokane, which is good enough for the E WA/N ID side.

as for N TX, I agree there will be LOTS of support from there even though Dallas has a team, this because there are LOTS of Oklahoma City expats that live there. I think the same could be said for the Houston area too. This is the EXACT reason why Mark Cuban did not want the team to move to OKC - it cuts HEAVILY into his market, especially if/when the team gets good.

However, what Cuban didn't realize IS the INSTANT RIVALRY!!!

This holds especially true if OKC gets moved into the same league as Dallas, Houston, and New Orleans; all of which are NATURAL rivals [there will be 4 games per matchup] Add San Antonio to that just for spite. That's 16 games (8 home games for OKC) that no doubt should be selllouts!

I think Portland might be sellouts, as would the TOP NBA teams when they visit (Lakers, Celtics, Bulls, Cleveland, Phoenix, Denver).

Now you begin to see, that at least 14 of 41 games will be sellouts/standing room only (that's 35% of the schedule btw).

[Thundercitizen]

do you guys think durant would really resign with us if we had the team in 2011?

I'm gonna say yes.

[dankrutka]

Do all the games get picked up in Wichita? I'm moving there in a couple weeks and was really hoping that I could see games with regular cable...

[dankrutka]

do you guys think durant would really resign with us if we had the team in 2011?

What are you even talking about? KD already signed a deal to be here for 5 more years. And why wouldn't we have a team in 2011? I'm confused.

[ljbab728]

What are you even talking about? KD already signed a deal to be here for 5 more years. And why wouldn't we have a team in 2011? I'm confused.

Kilgore, please note that the referenced post was from March of 2008. The team's first season here had not started yet.

[dankrutka]

Lol. I didn't even notice that.