OKC & Tulsa submit Big 12 Championship bids

[metro]

I sure wish Oklahoma would try and capitalize off the football championships as well. It would be a huge boon to the economy.



Tulsa, OKC submit Big 12 tournament bidsTULSA (AP)

Tulsa and Oklahoma City each have submitted bids to host the Big 12 basketball tournaments beginning in 2009.
Oklahoma City was the host location this year and held the men's tournament in the Ford Center and the women's tournament at the same time directly across the street at the Cox Center.



Tulsa would hold the men's tournament in the BOK Center, which is to be completed in September 2008, and the women's tournament at Oral Roberts University's Mabee Center.

The Big 12's annual spring meetings are next week in Colorado Springs and choosing sites for future football and basketball championships is on the agenda, but Commissioner Kevin Weiberg said final decisions may not be reached until later in the summer.

"Our goal is to complete the process of selecting future sites by the end of the summer, so I am not necessarily expecting a decision coming out of these meetings," said Weiberg. "It is very possible that we will need to seek clarification on items contained in the respective proposals after our members have reviewed and discussed them.

Bob Burda, assistant Big 12 commissioner, told the Tulsa World the meetings

[AFCM]

I was just about to post this link:

Star-Telegram.com | 05/16/2007 | Cities make pitches for the sites and sounds of Big 12

Pretty much the same story.

[JWil]

Tulsa is going to have a hard time getting a basketball tournament with the Mabee Center attached. If you need a refresher, that is the site that the Mid-Con left in favor of a HIGH SCHOOL gym at Tulsa Union.

Tulsa's arena will be nice, but it will take years for anything to grow around it. Then they've gotta move their homeless migration out of there.

Plus, I just don't think the Big 12 wants to go to the second-tier cities in the conference. By that I mean, the cities that aren't already hosting the Big 12 on some level -- Wichita, Omaha, Des Moines, Tulsa. I think there's a perception that the league would be "stepping down" hosting one of their big events in one of those places.

The way things have shaken out, it seems like Kansas City, Dallas and OKC have become the "Big 3" when it comes to hosting various Big 12 events. Sure, sometimes Houston or San Antonio get a football title game, but that's only because of their venues, not because they're an easy location to get to. What makes Dallas, KC and OKC so great is that they're basically the middle of the conference -- or close. In OKC's case, we're the bullseye of the entire league, with only Colorado being more than seven hours away in terms of drive time.

As for the football championship, I think the Big 12 is pretty happy with the Dallas (South)/KC (North)/Occassional random city every so often (St. Louis, SA, Houston, Denver one day?) setup. There's ZERO chance the Big 12 football title game is here, as they'd never go on-campus and it's highly unlikely that Oklahoma will ever have a pro-level football stadium.

I think the Big 12 has settled on pretty much this rotation for its tournament sites:

FOOTBALL
-- Dallas
-- Kansas City
-- St. Louis, San Antonio, Houston, Denver every so often

BASKETBALL
-- Kansas City
-- Dallas
-- Oklahoma City

BASEBALL
-- Oklahoma City, likely forever

WRESTLING, GOLF, ETC.
-- Various on-campus sites on a rotational basis.

I don't really see many changes to that over the next 25 years. I just don't think the basketball tourney will go to a Tulsa, because of the "If they get to, we should too" argument from Wichita, Des Moines and Omaha -- all which have new arenas or are planning them.

I fully expect long-term announcements about those sports in the next month or two, since the conference meetings are ongoing at the moment.

[jbrown84]

I would guess Dallas will get left out of the Basketball rotation.

[Patrick]

I would think they'd choose Dallas over Tulsa.

[JWil]

Dallas is the home of the Big 12 offices and the big-money Texas folks want the tourney there the next few years.

Basically, Tulsa lost their chance at this back in 1999 when they voted down their MAPs clone plan because they "didn't want to make the same mistakes those hayseeds in OKC made" with MAPs. If you'll remember, at the time, MAPs had a lot of problems and, by golly, those uppity Tulsans weren't going to make the same mistakes OKC did!

Funny thing was, their plan got voted down big-time and within 18 months all the MAPs problems were solved and things were looking great. The "Vision 2025" deal and the arena were all jealous responses to the success MAPs has been for OKC. They won't get a chance because of their previous vanity.

[Flatlander]

If you want to watch the baseball games live,go to Big12sports.com then click on the live streaming video on the right side of your screen,then you need to register but then you can watch your favorite team.

[jbrown84]

I would think they'd choose Dallas over Tulsa.

Not arguing with that.

[Patrick]

And Tulsa's arena is going to be much smaller than the Ford Center, and others mentioned.

[okclee]

I remember the people of Tulsa laughing at Okc for the MAPS project and what a waste it was going to be.

Who is laughing now??

[Patrick]

They were too uppidity to build an arena like ours. They had to go with a famous architect. THe added expenseled to them having to downsize their arena.

Artists and entertainers could careless about architecture. They just want to sell seats. Their 16K seat arena will get passed up by our 20K arena time and time again.

[okclee]

I don't know to many people in the city of Tulsa that are laughing at Okc now. In fact many are extremely jealous of the recent success Okc is now enjoying.

[Patrick]

I meant, we're the ones laughing now.

[BaconCheeseburgerDeluxe]

Looks like it will return to OKC in 2009

NewsOK: Big 12 will return to OKC in 2009

[JWil]

If that's not instant respect, I don't know what is.

We get the tourney a few years ago and the feeling is "We better do this right the first time or it'll be the only time."

Then the tourney comes and everything goes great, including the Chamber of Commerce weather.

A handful of weeks later, we get the 2009 Tournament. Outstanding!

This will probably cement OKC into at the least a KC/OKC rotation, if not a KC/OKC/Dallas combo.

[okclee]

Excellent news for Okc.

[jbrown84]

As I predicted, Dallas was left out.