Forget about Major League Soccer; USL1 at the old ballpark

[GG]

Gotta admit, it's hard to keep track of the amateur and semi-pro soccer startups in Tulsa.... Tulsa Spirit(women's outdoor)?  Tulsa Revolution (men's indoor)?  Oklahoma Falcons?  Oklahoma Outrage? etc, etc... the ones I know of play (or played) at the Union 7th&8th Grade Center, which is a nice grass field and all, but hardly the kind of high profile location that would attract a more mainstream following....

FYI, Driller Park was once used by the Roughnecks in the summer of 1985.  They played an exhibition season there after the NASL died the winter of 84/85.... here's a great pic of the original ballpark.... http://books.google.com/books?id=KBA6L4Bl1aQC&pg=PA82&lpg=PA82&dq=history+sutton+stadium+tulsa&source=bl&ots=OZHKF4KcLT&sig=H_E-_k5zQy0O-94ERIRstjcNU0A&hl=en&ei=spmASvK1K4LysQO_ydH7CA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2#v=onepage&q=&f=false
"Sutton Stadium, still under construction on December 20, 1980......  On April 16, 1981 the 4,800 seat stadium opened.  When Sutton Stadium opened it had an artificial surface and was used for high school football and soccer."

***btw, new page on my website-- almost completed.....

http://www.tulsaroughnecks.com/Scores___Crowds_1978-84.html

I went to a lot of the Roughnecks games.  Would set on the east side of the stadium about midfield up toward the top.  It was the same group of people there every game.  The beer would flow and we would have a grand old time.   

I miss those years.

[USRufnex]

My concern with a USL1 franchise is that it wouldn't be seen as "major league."  It is another lower class team that no one outside of franchise cities cares about.  Does that really matter?  I don't know - but it would be a concern.

Well, technically at least, USL-1 is not a "minor league" in the sense that they are not "farm clubs" for MLS teams.  They consider themselves an "alternative league" to MLS.... sounds like a hard sell, I know, but these teams traditionally do well in the US Open Cup, an annual round robin national tourney that includes all the MLS clubs.  One intriguing option would be a Tulsa team partly owned by or affiliated with a foreign club-- the new team in Austin is affiliated with Stoke City..... Tulsa and?... Glasgow Celtic?.... Sheffield United?.... Queens Park Rangers?

Local Ownership and USL
http://portlandtimbersmls.blogspot.com/2008/01/local-ownership-and-usl.html    

I do think Tulsa has the demographics to support a soccer franchise of some kind.  Of course, as it stands the University of Tulsa has a highly ranked soccer program and plays other highly ranked teams and no one, I mean NO ONE attends those games - which are usually free.  So maybe soccer as a spectator sport isn't quite right (or maybe TU sucks at promoting it?).

Well, college soccer is about as much a spectator sport as... college tennis?  Creighton has its own soccer stadium but really doesn't draw much beyond 3,000 fans per game.

http://www.gocreighton.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=1000&ATCLID=1569359

Creighton ranked third in the nation in overall attendance in 2007, while it finished fourth in average attendance last year. The Jays brought in 34,308 fans for an average of 2,639 per game. CU's match against UCLA last year drew a school-record 5,812 fans, while two other 2007 crowds ranked in the CU top-10.

The Hurricane Track&Field/Soccer stadium is lucky to fit much more than 1,000 fans.  The games I've gone to have had decent crowds-- in the hundreds... why not have a doubleheader at the old ballpark with TU-SMU at 6 or 6:30pm, then a USL-1 game against Rochester at 8 or 8:30pm.... or a doubleheader with the Tulsa Spirit semi-pro women's team playing Mexico.... raise the profile, which would be a WIN-WIN, right?

Bah!  I appreciate your passion for this issue Rufnex.  But I'm not so much concerned about the soccer as I am about using the fairgrounds wisely.  If a team would bring some activity to that area and use that space I'd be all for it.  

Well, that's just it.  If Cabela's is going to build some monstrous multi-million dollar doo-hickey, I suppose they would hold most of the cards.  But I don't understand why an 11,000-seat stadium needs to be destroyed when it looks alot nicer than the stands across the way at Fair Meadows-- I mean, who bets on the horsies anymore when we have state-of-the-art casinos ringing the city?

When the franchise development guy from USL-1 tells me they want to expand  "strategically" and that Tulsa is "a market we want to be in," I take notice of that kind of interest.  By 2011, USL-1 will have lost all three of their teams in the pacific northwest to MLS (Seattle, Portland, Vancouver).... It's kinda like when TU became a member of C-USA only after Louisville, Cincy and S. Florida bolted to the Big East.

Heck, I don't mind if they use the name Roughnecks or not... have a "name the team" contest and see where it goes....

[FOTD]

Awesome .....

The Golden Decade was a lot of fun.

[FOTD]

I went to a lot of the Roughnecks games.  Would set on the east side of the stadium about midfield up toward the top.  It was the same group of people there every game.  The beer would flow and we would have a grand old time.   

I miss those years.

Me too. We could take ice chests full of brewskies up to our seats. sec. F row 18 seat 7. Still have a few stubs and....

[USRufnex]

Was too young to drink back then..... ah, high school daze.....



"Dear Mr. Vernon, We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. What we did *was* wrong. But we think you're crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. What do you care? You see us as you want to see us - in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. You see us as a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal. Correct? That's the way we saw each other at 7:00 this morning. We were brainwashed."

Signed,

The Breakfast Club.

[USRufnex]

Ottawa and USL-1

http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Columnists/Stevenson/2009/04/15/9121681-sun.html