Baseball stadium for downtown?

[restored2x]

Is this still "on"? Will this actually happen?

[Conan71]

quote:Originally posted by cannon_fodder

AAA ball would be a much bigger draw and a LOT more money.  AAA ball players make an average of $54,000 a year (thank you I-Cubs program) and demand top notch facilities.  However, they also make appearances in the majors, get sent down, remain on contract etc. etc. - drawing more fans.  The Driller's seem like a farm-league team to me for some reason.  But I still enjoy the games.

Here is what Des Moines for its AAA club:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal_Park

Seats 12K at a 1992 cost of $12 million.

AAA isn't out of the question.  Weren't the Tulsa Oilers a AAA club for St. Louis?

Kind of before your time here in Tulsa, but Sammy Sosa, Dean Palmer, Bobby Witt, (I think) Pudge Rodriquez, Ruben Sierra and a few others who went on to good MLB careers have donned the Drillers uniform.

[USRufnex]

ummm.... who atracted this investment???... it's sure as h--e------ double-hockeysticks.... wasn't minor league Tulsa baseball fans redeeming Reasors' tickets for freebies and seating upgrades at the fairgrounds.... if it weren't for us soccer fans, would these people from Global Development Partners have ever given Tulsans the time of day???

It was US.  The UNIQUE and perpetually COOL soccer fans of T-town... Charlie Mitchell deserves better... Victor Moreland deserves better... Keith Eddy deserves better... Steve Earle deserves better... Tom McIntosh deserves better... the remarkable soccer fans of Tulsa deserve it... WE EARNED IT!  Bring Billy Caskey home to Tulsa.



That's right, it was US... Tulsa's soccer fans... the sports fans who continually make this city UNIQUE.  

Guess you minor league baseball fans don't think you have to thank us soccer fans, who attracted this investment in the first place?!?.... cuz god knows you'll never admit to it...

minor league baseball =  baby-boomer shuffleboard.

I guess if you're over 50, you'll never understand the betrayal when this city has had over a decade of chances to pursue a UNIQUE opportunity???... orchestrated by a buncha baby boomer senior citizens...... a few baseball folks who evidently weren't nice enough to qualify as welcomers at WalMart, who arbitrarily decided at my last Drillers' game that me and my 20-something aged friends weren't good enough to be able to sit outside of the "right" side of Driller Park...

Soccer fans DESERVED this... we deserved a place to call home... WE EARNED IT!!!.... Drillers fans and Ice Oilers fans got lots and lots of public $$$ dropped on their laps... thanks to us...

Soccer in Tulsa deserves better than the craptastic beaurocracy that will give this city an undeserved AAA baseball stadium...

WE SOCCER FANS attracted this investment in the first place... WE DESERVE BETTER.

[swake]

I was young at the time, but I recall the Roughnecks begging for fans to come, all sorts of promotions to fill the stands, that were never filled.

I even recall towards the end cans being passed around town for lose change donations to "save the roughnecks".

Truly, I'm all for a soccer team, but we don't have one, and are unlikely to get one. And insulting baseball fans who might also be soccer fans isn't really bright. And, as for the promotions, all pro teams not in the NFL do that, including MLS. Plus, the Driller play what, 80 home games vs 16 for MLS?  The Drillers average about 5,000 fans per game, again for 80 games, MLS is around 10,000 per game, for 16 games.

Don't believe me?

http://community.foxsports.com/blogs/JamieTrecker/2006/09/27/MLS_systematically_lies_about_its_attendance

Quote:
This isn't a new story — both the Sport Business Journal (in a story I wrote) and the New York Times have detailed how MLS teams "paper the house." But Mark Ziegler of the San Diego Union-Tribune today confirms with official MLS docs what many of us have known: MLS systematically lies about its attendance. The bottom line: Most MLS teams average just 10,000 fans a game.

[USRufnex]

quote:Originally posted by swake

I was young at the time, but I recall the Roughnecks begging for fans to come, all sorts of promotions to fill the stands, that were never filled.

Tulsans didn't know anything in the 70s about soccer except that you couldn't touch the ball with your hands, that their kids played, and that some guy named Pele was trying to make the sport popular here.

Tulsa got a team in 1978 after a successful 1977 exhibition game at Skelly that drew 11,000 fans... Only crazy people would have expected the Tulsa Roughnecks to fill 41k-seat Skelly Stadium... heck, TU still can't do it unless they're playing OU or OSU... and well... its THEIR stadium...  The Tulsa Roughnecks had 2 games with crowds of over 30,000 fans against the NY Cosmos (I own a VHS tape of one of them)..... but had many games over the years that drew between 20k and 30k... Tulsa was normally in the top tier (top 25%) in attendance for most of their short history.

I remember many of the promotions.
Certainly in '78, '79 and '80, there were lots of giveaways.  It helped drive average attendance from 11k per game that first year to nearly 20,000 fans per game in 1980.  But I don't remember the kind of stark grocery store giveaways the Driller resort to... discounts, yes... group discounts, you betcha...    

quote:
I even recall towards the end cans being passed around town for lose change donations to "save the roughnecks".

I guess this is a matter of perspective.  I remember back in the 80s when some jacknut called KRMG to complain that Tulsa doesn't need a soccer team and to do the general griping certain naysayers in this city are well versed in up to today... KRMG had call after call from citizens who wanted to support the team and help out.  

I believe when over 12,000 individuals thought enough of Tulsa's soccer team to raise around $60,000 to help the team make payroll.... it's a tribute to the spirit and generosity of Roughnecks fans, not an indictment of pro soccer.  I mean, when the AAA Tulsa Oilers moved to New Orleans in the 70s, did those fans collect donations to keep the team in town?  

The early 80s were the days of the "oil bust" and because of the economy Tulsa's ownership group was no longer going to bankroll the team... yet they found a buyer, then another... a new ownership group in 1985 was prepared to toil onward with only three other teams... New York, Minnesota and Toronto...

quote:Truly, I'm all for a soccer team, but we don't have one, and are unlikely to get one. And insulting baseball fans who might also be soccer fans isn't really bright. And, as for the promotions, all pro teams not in the NFL do that, including MLS. Plus, the Driller play what, 80 home games vs 16 for MLS?  The Drillers average about 5,000 fans per game, again for 80 games, MLS is around 10,000 per game, for 16 games.

Don't believe me?

http://community.foxsports.com/blogs/JamieTrecker/2006/09/27/MLS_systematically_lies_about_its_attendance

Quote:
This isn't a new story — both the Sport Business Journal (in a story I wrote) and the New York Times have detailed how MLS teams "paper the house." But Mark Ziegler of the San Diego Union-Tribune today confirms with official MLS docs what many of us have known: MLS systematically lies about its attendance. The bottom line: Most MLS teams average just 10,000 fans a game.

Bottom line... MLS teams don't average 15,000 sold tickets per game but the Drillers don't average 5,000 sold tickets per game either.  Those are "distributed tickets."  And I've never seen an MLS team with free grocery store coupons to add attendance in the hopes they can sell more $5 hot dogs.... the closest was KC with some pretty heavy discounts...

I've read that article before and it still rings true...

I know about MLS's padding of numbers pretty well... I've gone to games in multiple cities... and this is exactly why I think Tulsa could be a much better market than KC, Denver, Dallas, etc... Tulsa's 2003 exhibition game had over 14,000 in PAID attendance.  Ticket prices were really cheap for large groups ($6 per ticket for 25 or more)... when 3500 in the course of that game sign up for season tix for a team that doesn't yet exist, well... I find that much more impressive than the MLS exhibition game in Phoenix that attracted 3,000 fans... but I'd expect Phoenix to get a team before Tulsa...

Oh.  And I'd rather have the ballpark and mixed use development over a WalMart supercenter any day...  []

[Porky]

They need to do what Midland Texas did and that is to bring it all downtown.

Baseball, Soccer and High School football needs to be in one area that will support downtown. TU ought to have their football games moved there as well where there would be plenty of parking and etc.

Here's Scharbauer Sports Complex in Midland:

http://www.team-psc.com/Services/Recreational/ssc.htm

[Porky]

quote:Originally posted by sportyart



Link

I just looked at the PDF Boucher they have and again we have a sports facility without parking spaces. [?]

[sgrizzle]

quote:Originally posted by Porky

quote:Originally posted by sportyart



Link

I just looked at the PDF Boucher they have and again we have a sports facility without parking spaces. [?]

You might want to look again. See the thing marked "G6"

[Porky]

quote:Originally posted by sgrizzle


You might want to look again. See the thing marked "G6"

I saw that, a pretty good rule of thumb is 1 acre holds about 100 cars. By using the baseball field as a scale factor, it looks as though that parking lot is about 1 1/2 acres max.

Saying that, it may be a multi level parking facility we are seeing in G6 ....... at least I hope that is what it is.

[swake]

quote:Originally posted by Porky

quote:Originally posted by sgrizzle


You might want to look again. See the thing marked "G6"

I saw that, a pretty good rule of thumb is 1 acre holds about 100 cars. By using the baseball field as a scale factor, it looks as though that parking lot is about 1 1/2 acres max.

Saying that, it may be a multi level parking facility we are seeing in G6 ....... at least I hope that is what it is.

It is

[sgrizzle]

G = Garage FYI

[swake]

And, it's really just too bad about the lack of parking downtown.

[sportyart]

quote:Originally posted by Porky

They need to do what Midland Texas did and that is to bring it all downtown.

Baseball, Soccer and High School football needs to be in one area that will support downtown. TU ought to have their football games moved there as well where there would be plenty of parking and etc.

Here's Scharbauer Sports Complex in Midland:

http://www.team-psc.com/Services/Recreational/ssc.htm

Yes, bring it downtown....just like Midland...if their downtown was 12 miles across. The complex that you speak of is six miles from downtown......

[Steve]

I don't understand the desire for a new baseball facility for Tulsa.  What is wrong with the present Drillers stadium at 15th & Yale?  I recall people saying in the very recent past that it was the finest AA ballpark in the country.  Are they having to turn away paying fans because of no seating capacity?  Is the place falling down from age and lack of maintenance?  I don't think so.  Is parking a problem?  Not that I am aware of.  Is it just because it is nearly 30 years old now, and the team owners want to one-up the competition with a new status symbol, regardless of any real need?  Quite possible.  

In my opinion, if the team owners want a new baseball facility, then they should have one as long as they spend only their own money or make their own private financing arrangements for the construction, and honor any financial obligations to the County for use of the current park.  Tulsa taxpayers have better, more pressing needs for their money than a new baseball park.  

[sgrizzle]

The current driller's stadium is the oldest in the league and oversized as well. The stadium is basically prefab portable bleachers and looks cheap. There is no pressing need to move in the short term but long term it would be more profitable and more of a community asset if it was nice and located downtown.