Stan Geiger

Shock and Yawn

The WNBA’s Detroit Shock is moving to Tulsa. Oh, joy. Be still my faint heart. Female professional basketball is coming to town. What’s next, a bunch of Englishsters playing cricket? Hey, maybe professional badminton is on the way!

There are some sports-crazy towns in this country. Detroit has always been one of them. Tulsa, however, has never been on the list. Detroit’s metro area is much more populous than Tulsa’s. If this franchise couldn’t make money in Detroit, it is hard to imagine it will find success in Tulsa.

I’m left to wonder what kind of sweetheart deal was cut between the owners of the franchise and the operators of the arena.

I saw one of the owners on KOTV this morning. She said the closest other WNBA team is in San Antonio. I know nothing of the WNBA so I’ll take her at her word. That means places like Dallas and Kansas City have no interest in female basketball. But Tulsa does?

In mentioning San Antonio, she was making the “area argument.” The team, in other words, won’t have to survive by feeding on Tulsa alone. People will travel from all around to watch the girls shoot hoops.

Listening to her speak, I was reminded of one of the silliest comments I’ve ever heard. I don’t recall who made it. It might have been Bill LaFortune; it might have been Kat Taylor. Whomever, it was a silly comment about people being willing to travel to Tulsa just to see our fabulous new arena. That logic works, if one assumes a large percentage of the people living within, say, a 500-mile radius of Tulsa are dumbasses.

At any rate, our nearly $200 million “investment” in the grand arena has produced another piece of fruit. We have yet another tenant that will be cramming a thousand butts per event into 18,000 seats.

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