With the stroke of a pen, it was done.
After 11 successful seasons in two different leagues, the Tulsa Talons were sold and moved to San Antonio. Thanks to the internet the move was not unexpected, but nevertheless when the rumor became reality it was like the death of a loved one, unexpected and painful. Adding to the lnsult is that when the San Antonio team takes to the field in March of next year, they won't be sporting a new name.
It's smaller but you get the point.
I can say that I was there for the birth of the Talons. I bought my ticket two days before the opening night in April 2000 and got coveted seats on the wall for the game. I even managed to catch a football that night (they let you keep them if you do, which is cool). It turned out to be a fun game that was exciting to watch.
With Tulsa being smack dab in the middle of football country, it was a recipe for success on so many levels, and indeed it was.
They won a championship in 2003 and again in 2007, then moved from the smallish Convention Center arena to the cavernous BOK Center in 2009. Two seasons later, they were gone, the victim of an owner who got cold feet when the attendance dropped. The suck-tacular economy got the blame and before the ferociously loyal Talons fans had a chance to save their beloved birds, the stakes were pulled and they were gone. Just like that.
That, to me showed cowardice. If ticket sales were to blame, then the ownership should have given the fans a chance to save their team. Sure, it was a "bake sale", grass roots way of going about it, but since Paul Ross chose the thief in the night method to skip town that wasn't in the cards.
It made me think of 1983, when the fans of the european form of football (futbol) saved their team by outright donations of money taken at their offices.
The Tulsa Roughnecks of the North American Soccer League (NASL) had been playing for six years and had just won the championship of their league when they fell upon hard times. The fans stepped up, and donated their hard-earned money to save the team. The economy was in the crapper because, among other things, the inspiration for the teams name...the oil industry or Tulsa's (former) bread and butter...was circling the drain and the unemployment rate was soaring. Season tickets to any sports involved liquid cash and that wasn't being thrown around by the lunchpail local gentry.
Somehow, the fans of the Roughnecks saved the team. At least for another season. Sure, this will drain the wind from the sail of this rant but the NASL as a league went belly up the following summer. The point being that the fans of the Roughnecxks were allowed the opporunity to save their team.
Something Paul Ross did not give to the fans of his team.
Tulsa needs another for-real major league team. With all due respectr to the Tulsa Oilers hockey team and Tulsa Drillers baseball players, wee have professiuonals playing sports, but as of right now the only nationally recognized major league team is the Shock, and being WNBA they are still spoken of in the joking tones that cover up the fact that the players in that league are as world class as the Kevin Durant's or Carmelo Anthony's of the NBA.
That said, all it's going to take is a owner or group of owners with the balls to try and make it work. The problem with that is that people are scared shitless to fail. I can understand fear, but what's life without some risk? We would have never made it past the Mississippi River if we were worried about failure.
No comments:
Post a Comment