Including Tulsa in market key to selling NBA on city franchise

WHEN IT CAME TIME to sell the NBA on the idea that Oklahoma City is a major league city, SuperSonics owner Clay Bennett readily admits inclusion of Tulsa as part of the market was key to his pitch to the league's relocation committee.

It was no coincidence that the presentation participants — an exclusive invitation gathering of the state's most powerful and prominent leaders — included Tulsa Mayor Kathy Taylor. And Bennett admits it didn't hurt that the shot at landing an NBA team at Oklahoma City's Ford Center was also endorsed by the Tulsa World on the same day as the relocation committee's recent visit.

"Let me say this about small markets,” responded Lewis Katz, owner of the New Jersey Nets and one of seven members of the relocation committee. "Everybody keeps telling me you're a small market. There's an hour and a half between Tulsa and Oklahoma City. That hour and half has 2½ million people or 70 percent of your state. Brooklyn, the largest borough in America, has 2½ million people.”

Sale made.

Now leaders in both cities say it's not the start, or the end, of selling others on the idea that the Tulsa and Oklahoma City metros — much like Dallas/Fort Worth or Minneapolis/St. Paul — are close enough that they also can be considered one major market when competing in the national economy.

"The world is getting smaller, people are more mobile, and the definition of ‘close by' is expanding,” Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett said. "The concept that people will travel 90 minutes for an NBA game is very realistic, and very familiar to other NBA owners. More specifically, the idea of a combined Oklahoma City-Tulsa market is ever-evolving, and there are many shades of grey, depending on what business you're talking about.”

Cornett also notes that Stillwater, which made news as the state's fastest growing city, is part of the equation.

"It'll be interesting to know if the growth in Stillwater is at least partially a result of its proximity to both cities,” Cornett said. "If that's the case, that's significant evidence of the merits of this combined market approach.”

Taylor believes that traditional rivalries between the two cities