FC Tulsa and the future of pro soccer in Tulsa

[swake]

This is great, but there is a potential for much, much more.

The old Roughnecks in 1980 had crowds of 30,000 a game in a championship season. The Tulsa metro back then had just 711,652 with a hispanic population of just 1.5%. Today Tulsa's metro has 1,059,803 people and 13% of that total is Hispanic.

Today, with a major league team, Tulsa should be able to put many more than 30k in a stadium given the chance.

[erfalf]

Was at the last two games. The most recent one was decidedly more packed in than the prior week. The most recent game was rather lopsided. FC has about 12 shots on goal in the first half. The entire first half was nearly on one side of the field. The crowd was more of a party atmosphere than it was the week before, where there was far more tension.

The tickets were sold out for the championship before I made it back to my car to drive home that evening.

My only soccer exposure has been coaching the most recent season of my kids youth team where everyone gets playing time is still a rule. I came into watching soccer pretty skeptically. Who wants to watch 1-0 games? But these two games were by far the most entertaining sporting events I have ever been to.

I'm sure World Cup would be even better. But purely Tulsa area (Drillers, Oilers Hockey, College Football/Basketball) this takes the cake. I was shocked how much I enjoyed it.