Go OKC Thunder!!!

That is good news!

Go OKC Potatoes!!!

Good article Mike. I wonder what you think the response of the fans will be when this team (more than likely) wins only 20-30 games? How long do you think the honeymoon will last?

who the hell has money?!

Has any of the team been out at all, or will their first appearence be at training camp? Any analysis on the roster, thoughts on Westbrook? That’s what I want to know.

Interesting to see tickets already showing up with brokers:

http://www.coasttocoasttickets.com/buy/oklahoma-city-thunder_tickets.htm?pid=894541

Aaron, Im sure OKC would do just as good if not better than Seattle did with it’s dismal 20 win season in 2007/08. As for OKC’s possible 20 win season, that would happen this year – you’d expect future years will see more wins. So, Since OKC will sell out this year – and it is the most likely to be a 20 win season; I’d say OKC will have outstanding support for a 20-30 win season, wouldn’t you? Also, it’s not a honeymoon period anymore – OKC had that with the Hornets. This is for-real and long term marriage! Im sure OKC will do just fine. (is that all you losers from Seattle can do is pot shots at OKC’s support?)

to be fair src, MOST if not ALL teams show up on that website with tickets available. Im not too surprised that the Thunder shows up there though – since there will always be speculators who want to make a quick buck. But notice that there were only 4 selections available (and 3 in the nosebleed 301 section). Take a look at Chicago Bulls (one of the most successful teams, continuous sell out since the Jordan draft – and you see WAY many more selections available).

WOW, Good Night! What a day if you have an appt. Tuesday the 9th you might as well forget getting tickets maybe you’ll catch the $10 seats. When I left on Monday the 8th at 7 p.m. there were almost no LL seats left and most of the best uppers were gone. Needless to say I purchased the 6 tickets myself because these will be HOT… Go Thunder!!!!! I Have 2 tickets for $$$$, oh $$$$!

Thanks Thunderous. I’m so glad you have tickets to scalp.

i know! did you post about how difficult it would be to get tickets so you could sell your own? what an un-cool move. seems like cockblockery to me…

[...] you don’t already have your season tickets (don’t look at me that way), you may be out of luck: “Select-a-seat” started Monday at the Ford Center. When the day ended there were only [...]

No need to pay for a whole season…If I need a ticket I’ll go to stubhub or craigslist

Sorry guys, but the fact of the matter is that NO CITY IN THE COUNTRY can realistically support an NBA franchise, the way that league is run by that disgusting little blackmailing toad David Stern. They’ll be gone to Las Vegas or somewhere within 5 years.

Then you guys will be the ones hoping Clay Bennett dies a fiery, painful death. Which he should.

Ben. You are such a cry-baby!

Mike, I’m about as big an Okc zealot, including the Thunder, that you’ll find, but I do think that you are overstating the season ticket sales, perhaps to the point of chilling people from keeping appointments on the expectation that doing so would be useless.

I was there 9:30 today (Wednesday) and got tickets exactly where I wanted them to be in the 1st place – $30 balcony seats in Section 311 – and similar “corner” balcony seats were to be had around the arena … when I went I figured they’d already be goggled up. But, in fact, they were there, as were many other excellent seats … several in the 1st level, many in the club level, and many more in the upper level, and many many of those were not bad seats at all.

The crowd wasn’t large this morning … well attended, yes, but not at all crazy … and unless traffic changes during the day, I would not expect that all seats will be sold today, maybe not even tomorrow.

My point is that it would be a serious mistake if people didn’t keep their appointments thinking that it would be a waste of time. Certainly that’s not the case today. Plenty of good seats, as of Wednesday morning, are still available.

Ben,
Would you like to buy some tickets for our new team? You lost, we won get over it. Go Thunder!!!! I cant wait till the Seahawks come……..?

Donuteyes,
Did you get that word out of ur “Get ‘Er Done “dictionary”? No, I didn’t buy the tickets to sell but because I own them I will sell them if I don’t use them. If you need some contact me and if I am not using a couple you can buy them or you can bring the pickup, dog, and C/M to tailgate the parking lot.

what? “Get ‘Er Done “dictionary”? what word do you mean? pickup? tailgate? i assure you sir, i am FAR from a redneck. if that is what you’re implying…?

This proves nothing about whether we can support this team long-term. This is a novelty act right now. It won’t be 6 or 7 years from now after losing seasons and the newness of the team and arena are gone. Maybe I’m wrong but I think this franchise will fail financially unless they go to playoffs every year. Oh, and I think Thunder is a terrible name.

Kevin, I’m curious as to the logic behind the negative statements you made. Are you attempting to rabble rouse just to get a rise out of people? It seems that there is no reason at all for those statements–outside of the fact you just don’t like the name for personal reasons, which is certainly an acceptable personal preference on your part. There is nothing right now to back up the negativity. The tickets are being sold at a brisk pace, the Ford Center is being improved after overwhelming voter support and Oklahoma has a long history of supporting sports on every level in which it has been presented (OU, OSU, minor league teams, even the temporary Hornets team) and I could go on. Oklahoma and Oklahoma City has met every test so far, so could you enlighten us as to the foundation for your comments?

Kevin probably got that out of his Get ‘Err Done Encyclopedia! It is a culture here in Oklahoma, at every corner of progression the ignorant red dirt rednecks are losing their grip and they don’t know how to take it. You see it not only in the growth of the city with the sports, lottery, casinos, rebuilding of the highways and bridges, and also the schools! At every sign of progression in this state it is usually hit head on with this underlying “Southern Democrat” (if you know the history of that word) attitude! It’s called progress and for them it means that the days of living here in Oklahoma in the rundown trailer with the cars on the front lawn sponging off the working tax payers of the state with the WIC, section 8, free child and health care are coming to an end.

Hey, attack me if you want, but it won’t change the fact that you guys just bought a lemon. How many championships have the Spurs won in the last 10 years? They still lose money every year. We built a brand-spanking new baseball stadium and football stadium… why do you think we drew the line at an NBA arena?

It’s cuz we know from experience that if you’re gonna have an NBA team in David Stern’s league, you better be ready to be blackmailed every 10 years for a new arena…

You’re right, Ben. We shouldn’t attack you. But the drivel you spurt…, well, let’s not hold it in the same high regard:

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanantonio/stories/2008/01/07/story2.html

Sounds like the Spurs are doing nicely. Oklahoma City is being rebuilt along those same lines. And yes, we know that in the future, probably the next 10 years, we’ll be asked to build a brand new arena.

One among the many differences between Seattle and Oklahoma City is that our local politicians have consistently done exactly what they said they would.

OK, I’ll give you that point on the Spurs… but did you notice the part about how “one of the most valuable franchises in the league” is still trying to hold the local taxpayers hostage for arena improvements?

The NBA is a broken business model from top to bottom. Enjoy.

Ben, you have to consider one other thing also. Over the years, Bennett and the other owners have built a relationship with Oklahoma City, long before there was ever talk of an NBA franchise. I don’t know enough to say definitively, but I would think it’s not terribly unlike the relationship Seattle has with Paul Allen.

PBC and their companies have played, and continue to play, major roles in Oklahoma City’s growth since the mid-1990s.

ya know, considering the ford center wasn’t built to house an nba team, i don’t think a new arena in ten years is that bad of an idea. we’ll probably need it. and i bet that okc citizens will want to build it, not cry about it.

First Major Blunder by The Thunder!

New Orleans/ Oklahoma City Hornets season ticket holders get no preference in ticket lottery! What a mistake!

The first season the Hornets were in OKC my family bought season tickets for our immediate family (4). That season we also had two birthday parties with 20-30 people at Hornets games. Near the end of the season we bought “group tickets” to one game (30) and distributed them to extended family and friends, some of which bought season tickets in year two.

The second Hornets season in OKC we again bought four upper level season tickets for the kids (ages 17-25) and 2 club-level seats for my wife and myself, as well as 25 of the 12 or 15 (I don’t remember exactly what they were) game mini-plans and sold those tickets to extended family and friends so we could all attend games together. We also again bought two birthday party packages the second season.

When the Ford Center tax vote came around we were very vocal in our support for the tax. My entire family was very, very excited about the NBA coming permanently to OKC. But not anymore, we have been left out. Because our select-a-seat appointment is not until Monday September 15th it is obvious that we will not have any opportunity to buy even 1 season ticket. In my opinion, families like ours that packed the Ford Center every night for 2 years had as much to do with bringing the NBA here permanently as did Clay Bennett and PBC.

The Thunder are blaming the Hornets for not sharing their ticket information, however I called my Hornets ticket rep. in New Orleans and he claims he is receiving 20-30 calls a day from his OKC customers wanting to know why the Hornets would do this to the fans that supported them so faithfully for 2 years. He says that the Thunders claims are completely untrue, that the Hornets offered the information to the Thunder and that the Thunder “never even got back to us”.

Needless to say we are heartbroken. I am a life-long resident of Oklahoma City and I would never wish anything bad on the Thunder for that reason, but they have lost what would have been a very loyal family of fans. I will not root against them, but also will not root for them. As far as I’m concerned they don’t exist. How could this lottery have been fair when already, days before our select-a-seat appointment the “ticket brokers” (crooks) are advertising hundreds of tickets at 3-5 times the face value.

Thanks a lot Thunder, so nice of you to take care of the fans that got you here in the first place. I have already made preliminary arrangements for our family to travel to Dallas to see our HORNETS.

i understand, that was messed up, whoever was at fault. but i don’t understand why you’re indifferent towards them. i’m sorry the front office isn’t cool, but no team’s business side is perfect. it’s sports, support the athletes regardless of what the owners may or may not do. kevin durant had nothing to do with the ticket situation, and that’s who i’m concerned with.

Go Seattle! Keep kicking that arse!!

Glad to be in Oklahoma…

There’s more to the “Hornets season ticket list” issue than most realize. George Shinn was approached by Thunder management concerning turning over the season ticket seating chart. Hornet officials said as much in The Oklahoman three weeks ago when a Hornet representative said, “we’re still negotiating that.” Shinn, though, never turned it over for reasons that probably will never be made public. Shinn and the Hornets aren’t telling the entire story. Oklahoma City officials wanted the seating chart. They asked for the seating chart. Shinn and his people reportedly had some parameters that clogged up negotiations. It’s extremely unfair Hornet season ticket holders received a raw deal. They’re the victims. But don’t give George Shinn and the Hornets a free pass. They’re the primary reason a season ticket seating chart never was released.

Mike, I realize that there are specifics that will never be made available to me. All I can go by is what information has been made available to me.
The Hornets answered my phone call and my questions. The person I talked with is someone I had a very good relationship with for two seasons, who never misled or lied to me, even if it put the Hornets ina ad light.
The Thunder have not returned one phone call, e-mail or fax, and yes I have tried all three methods of contact numerous times.
As a previous post mentioned, it would not have been that difficult, if your scenario is true and Shinn wouldn’t give up the list for the Thunder to have even one day where Hornets ticket holders coud bring some sort of proof of their season tickets in and at least make sure that they weren’t left out completely. In my opinion it should have been that important to them to take time to do that for us. As I mentioned, I do not believe the move would have been possible or at least not nearly as easy (as far as getting the league on board) had it not been for our overwhelming support of the Hornets for two years.
When I see that all of the scalpers (I no longer feel the need to use the politically correct term) seem to have been able to purchase an abundent number of seats, and read your own business writer comment that he was in the first group of select-a-seat buyers and the “amazing number of seat sold caps” when he entered the arena, it just makes it hurt even more.
This is just wrong, very wrong.

Sure they can. What else is there to do in OKC in the winter?

Kick some Butt tonight 4 me and OKC