This morning on KFAQ it was mentioned that Tulsa is ranked 107th in the nation in regards to sports, I have also seen batted around that Tulsa cannot support a professional team based on our track record. What is never mentioned however is just what kind of “professional” sports teams those consisted of, who they played and how long those leagues survived. The Drillers, Talons & Oilers are always shown as an example as to the poor support Tulsa provides, but in all three cases they are minor league and in the case of the Talons is a minor league franchise of a somewhat obscure form of football.

Tulsa’s most successful team, the Outlaws (average home attendance 21,038) stayed in Tulsa for a grand total of one season (1984), before they merged with the Oakland Invaders the next season to become the Arizona Outlaws… the league then folded after 3 seasons in 1986.

We have had many other “pro” teams in the football arena, one being the Oklahoma Fire, which went from playing in the Broken Arrow’s stadium one weekend to a grass field up at 36th Street North & Cincinnati (In which the visiting teams locker-room was broken into and all personal items were stolen.)

The Tulsa Roughnecks soccer franchise was another semi popular team from 1978-1984, which IMO was before its time.

The Tulsa Fastbreakers was one of Tulsa’s “pro” basketball teams from the Continental Basketball Association, a development league for the NBA, again with very little following, playing such powerhouse teams as the Quad City Thunder & Wichita Falls Texans.

So is Tulsa not a sports town because we aren’t interested in sports, or is it because we end up with development leagues and/or startup leagues that fold within a few years and/or play teams that nobody cares about? Would things be any different if we were playing teams like the Dallas Cowboys, or the Detroit Pistons?