■ TEAMS (FIRST SEASON): Texas League Tulsa Drillers (1946), ECHL Tulsa Oilers (1992), WNBA Tulsa Shock (2010), MASL Tulsa Revolution (2013)
■ VENUES (YEAR OPENED): Expo Square Pavilion (1932; renovated multiple times, including most recently in 2001), BOK Center (2008), Oneok Field (2010)
The Class AA Drillers are in their sixth season at Oneok Field and have been one of the top draws in the Texas League the last few years, including a club record for attendance in 2014 (415,223).
On the ice, moving from the now-defunct CHL to the ECHL last year proved to be a boon for the Oilers. The club this past season drew its best gate since the mid-1990s, with attendance of 202,948.
Soccer fever looks to add to the market’s minor league strength in years to come, as the USL Roughnecks, in their first season this year — so outside the scope of this year’s survey methodology — rank fourth out of 24 clubs in attendance. The Roughnecks are owned by Dale and Jeff Hubbard, who also own the Drillers.
Hoops, however, continues to be a question mark for Tulsa. The city saw its NBA D-League team move 100 miles southwest to Oklahoma City prior to the 2014-15 season. More recently, the WNBA approved the relocation of the Shock to Arlington, Texas, for that league’s 2016 season. The Shock has seen modest attendance growth since its relocation from Detroit in 2010, but the club still annually has ranked at or near the bottom leaguewide for attendance, and ownership also cited a desire for a bigger corporate sponsorship pool as a reason for wanting to move.
