I think this is important enough to be in the metro section as it's business-related versus just sports discussion.

Big news.....

The Oklahoma City Redhawks have been sold to Mandalay Entertainment out of Los Angeles. The sale was announced this afternoon. The team will lose its affiliation with the Texas Rangers (but would have anyway) because Nolan Ryan, a major owner of the Rangers also owns the Round Rock (Austin) AAA team and the partnership there just makes sense.

Art Matin, CEO of Mandalay says the Redhawks will retain the name, logo and Pacific Coast League affiliation. Any MLB team affiliation will be announced on Thursday afternoon .

The positives are that Mandalay knows how to entertain. If anybody is familiar with the Double-A Frisco Roughriders you know how entertaining their games are. They make a trip to the ball park an experience. Mandalay is credited with one of the biggest turnarounds in minor league baseball with the Dayton Dragons.

NewsOK now has an interview up with Art Matin:
http://stage.newsok.com/redhawks-getting-to-know-ceo-art-matin/multimedia/video/609906362001

I sure hope we do have MLB affiliation. Part of the fun is watching games when big names (not all stars of course) come through when coming off an injury list or just in a bad slump.

Art Matin is a class act. This is great for OKC. No question there will be a MLB affiliation, he just can't discuss it until Thursday.

Sounds good, let the speculation begin.

Don't really care about which MLB team they end up with but they better continue Thirsty Thursdays dammit

Check out this stat from the Oklahoman:

"Mandalay-owned Dayton has sold out 774 games since beginning play in 2000. The Dragons are on track to break the all-time sellout streak in professional sports, currently held by the Portland Trail Blazers with 814, sometime next summer."

The Brick holds 13,066. I wonder what our current average attendance is? Would be nice to compare the two once Mandalay has some time to play with it.

Attendance was a little off this year: 367,082, an average of 5478.

http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?t=l_att&lid=112&sid=l112

That's not too bad considering it's AAA. I'll try to attend some more games next year, haven't had ANY time or money this year.

The Redhawks games are great. I think it was kind of a bad deal to change ticketing to show
a advance and day of ticket price. I think it was 2$ more for a ticket if you picked it up on
the day of the game which made very little sense to me.

Chris
www.radiookc.com

The Redhawks games are great. I think it was kind of a bad deal to change ticketing to show
a advance and day of ticket price. I think it was 2$ more for a ticket if you picked it up on
the day of the game which made very little sense to me.

Chris
www.radiookc.com

Chris, One thing the CEO of Mandalay talked about was putting together mini-packages of 7 and 14 games. This is a great idea for those who want to go more than once or twice but can't afford the season ticket packages.

I'm really excited about this change. I spend about a 1/3 of my time in Plano and have seen the success of the Frisco Roughriders at Dr. Pepper Ballpark, which is considered one of the finest Double-A parks in the country (pic below). The marketing and promotion of the Roughriders is incredible. In fact, I have talked to many people who say they have more fun at Frisco games than Ranger games. To succeed with promoting and filling seats for a AA minor league team in a big league metroplex - that takes some skill. I think they'll take AAA ball to a new level here in OKC.

http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/5496/mzlvwjrd.jpg

Chris, One thing the CEO of Mandalay talked about was putting together mini-packages of 7 and 14 games. This is a great idea for those who want to go more than once or twice but can't afford the season ticket packages.

Mini-plans are great! We buy a Texas Rangers 16 game mini-plan every year. The best way to make sure to see Opening Day, 4th of July, Yankees (BOO!), and Red Sox (boo!) games.

Just some questions.

Who own the Bricktown Ballpark?

Now that the Redhawks is under new ownership, is there such plan to relocate the team elsewhere (hopefully not Seattle)?

And how exactly does this affect OKC?

Just some questions.

Who own the Bricktown Ballpark?

Now that the Redhawks is under new ownership, is there such plan to relocate the team elsewhere (hopefully not Seattle)?

And how exactly does this affect OKC?

Who owns = The City
Relocate = no announced plans (and presumed highly unlikely)
Impact = becomes a farm club to someone other than Rangers, and as already noted, that was happening with or without an ownership change. New owners may bring better promotions and a better experience overall for the fans.

something interesting i read today concerning affiliation...
"With the two-year agreement, there are only two Triple-A teams looking for affiliates: Las Vegas and Oklahoma City. (Technically, we've not seen anything from Sacramento/Oakland and Pawtucket/Boston reupping, but we'd be amazed if either pair left each other.) The two MLB teams left in the dance are Houston and Toronto, who had the Las Vegas 51s (Class AAA; Pacific Coast League) as its top farm team last season. It's an open secret Toronto wasn't very happy in Vegas -- playing in the hot desert sun didn't agree with many of its players, apparently -- and Houston was left in the lurch by the Round Rock Express (Class AAA; Pacific Coast League)."
http://ballparkdigest.com/201009153083/minor-league-baseball/news/nashville-brewers-renew-pdc

No, no move. If you watch the interview with Art Matin (CEO of Mandalay) he makes it clear they've been working on getting into the OKC market for a long time. They are excited about Oklahoma City. They've spent a year trying to buy this club.

Sidenote: for those of you who haven't been, you can see the Frisco (Dallas) Ikea just behind the ballpark to the left top in the above picture.

I think the best case scenario would be to sign a 2 year PDC with Houston or Toronto, and then start marketing OKC to the Cardinals ownership in hopes of becoming their AAA club in 2012. Reports are that they aren't happy with the facilities in Memphis and the Cardinals already have a good fan base around here.

Mini-plans are great! We buy a Texas Rangers 16 game mini-plan every year. The best way to make sure to see Opening Day, 4th of July, Yankees (BOO!), and Red Sox (boo!) games.No no no RED SOX GOOD!

Mini-plans are great! We buy a Texas Rangers 16 game mini-plan every year. The best way to make sure to see Opening Day, 4th of July, Yankees (BOO!), and Red Sox (boo!) games.

No no no RED SOX GOOD!
Finally, the Red Sox in Arlington some time other than August...which they continue that tradition as well. So we will head up for the Sox in Arlington in April and Houston in June.

Didn't Hicks own Frisco? Was it sold before the bankruptcy?

Mandalay actually moved the AA franchise from Shreveport to Frisco and Hicks was involved some way, though I'm not sure how exactly. That's the connection with the Rangers anyway. I don't think he has anything to do with Frisco now.

I think the the Redhawks old management really tried to do what they could to bring people in. Food from historic ballparks exc and it never really did work. These guys sound like they have it together. I look forward to next season. Anyone seen any news of changes in the front office as of yet?


Chris
www.radiookc.com

Are we sure this story is even true? Has anyone seen a friend's friend on Facebook talking about some other friend whose friend said their other friend had sealed this deal in blood?

I think the best case scenario would be to sign a 2 year PDC with Houston or Toronto, and then start marketing OKC to the Cardinals ownership in hopes of becoming their AAA club in 2012. Reports are that they aren't happy with the facilities in Memphis and the Cardinals already have a good fan base around here.


That's the route that would be the most productive in the long run!

I though Express Sports owned the Redhawks and always talked about how they wanted to own this team for along time. Any reason why they sold the team?

I though Express Sports owned the Redhawks and always talked about how they wanted to own this team for along time. Any reason why they sold the team?

Bob Funk and Scott Pruitt owned the Redhawks. I'm not sure it was that they were really looking to sell as it was that Mandalay was aggressively looking to get in this market and made an offer the Redhawks felt would be stupid to not accept.

I'll tell you this - Mandalay has plans for Oklahoma City; Bricktown in particular, that go beyond the Redhawks. They are a very diverse - and successful - entertainment company. Matin, as CEO of the baseball operations, reports to Peter Guber, the CEO of Mandalay Entertainment. If you know films - yes, THAT Peter Guber (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Guber).

Not to mention Funk is having financial issues right now

Not to mention Funk is having financial issues right now
I'm sure that Tom Hicks wanted to own the Texas Rangers, Dallas Stars and other sports entities that he owned for a long time as well. Just like Funk, Hicks had outside forces call him on it.

I'm sure that Tom Hicks wanted to own the Texas Rangers, Dallas Stars and other sports entities that he owned for a long time as well. Just like Funk, Hicks had outside forces call him on it.

Hicks never cared about the game or the fans. Prices on everything went up every year. Chuck Greenburg regularly goes out into the crowd and sits with paying customers during the game. He and Nolan (and the money behind them) are committed to the Rangers' experience, both for the players and the fans.

Hicks never cared about the game or the fans. Prices on everything went up every year. Chuck Greenburg regularly goes out into the crowd and sits with paying customers during the game. He and Nolan (and the money behind them) are committed to the Rangers' experience, both for the players and the fans.
I think at one time he did, he thought he could try and buy a championship like the Yankees with A-Rod, he overpaid at the time to get him. I think after that he lost hope and realized he mortgaged the future on a good player but not a cornerstone of the franchise. A-Rod wants top dollar pay but he isn't a cornerstone type of guy, that is why NY is perfect for him, he doesn't have to be "the guy" there. I don't doubt that Hicks after that gave up but for a lot of those guys it isn't about the team/sport, it's about the fact they can say they own teams that is more important to them. Prices go up every year, players want more every year and demand to get it and he had a lot of debt to pay off including a good portion of A-Rod's salary.

As much as people like to bag on Jerruh and Cuban their will to win is not in doubt...now their methods on the other hand can leave you scratching your head.

Sounds like a win-win for everyone.

OKC is the new Triple-A affiliate of the Houston Astros. A sentimental affiliation for many as the old 89er's and Astros were hooked up for a decade from '62-'72 as OKC's first affiliate in the old American Association. I spent many a night at All-Sports Stadium watching future Astros. In my opinion, this all works out perfectly.
http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20100920&content_id=14884846&vkey=pr_milb&fext=.jsp