Sports
Oklahoma supports popular sports, with teams in basketball, football, arena football, baseball, soccer, hockey, and wrestling located in Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Enid, Norman, and Lawton. The Oklahoma City Thunder of the National Basketball Association and the Tulsa Shock of the Women's National Basketball Association are the state's only major league sports franchises, but minor league sports, including minor league baseball at the Minor league baseball AAA and AA levels Oklahoma City RedHawks and Tulsa Drillers, respectively, hockey with the Oklahoma City Barons in the AHL and Tulsa Oilers in the CHL, and arena football in the Arena Football League was hosted by the Tulsa Talons until 2012, when the team was moved to San Antonio. Oklahoma City also hosts the Oklahoma City Lightning playing in the National Women's Football Association, and Tulsa is the base for the Tulsa 66ers of the NBA Development League and the Tulsa Revolution, which plays in the American Indoor Soccer League. Enid and Lawton host professional basketball teams in the USBL and the CBA.
The NBA's New Orleans Hornets became the first major league sports franchise based in Oklahoma when the team was forced to relocate to Oklahoma City's Ford Center for two seasons following Hurricane Katrina in 2005. In July 2008, the Seattle SuperSonics, owned by a group of Oklahoma City businessmen led by Clayton Bennett, relocated to Oklahoma City and announced that play would begin at Ford Center as the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2008, becoming the state's first permanent major league franchise.
Collegiate athletics are a popular draw in the state. The University of Oklahoma Sooners and the Oklahoma State University Cowboys average well over 50,000 fans attending their football games, and the University of Oklahoma's American football program ranked 12th in attendance among American colleges in 2010, with an average of 84,738 people attending its home games. The two universities meet several times each year in rivalry matches known as the Bedlam Series, which are some of the greatest sporting draws to the state. Sports Illustrated magazine rates the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University among the top colleges for athletics in the nation. In addition, 12 of the state's smaller colleges or universities participate in the NAIA, mostly within the Sooner Athletic Conference.
Regular LPGA tournaments are held at Cedar Ridge Country Club in Tulsa, and major championships for the PGA or LPGA have been played at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Oak Tree Country Club in Oklahoma City, and Cedar Ridge Country Club in Tulsa. Rated one of the top golf courses in the nation, Southern Hills has hosted four PGA Championships, including one in 2007, and three U.S. Opens, the most recent in 2001. Rodeos are popular throughout the state, and Guymon, in the state's panhandle, hosts one of the largest in the nation.
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Famous quotes containing the word sports:
“...I didn’t come to this with any particular cachet. I was just a person who grew up in the United States. And when I looked around at the people who were sportscasters, I thought they were just people who grew up in the United States, too. So I thought, Why can’t a woman do it? I just assumed everyone else would think it was a swell idea.”
—Gayle Gardner, U.S. sports reporter. As quoted in Sports Illustrated, p. 85 (June 17, 1991)
“It is usual for a Man who loves Country Sports to preserve the Game in his own Grounds, and divert himself upon those that belong to his Neighbour.”
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719)
“In the past, it seemed to make sense for a sportswriter on sabbatical from the playpen to attend the quadrennial hawgkilling when Presidential candidates are chosen, to observe and report upon politicians at play. After all, national conventions are games of a sort, and sports offers few spectacles richer in low comedy.”
—Walter Wellesley (Red)