In 1993 the number of hotels in Oklahoma City had been reduced to one. It was a low ebb for a city that had, in its oil-gushing heyday, boasted architectural wonders such as the Biltmore and the Criterion, demolished along with many other gems during the 1970s grand plan to reimagine the historic downtown.
The past was razed. The renowned modernist architect IM Pei was brought in to deliver a 21st-century city. The vision was extravagant. But the city money ran dry with the next oil slump, and most of what was planned was never built.
By 1991, the city had become a finalist of an intense competition to win a $1 billion United Airlines maintenance plant, which would create 7,500 jobs and offer a welcome stable well of employment as opposed to the volatile, flash-flood riches of the oil industry. A successful bid would be a lifeline in a city that, according to the 1990 US census, had some 11,000 abandoned houses and a 14 per cent poverty rate.
Ultimately, Oklahoma lost out to Indianapolis. The bittersweet feedback from United was, then mayor Ron Norick reported, that Oklahoma’s proposal was “by far the best prepared, well organised, the most courteous, the most responsive. But we didn’t win the big enchilada.”
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The main reason was that United didn’t feel it could reasonably ask its people to live and work in somewhere as bereft of variety as OKC. Stung, Norick decided he would travel to Indianapolis to see for himself what it had that his beloved city did not. Everything, it turned out.
“So he got on a plane and flew to Indianapolis. There, he found a vibrant downtown and two major league professional sports teams,” David Holt, the current Oklahoma City mayor reported to readers of the Indianapolis Star in an opinion piece this week.
“Like OKC, Indianapolis lacked mountains or an ocean, but it had a central meeting place and reasons for people to rally there. Through its downtown and its sports teams, and all the things that come with those amenities, Indianapolis offered a quality of life appropriate to a city its size. OKC was also a pretty large city, but after being hollowed out by urban renewal, an oil bust and a banking crisis, it felt more like a place where a lot of people just happened to live. Indianapolis – previously our foil – was now our inspiration.”
The reason behind the opinion piece is that the stars have aligned to thrust both Oklahoma and Indianapolis into a shared spotlight for the next fortnight. The cities’ basketball teams, the Oklahoma Thunder and the Indiana Pacers, are again competing for the top prize, this time in the NBA finals.
[ Thunder enlightens Oklahoma as basketball brings wind of changeOpens in new window ]
One of the first things Norick realised on that trip was that Oklahoma needed a sports team. It took almost two decades and a comprehensive downtown renaissance, which was interrupted and then spurred on by the federal building bombing in 1995, before they got their wish. The city custodians built a state-of-the-art sports arena but could find no willing tenant until it finally acquired, through infamous chicanery, a brand new franchise, the Thunder.
But there is a uniquely American sting in the tail of Oklahoma’s fairy story. Because it could not persuade a big sports team to move to its city, it went out and stole one. At least that is what any number of bereft Seattle basketball fans will tell you.
In 2006, a consortium of Oklahoma business people bought shares in the Supersonics, the long-established Seattle team. When pressure to build a publicly funded upgraded arena was rejected by the Seattle city managers, the owners simply moved their club to Oklahoma, with the blessing of the NBA.
The Supersonics vanished over a summer. The internet carries many grainy clips of the last Supersonics game, after 41 seasons, when the fans chanted “Save Our Sonics” in unison through the closing minutes while the players raised their arms to encourage more decibels. But by the following September, many of the same players were wearing the uniform of the brand new Thunder. The loss of the team, the Seattle Times declared this weekend, “leaves Seattle feeling like the victim of identity theft”.
If Oklahomans ever felt Seattle’s pain, they have come to terms with it. Seattle is one of the great US city success stories, an enviable combination of tech-generated wealth and artistic creativity. They’d get over the Supersonics. Oklahoma was parched.
Now the city is committed to spending $850 million to a new publicly funded stadium. The Thunder, valued at $3.6 billion, will pitch in a mere $50 million. But they don’t want to make the same mistake as Seattle. So, for the next fortnight, the Supersonics will act as the ghost at the banquet throughout these finals. The Pacers, an august one-city team who joined the NBA in 1967 are still seeking their first championship. Their fans will feel slightly queasy about the fact that Oklahoma are standing between them and a maiden title. The Thunder are heavy favourites to win the finals.
“Thirty-four years after our United Airlines loss to Indianapolis, Oklahoma City is now in the NBA Finals, an achievement that feels like the capstone of an amazing American success story. It has been a journey inspired by you,” Holt writes in his salute to Indianapolis.
“Should another chapter be written in the weeks ahead, I regret to tell you that you’ll have no one but yourselves to blame.”
