Okla. group seeking to bring WNBA team to Tulsa gets more time to line up funding

Okla. group eyeing WNBA team gets more time

TULSA, Okla. — The WNBA has extended a Sept. 1 deadline by a few weeks for an investment group to line up funding to bring a team to Tulsa in time for the 2010 season, a member of the group said Wednesday.

Oklahoma City businessman Bill Cameron said WNBA President Donna Orender was willing to grant the grace period. Neither he nor investment partner David Box specified how long the group had, and a call to an WNBA spokesman for clarification on the deadline was not immediately returned Wednesday afternoon.

“We may be able to push it into September a few weeks before we’re faced with a go or no-go deadline,” Oklahoma City businessman Bill Cameron said Wednesday at the Tulsa Press Club.

Cameron said Orender flew to Tulsa on Tuesday to meet with potential investors and area business leaders.

Cameron did not specify details on how much capital he’s raised from sponsors, only that his group is “maybe two-thirds to 75 percent there.”

“We’ve made some very good progress,” he said. “It’s just, there’s a whole lot of people we’ve got to (reach).”

Cameron said it was up to the community to “pull together” and develop the corporate support “to show the WNBA that we’re ready to have a team here in Tulsa.”

In July, investors announced a plan to bring a WNBA franchise to Tulsa. It is unknown whether Tulsa would get an expansion team or whether an existing team would relocate to the city.

Tulsa, with about 385,000 people, would be the second-smallest city with a WNBA franchise — after Uncasville, Conn. Orender said in July that other cities were being considered by the league, but did not reveal which ones were in the running.

The team would play at the BOK Center, which holds about 18,000 and opened last year.

Cameron and Box are members of the ownership group of the Tulsa Talons of arenafootball2. Cameron also is part of the ownership group of the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder.

That group bought the then-Seattle SuperSonics and the WNBA’s Seattle Storm in July 2006, but sold the WNBA franchise to Seattle investors before moving the NBA franchise to Oklahoma City last year.

The Women’s National Basketball Association has 13 teams and falls under the NBA umbrella, and all but two teams play in the same city as their NBA counterparts. Franchises in Seattle and Connecticut don’t share a market with an NBA team.

The league began play in 1997 and has been the most stable women’s pro basketball league in the U.S., thanks in good part to its connection with the NBA.

On the Net: www.wnbatulsa.com/