Despite a faltering start to the season, NBA newcomers Oklahoma City Thunder are thrilling the home crowd. Liam Stebbingtakes in the atmosphere from a VIP seat
‘AWESOME!” exclaims the woman standing at the end of our row, who is dressed in a striped sports top and a baseball cap and has just heard that I’m visiting from Ireland. It’s an unexpectedly enthusiastic response, although there’s a good chance that the woman, who I think is called Carly and who, in any case, is our in-seat server tonight, is giving her stand-by response, barely able to hear us over the shouts of the crowd and the boom of the music.
The rush of noise is part of the build-up to tonight’s basketball game, between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Atlanta Hawks. The 18,230 fans around me in the crowd at the Ford Center this Sunday are certainly starting to get excited.
It’s only the Thunder’s sixth game of the season – and, as it happens, only the sixth in their history, as they’re the newest outfit in the National Basketball Association. Oklahoma City has thrown itself behind the team, thrilled to get its first professional franchise. The Thunder haven’t had a great start, losing four of their first five games, and fans are hoping they’ll play to their potential tonight. The squad is full of promising players, after all, not least Kevin Durant, who was last year’s NBA rookie of the year, an accolade that puts him in the company of Shaquille O’Neal, LeBron James and other superstars.
We’re in great seats, in the second row beside one of the baskets, which means that, later on, the crowd at our end of the court will be given balloons to wave distractingly whenever the Hawks try to sink a hoop.
For now, it’s hard not to be a little awed by the scale of the production: this isn’t just going to be a basketball game; it’s going to be a full-on multimedia event. An eight-sided, seven-tonne jumbotron hanging over the centre of the court will relay images of the game to the crowd – particularly useful to fans whose seats are towards the top of the arena, seven storeys up. It will also boom out AC/DC’s Thunderstruck, the team’s official theme song, among other tunes. All the while, an electronic billboard running around the arena, about halfway up, will flash messages of encouragement to gee on the Thunder. And that’s without mentioning the Thunder Girls, a troupe of 20 cheerleaders who run out to dazzle us with their perfect teeth, hair and choreography.
We still have a couple of minutes before the tip-off, so we order some drinks from Carly, who taps the requests into her electronic pad. According to the menu that was on my seat when we arrived, I could also have a chili cheese coney for $6 (€4.50) or a turkey Cheddar hoagie for $8 (€6), but I’ve no idea what they are, and I want to save my questions for the basketball itself, so I stick to a beer. (The coney is a hot dog and the hoagie is a roll, I later learn.)
Carly is clearly a conscientious waitress: as we’ve ordered alcohol she asks to see our ID. “Honey, you’ve made my day,” Sandy, one of the Oklahomans who have brought me to the game, and who is 51, tells her. “I haven’t been ID’d for years.”
We stand for The Star Spangled Banner, then stay on our feet for the start of play: we’ll sit down only once the Thunder have scored.
It’s pretty easy to see basketball players whether you’re standing or sitting, of course. The tallest member of the Thunder’s 15-man squad is a gangly 7ft 1in (216cm) redhead named Robert Swift; even the shortest still makes 6ft 1in (185cm). When you watch basketball on TV, it’s hard to appreciate how ferociously energetic – and enormous – the players are, particularly when you’re talking about 17-stone (110kg) men who are separated from the crowd only by the line of white paint that forms the edge of the court.
That means it can be pretty thrilling to have a courtside seat, as you can feel as well as see the players pound by – and even have conversations with them. (These prized spots are known as Nicholson seats, after Jack Nicholson, who has a courtside seat, reportedly worth $5,350/€3,850 a game, at the Staples Center, in Los Angeles, where he cheers on the Lakers.)
Even if you don’t know much about basketball, you can see that the Thunder are struggling to make an impression. The Hawks quickly take the lead, which means we remain standing for longer than we’d expected. Atlanta are a more experienced side, as they show by clocking up points, even though both teams have reputations for defensive play. A roar goes up when the Thunder finally make it on to the scoreboard.
After 12 minutes of play, at the end of the first quarter, the Thunder are trailing 14-22. By the end of the second quarter they’ve taken the lead for the first time, 41-38, scoring the last six points before halftime. “Everybody clap your hands,” the line from the step-aerobics anthem Cha Cha Slide, booms out to keep us cheering.
When the Thunder Girls aren’t dancing, pauses in the game are filled by Jonathan Meisner, a beaming twentysomething who works at a Christian university during the day, then spends game nights as the Thunder’s arena host, interviewing fans, holding hoop-throwing competitions and making announcements on behalf of the team’s sponsors, such as Love’s Travel Stops Country Stores (“Clean places, friendly faces”). He also introduces the Kiss Cam and the Dance Cam: find yourself targeted by the TV cameras and you’re expected to kiss, or dance with, your neighbour.
Part of the deal with our seats, which we’re borrowing from a season-ticket holder who’s out of town, is a half-time hospitality package. One of the concrete bunkers below the tiers of seating has been hung with tasteful drapes and filled with free food and drink, including gumbo, beer and, most popularly, ice cream. It’s a welcome bonus, although as our seats normally sell for $650 (€475) each, these could be the priciest freebies I’ve ever consumed.
It’s not always this expensive to come to an NBA game. The Thunder sell 19 grades of ticket, and although the Ford Center’s Nicholson seats go for $2,500 (€1,850) a pop, the 3,500 or so seats at the top of the arena cost just $10 (€7.25) each, which should put a family trip within easy reach, especially if you know nothing about basketball and just want to come for the American-sport experience.
The cheap seats are part of the team’s drive to build a following. Before they became the Oklahoma City Thunder, a few months ago, they were the Seattle SuperSonics. The team made the 3,000km move in part to capitalise on the excitement that surrounded the New Orleans Hornets’ two-year stay in Oklahoma City, after Hurricane Katrina. College sport is huge here – local college football games regularly attract more than 80,000 fans – so the club is betting that it can draw on that passion to secure its place in Oklahoman hearts.
The Thunder are going to have to work hard at it, though. They come out of halftime strongly, and for most of the third and fourth quarters it looks as if they’re going to win the game: they have their biggest lead of the night after Kevin Durant scores three points, to make it 75-68, with less than seven minutes left. But the Hawks won’t give up, and slowly they eat into Oklahoma City’s lead. With barely two minutes to go Atlanta take an 82-80 lead, then inch ahead to end the game 89-85. It’s their fifth win from five games – and, now, the Thunder’s fifth loss from six.
Not such an awesome night for Thunder fans, then. Still, it’s early days. As DJ Casper says, everybody clap your hands.
- Liam Stebbing was a guest of Oklahoma City Convention Visitors Bureau (www.okccvb.org) and Kansas Oklahoma Travel Tourism (00-44-1750-42224, www.travelksok.co.uk). The NBA season continues until mid-April (www.nba.com/thunder)
Where to stay
Colcord Hotel. 15 North Robinson, Oklahoma City, 00-1-405-6014300, www.colcordhotel.com. Modern luxury in Oklahoma City’s first skyscraper, whose 12 storeys date from 1910. A two-minute walk from the Ford Center and close to the Bricktown entertainment district. Doubles from $159 (€119).
Where to eat
Cattlemen’s Steakhouse. 1309 South Agnew, Oklahoma City, 00-1-405-2360416, www.cattlemensrestaurant.com. For a taste of the Wild West, try this renowned restaurant, which has upmarket booths to one side of the entrance and a basic diner to the other.
Where to go
Oklahoma City National Memorial Museum. 620 North Harvey Avenue, Oklahoma City, 00-1-405- 2353313, www.oklahomacity nationalmemorial.org.
A poignant reminder of the 168 Oklahomans who died when Timothy McVeigh blew up the Murrah Building, on April 19th, 1995. Its creators have helped New York and Pennsylvania deal with 9/11 and its aftermath.
Go There
Aer Lingus (www.aerlingus. com) flies from Dublin and Shannon to Chicago, from where you can fly with its partner United Airlines (www.unitedairlines.co.uk) to Oklahoma City. American Airlines (www.american airlines.ie) also flies from Dublin via Chicago. Delta (www.delta.com) flies via Atlanta. Continental (www. continental.com/ie) flies via New York.