The Tulsa Shock’s majority owner has cleared the final hurdle with the league before he moves the team to Dallas. “The support they have shown for the Shock and women’s professional basketball over the past six seasons has been tremendous”, WNBA President Laurel J. “We look forward to having our first team based in the Dallas-Fort Worth area”.
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The Shock are expected to play at College Park Center on the University of Texas at Arlington campus.
Thursday the WNBA Board of Governors unanimously approved the move, and now it’s officially a lame-duck season for the team in Tulsa.
“I am proud of the team and the organization and know they will stay focused on making this a winning season”, Cameron said in a release.
Both minority owner Stuart Price and Tulsa Mayor Dewey Bartlett strongly disagree with Cameron’s assessment of the situation. Price believes that Cameron “has used and set up Tulsa to incubate his franchise”, which, now that they are finally showing promise under his ownership, he can finally move to a mega market.
“Absolutely the litigation will continue!” “In my opinion, Bill Cameron set us up”, Price said. We have sent document requests to the defendants. It contends the ownership percentages aren’t clear, so it’s impossible to tell whether Cameron has a high enough percentage to move the team against the wishes of other group members.
Amid 100-degree heat and energy-sapping humidity, a small group of volunteers stood on a corner across from the BOK Center and handed out “Save Our Shock” T-shirts before their team’s WNBA showdown with the Minnesota Lynx over the weekend.
“As we enter the second half of the season, we remain committed to the success of the team”. The Shock went 9-25 in 2012, 11-23 in 2013 and 12-22 in 2014. The team won three championships while in Detroit, where they last played in the 2009 season. It already hosts four major professional sports teams – baseball’s Texas Rangers, football’s Dallas Cowboys, basketball’s Dallas Mavericks and hockey’s Dallas Stars. “As the majority owner, I have made significant personal investments to keep the team viable the past five years”. But things were still going OK with Sims out before Skylar Diggins, the Western Conference Player of the Month for June and the No. 2 vote-getter for the All-Star game was lost for the season with a torn ACL.
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“In the meantime, I call on all Shock fans and Tulsans to attend this season’s last nine home games and playoffs and watch these great players perform at the highest level of athleticism and class”.
