{"id":2472532,"date":"2026-06-23T19:15:40","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T19:15:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2472532"},"modified":"2026-06-23T19:15:40","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T19:15:40","slug":"oklahoma-city-builds-momentum-as-sports-and-entertainment-destination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/oklahoma-city-builds-momentum-as-sports-and-entertainment-destination\/","title":{"rendered":"Oklahoma City builds momentum as sports and entertainment destination"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Listen to this article<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Summary:<\/h5>\n

\u2013 Oklahoma City leaders say sports<\/a> investments are boosting tourism<\/a> and economic growth.<\/em>\n<\/p>\n

\u2013 The city is preparing for major events including Olympic competition and international championships.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2013 Thunder success and new venues are helping raise OKC\u2019s national profile.<\/em>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

OKLAHOMA CITY \u2014 From the Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a>\u2018s championship-level gameplay to the NCAA Softball Women\u2019s College World Series with the 2028 Olympics<\/a> on the horizon, Oklahoma City is primed to become a premier destination for sports and entertainment<\/a>, according to the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n

Last week, the chamber hosted four sports and entertainment professionals at the Petroleum Club to speak on how that momentum translates into long-term community impact. The Sports Business<\/a> Journal recently ranked Oklahoma City as one of the top 50 best sports business cities.<\/p>\n

The panel featured Paycom Center<\/a> Marketing and Public Relations Director Lucy Albers<\/a>, Tasha Houck-Barnett, sales and marketing director at Embassy Suites by Hilton \u2014 Oklahoma City Downtown; Oklahoma City Special Projects Manager Sue Hollenbeck and Michelle Matthews<\/a>, associate vice president of fan development and retail for the Oklahoma City Thunder.\n<\/p>\n

The Academy of Country Music recently named<\/a> the Paycom Center as one of its 2026 finalists for top venue in country music during its 61st<\/sup> Annual Industry Awards.\n<\/p>\n

Albers said the Paycom Center can\u2019t attract events on its own. It needs the hotels, the restaurants and the city hotspots to successfully market the city.<\/p>\n

\"From
From left, the Oklahoma City Thunder\u2019s Michelle Matthews, Oklahoma City\u2019s Sue Hollenbeck, downtown Oklahoma City Embassy Suites by Hilton\u2019s Tasha Houck-Barnett and the Paycom Center\u2019s Lucy Albers participate in a forum moderated by Visit OKC\u2019s Adam Wisniewski. (Photo\/Katrina Crumbacher, The Journal Record)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re telling them what else their visitors and guests can do while they\u2019re here,\u201d Albers said. \u201cWe\u2019re promoting even public transport or the parks right across the street from us and the thriving food scene in Oklahoma City. We are selling the city, they can pick a Denver, a Dallas, a St. Louis. They can go anywhere they want, so we have to sell the city.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

In July, the Paycom Center is set to host WWE Friday Night Smackdown and UFC Fight Night<\/a>, while the Boathouse District<\/a> is set to host the International Canoe Federation Canoe Slalom World Championships, the first time the championships have been held in North America in more than a decade.\n<\/p>\n

The economic impact is estimated to be between $2.2 million and $4.3 million through lodging, restaurants, shopping and more. More than 10,000 lodging nights across local hotels and short-term rentals are expected.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cAlmost everything we\u2019re doing is like an audition to get the next thing,\u201d Albers said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to start with a smaller WWE event to get the televised WWE events to get the bigger ones. You start with a UFC event to hopefully get a bigger UFC event years down the road.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

The new under-construction multipurpose stadium being built south of Bricktown is already set to host professional soccer<\/a> and a United Football League<\/a> team.\n<\/p>\n

Hollenbeck said Oklahoma City\u2019s public and private partners work together to draw sports and entertainment.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can talk about all sorts of major cities in the United States, and honestly, those cities compete with one another,\u201d Hollenbeck said. \u201cThey compete externally with one another, but internally they compete. We don\u2019t necessarily have that here, and that\u2019s an opportunity. That\u2019s one of our strengths that we have.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Matthews said the Thunder\u2019s goal is to take Oklahoma City\u2019s shared identity and talk about it nationally.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of my favorite stories is, you were here before the team, and you heard the letters OKC. If you were outside of that region, that would mean nothing to you,\u201d Matthews said. \u201cThose three letters were an airport acronym, right? And now, when you hear the words, OKC is immediately associated with a thriving city, a passionate fan base, and a community that\u2019s ready for major events.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

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\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source journalrecord.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Listen to this article Summary: \u2013 Oklahoma City leaders say sports investments are boosting tourism and economic growth. \u2013 The city is preparing for major events including Olympic competition and international championships. \u2013 Thunder success and new venues are helping raise OKC\u2019s national profile. OKLAHOMA CITY \u2014 From the Oklahoma City Thunder\u2018s championship-level gameplay to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2472533,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[444305,486537,486538,21796,306820,21741,486539,357472,486540,486541,486542,344731,370585,419547,486543,486544,21848,399588,486545,349157,350923,362011,486546,486547,23675],"class_list":["post-2472532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-2028-olympics","tag-boathouse-district","tag-bricktown-stadium","tag-business","tag-economic-development","tag-entertainment","tag-greater-oklahoma-city-chamber","tag-hospitality","tag-la28","tag-lucy-albers","tag-michelle-matthews","tag-oklahoma-city","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-olympics","tag-paycom-center","tag-professional-soccer","tag-sports","tag-sports-business","tag-sue-hollenbeck","tag-tourism","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-fight-night","tag-united-football-league","tag-womens-college-world-series","tag-wwe"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Oklahoma-City-builds-momentum-as-sports-and-entertainment-destination.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2472532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2472532"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2472532\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2472534,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2472532\/revisions\/2472534"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2472533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2472532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2472532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2472532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}