Major League Soccer In The Works For Oklahoma City

A Major League Soccer stadium is coming to Oklahoma City. A metro sports marketing company is partnering with local developer ADG Inc. to begin designing what will soon be the home to a MLS franchise.

The same firm who designed the Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark, now in its 15th year of operation, will also design the new soccer stadium. The vision to build an MLS stadium has been a three-year-long process.

Prodigal LLC, a full service event management company based out of OKC owns and operates the Oklahoma City Barons. When the company brought the professional hockey team to OKC, they also gave the Cox Convention Center a $ 4-million facelift.  

"Prodigal LLC is a class act and they've got great leadership," said Tom Anderson, OKC's Executive Manager of Special Projects.

Tom Anderson says so far the city has been very pleased with Prodigal. Until recently, the company also owned and operated the Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark. Now, city officials say they're confident a major league soccer stadium will succeed.

"You know, I think there's probably a tremendous market in Oklahoma City for Soccer," said Anderson.

The plan is to design and build a 7,000 seat stadium with the ability to expand to seat 20,000. That's the minimum size for a major league soccer franchise to be considered.

"For Oklahoma City, bringing USL PRO is a conjugate path for the future to bring in a MLS team," said Darren Ransely, Director of Creativity and Entertainment for Prodigal.

Ransley says OKC will have a United Soccer Leagues team in Spring 2014, owned and operated by the company.

"So we will be employing the coaches. We will be employing the players. We will have a training staff," said Ransely.

At least 10 different locations for the stadium are being looked at including near the Oklahoma River. For more information on professional soccer in OKC, go to www.prodigal.com