University of Oklahoma – Jim Stafford's BlogOKC

‘Game Theory’ at work in OU-Texas, 76ers-Thunder ticket prices

I walked up to the ticket window at San Diego’s Petco Park in 2012 and saw something I had never seen before. Ticket prices for upcoming games vs. the Diamondbacks were one price, with higher prices for upcoming Giants games.

Same sections, same seats. There were also varying prices listed for different days of the week, with Monday-Wednesday prices lower than Thursday-Sunday.

I didn’t realize it then, but the San Diego Padres had adopted what is known as variable pricing, in which prices vary according to day of the week and what team is coming to town. Getting in to watch a Giants-Padres game would cost much more than, say, a Diamondbacks-Padres games.

Before that experience, I had bought a lot of sports tickets across the years, and there was always one consistent price for seat/section.

OK, I’m a rube from the Midwest, but I had always known what to expect, price-wise, ahead of time.

Today, variable pricing is everywhere and no longer a surprising reality to fans when they buy tickets to a sporting event.

However, yet another pricing strategy has become commonplace. Surge pricing.

Yep, just like when Uber puts surge pricing — sometimes called dynamic pricing — into effect during periods of high demand, sports teams are using algorithms and AI to raise prices in real time when there is unexpected demand for a game.

Let’s say the Timberwolves have become the breakout team of 2026-27 in the NBA and the algorithm used by, say, the Kings detects late demand for tickets to the Timberwolves game. So, the Kings will jack up prices for single-game ticket purchases in sections that still have lots of unsold tickets.

Surge pricing in sports was pioneered in 2010 by the San Francisco Giants, according to this Forbes magazine article.

In a town like Oklahoma City where most tickets are sold before the season begins, I wouldn’t think surge pricing would be much of a factor.

But the OKC Thunder certainly use variable pricing, setting different prices far in advance, depending on who’s coming to town.

My friend Steve Buck is a half-season Thunder ticket holder who came across the variable pricing scenario in his ticket package this season. The Thunder offered all the games to him at a certain price except for what they call a ‘flex’ game.

That game for Steve’s package turned out to be the 76ers, who now have LeBron James on their roster and are expected to be a title contender from the Eastern Conference.

I’ll let Steve share his thoughts on the situation. He says he has no objection to dynamic or variable pricing strategies because they are reactions to supply and demand, a basic economic reality.

Let’s call it economic game theory.

“The Thunder did not allocate the 76er’s game and allowed half-season ticket holders to purchase it separately,” Steve said. “When I logged into the ticket app, pricing was over 200% of what my cost was per game/per seat in my half-season package. I didn’t like that premium, but it represented market forces at work. A single game in OKC against a team that features many superstars and an NBA talent that is considered, by some, to be the GOAT. (For the record, I still take MJ).”

I did some research on the Thunder website to see what single-game tickets in Loud City — the upper deck 300 section — would cost me for different games in the upcoming season.

I found that I could get in for as low as $22 per seat to watch the Pacers, but would have to shell out $53 per ticket to watch the Nuggets.

And the 76ers? That ticket would cost $151, but the Thunder website noted that it’s a ‘verified resale ticket,’ which must mean the Sixers are a sellout months before the Feb. 13, 2027, game.

Steve also has some thoughts on what should happen if, say, LeBron doesn’t play in the OKC game next February.

“Here’s where I think there should be market intervention, especially when these dynamics are applied by the primary market and not secondary market,” he said “I buy these premium tickets with the expectation that LeBron James plays. If he doesn’t, shouldn’t dynamic pricing work in the reciprocal, meaning I would get a refund for my now devalued purchase?

“Of course, I wouldn’t because I knew the risk when I purchased; but I believe demand-based pricing (surge/dynamic/premium) should come with a built-in protective factor against roster changes, injury, and load management especially when the purchase is made from an original ticket issuer. As a partner with the Thunder (half-season ticket holder in lower bowl seats) I believe that type of gesture from the club is warranted especially as I am not allowed to resell those tickets.”

Some great perspective, Steve. I hope the Thunder are listening.

Meanwhile, the dynamics of surge pricing can work the other way, at least in the secondary market. It played out in advance of this year’s annual Oklahoma-Texas game in the Cotton Bowl.

The Sooners were expected to be a national contender, but faltered, which sent demand and ticket prices plunging, according to the USA Today price tracking website.

If you waited until the week before the Red River Rivalry to buy your ticket on the secondary market, congratulations! You paid a couple hundred bills less than what you would have paid weeks or months before.

Said the USA Today article: “Ticket prices have dropped by nearly $200 in the last month. The Texas Longhorns are currently the No. 1 team in college football after five straight wins, while Oklahoma has fallen out of the USA TODAY Coaches Poll after losses to both Michigan and Georgia.”

Now that’s market forces at work. Game theory, indeed.

BONUS CONTENT: My friend Don Mecoy weighed in with his experience with surge pricing on the secondary market:

“As a former season ticket holder, I depended on those market forces. Kobe’s last away game was in OKC, and those were the most lucrative tickets I ever sold.

On the other side, I paid four figures for tickets to last year’s finals, which of course weren’t played in OKC; so I got my money back.”

Walking tour showcases future impact of OKC’s Convergence project

Convergence floor — Second floor of the Convergence tower under development in OKC’s Innovation District.

If you’re like me, you’ve been curious about the new Convergence tower rising from the ground the past couple of years along I-235 just east of downtown.

The eight-floor Convergence tower is a $200 million privately funded development in the heart of OKC’s Innovation District. The project includes the adjacent, MAPS funded Innovation Hall with a future hotel also planned for the site.

A pair of prominent OKC real estate investors/developers in Richard Tanenbaum, CEO of Tanenbaum Holdings, and Mark Beffort, CEO of Robinson Park Investments, have led the Convergence project.

Convergence sits on a pretty small plot of land — 5.5 acres — that surrounds the tiny Stiles Park and its Beacon of Hope, which shines a green light into the night sky like a giant flashlight. The project will have underground parking.

The Convergence website descibes the project as an “ecosystem reshaping Oklahoma City’s economy through innovation, collaboration, diversity and advanced technology.”

The project is certainly reshaping OKC’s Innovation District.

Anyway, I wrangled a ticket to attend the Greater OKC Chamber’s recent networking event and walking tour of the still-under-construction Convergence development.

My professional background includes many years of covering Oklahoma’s emerging biotech industry, first as a reporter for The Oklahoman newspaper and later as a writer and then freelancer for i2E, Inc., the not-for-profit that mentors and invests in many of the state’s entrepreneurial startups.

So, that led me to gather with about 75 folks at the ~~Oklahoma~~ Our Blood Institute, which sits at the intersection of NE Eighth Street and Lincoln Blvd. It’s maybe a 50-yard walk from OBI to the new development.

Here’s what I learned that afternoon during the networking event and walking tour:

First, the Oklahoma Bioscience Association has been rebranded as Life Science Oklahoma, which made its debut at the annual BIO show in San Diego this past June. My friend, Dr. Craig Shimasaki, co-founder and CEO of OKC’s Moleculera Biosciences, is co-chair of Life Sciences Oklahoma, along with Andrew Westmuckett, director of technology ventures at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation.

Education will play a major role at the Innovation Hall, which features a Bio Pharmaceutical Workforce Training Center called BioTC. We received a good explanation of how the space will accommodate aspiring biotech workers from Koey Keylon, BioTC’s, executive director. It will offer one-week, hands-on short courses in biotechnology manufacturing in which students will learn the biotech process and how to use sophisticated technology involved. It also offers an advanced two-week certification curriculum.

Innovation Hall also includes a large Event Hall, a cafe and lounge open to the public, four conference rooms and two small “phone booth” size work/meeting spaces.

Innovation Hall is part of MAPS 4 Innovation District funding, which contributed $11 million to the development, with another $10 million or so from non-MAPS sources, according to the City of OKC.

After we toured the Innovation Hall, we entered the first floor of the Convergence tower. Much of the first floor will be occupied by Wheeler Bio, an up-and-coming contract development and manufacturing organization in the life sciences space. Wheeler Bio also will have administrative offices on upper floors of the building.

CrossFirst Bank has been announced as a tenant, while the University of Oklahoma, Tinker Air Force Base and an unnamed aerospace partner will occupy the eighth floor.

All this was empty space as we toured it, but you could see the possibilities and envision the future.

By the way, I highly recommend you crossing over I-235 onto Eighth Street to drive slowly past the Convergence project for a closer view, then meander through the Innovation District that includes OSU’s Hamm Institute for American Energy adjacent to Convergence on the north side, University Research Park to the south and OU Health Sciences Center to the north and east.

In a year or maybe less, Convergence tower and Innovation Hall should be filled with bioscience research and manufacturing professionals. as well as students aspiring for a biotech career, while offering great meeting and hangout space in the Innovation Hall.

I can’t wait to see it all in action.

Downtown view — View of downtown OKC from second floor of the Convergence Tower

Innovation Events — Event space in the Innovation Hall

Buildings — Walking between buildings on a tour of the rising Convergence project in OKC.

Jeff Seymour, executive vice president of the Greater OKC Chamber, welcomes guests to the recent networking event and Convergence project walking tour.

A message of Hope for the season

Ben Langford delivers a message of “Hope” to The Springs CofC audience.

I hope you keep reading this blog post. See what I did there?

Well, you will.

The church I attend, The Springs Church of Christ in Edmond, launched a series of sermons on the season of Advent this past Sunday. Our preacher, Ben Langford, presented it as a season of hope found in the birth of Christ.

Ben defined hope in the way that University of Oklahoma professor and author Chan Hellman, Ph.D., describes it in his book “Hope Rising: How the Science of Hope Can Change Your Life.”

Dr. Hellman’s definition of hope is, “the belief that your future can be brighter and better than your past and that you actually have a role to play in making it better.”

I read Hope Rising a couple years ago and was caught off guard by the definition. I always thought hope was something far more nebulous and random.

Sort of like “I hope rain doesn’t wash out the baseball game tomorrow, or “Gee, I hope you get what you want for Christmas.”

See, I’ve always believed that hope was more of a wish than something you could actually turn into an action item.

But Hellman’s book explains how people can set a goal, find a path toward its completion and then take action to reach it.

That sounds a lot like a goal setting exercise I learned in college.

In Hope Rising, Hellman demonstrates how the science of hope actually helps people who have been afflicted by life’s circumstances find their way to a better life from things like childhood trauma.

It’s not random or nebulous, but it does require some action by the person who’s hoping for better. It took a while, but I finally saw Dr. Hellman’s point about the “science” of hope as I read the book.

So, anyway, back to Ben’s sermon (watch it here). He made the point that people find hope in Christ by seeing the path to God and taking action to achieve it.

It was the type of sermon that stayed with you beyond lunch at Earl’s BBQ afterward.

I hope this blog post made some sense for you.

See what I did there?

Siri has a hot take

Her screen — Screen shot of the ‘Her’ trailer

We were traveling back to OKC from Hammon, OK, on Saturday when I asked my virtual assistant, whom I will call “Siri,” for the score of the Cincinnati-Arkansas football game.

“Arkansas leads Cincinnati 14-0 at halftime,” Siri responded.

Then I asked her for the score of the OU game. The Sooners were playing UTEP, and I wasn’t expecting much of a match.

“Oklahoma is dominating UTEP 28-10 at halftime,” Siri responded.

My wife picked up on how Siri gave us the score.

“I wouldn’t say that OU is ‘dominating,” Paula said.

“Yeah, but that’s how Siri sees it,” I replied.

Then it hit me. Siri had a take on the game! My virtual assistant supplied by Apple not only gave me the score, but an opinion on how things were going.

Even if Siri was stretching things a bit.

Siri Anyway, this made me think about artificial intelligence. Siri, Alexa, Google’s assistant all have some personality built in, I assume. I only have experience with Siri and Alexa, and they both can have a quirky personality. Alexa seems more upbeat.

If you want a fictional vision of the future of artificial intelligence and virtual assistants, watch the movie “Her.”

If you’ve not seen Her, it’s a 2018 film about a lonely, incredibly downbeat man named Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) in the not-too-distant future who buys a new AI-powered computer operating system. He calls it “Samantha.”

Played by Scarlett Johansson, Samantha engages Theodore in a round-the -clock conversation, learning about his life and environment while anticipating his every need.

Ultimately, Theodore falls in love with Samantha, whose intelligence seems to be expanding exponentially.

At the end of the movie, Samantha tells Theodore that he’s just one of scores of men she’s “dating.” Then she drops the news on him that she’s taking off with some of her other AI counterparts to bigger and better things (which I assume to be a world takeover).

It doesn’t exactly bode well for mankind.

Her raises a lot of questions about the future of AI, and I’m not sure the answers are what we like. At least Samantha had a personality and a take on the issues in Theodore’s life, even if she was over the top.

Maybe that’s where Siri is headed. Let’s just hope she doesn’t conspire with Alexa and Google to try to take over the world in an AI coup.

Oklahoma legends and a spelling disaster

Mike Turpen before leading an educational session at a convention last week in Norman.

Life can take a surreal turn at times. Like this: One day almost two decades ago, I was standing outside a wireless telephone store across from Penn Square Mall when a big black limousine pulled up.

A door opened and I hopped in, where I was greeted by former OU football coach Barry Switzer. The King himself.

I am not making this up.

Turns out, I was the technology reporter at The Oklahoman at the time. My editor asked me to accompany Switzer as he surprised the lucky winner of a prize offered as a promotional special by the wireless telephone company.

As I sat in the seat next to Coach Switzer, he began to ask me what I did at the paper, about my family and where I grew up. When I said “Arkansas,” he reacted as though he had just found a long-lost relative.

You probably know that Switzer is an Arkansas native, the son of a bootlegger. He’s also friendly, conversational and full of stories.

We had a great time as we rode to Midwest City to pick up the winner. Switzer told me stories from his life in Arkansas and people he knew from Fort Smith, which is my hometown.

By the time the assignment was over, I felt I had known Barry Switzer for years. It was like saying goodbye to a favorite uncle as I got out of the limo.

I’ve written all of that because I met another Oklahoma legend with a big personality this past week, and it felt like deja vu all over again.

My friend Steve Buck asked me to serve as a room monitor in Norman at the spring convention of the organization he leads.

As I was stationed outside the door to my assigned room before the workshop began, I turned and found myself face to face to Mike Turpen.

If you’ve lived in Oklahoma any time at all, you know Turpen is long-time co-host of the Flashpoint issue/debate show on KFOR in OKC. He is also a former Oklahoma Attorney General and chairman of the Oklahoma Democratic Party.

“I’m the last Democrat in Oklahoma,” Turpen joked after we introduced ourselves.

As Switzer had done years ago, Turpen wanted to know about where I worked and what I had done for a career, where I was from, who my wife was and what she did. Her name is Paula, I said, and she was a school principal before retiring and now works for a non-profit organization.

“Oh, she’s famous,” he said.

I laughed. My wife later told me she’s certain she has never met Turpen.

As we stood talking in the hallway of the convention center, Turpen opened his briefcase and handed me a little booklet he has written. It is entitled “10 Qualities for Survival and Success in the New Millennium.”

I admitted to him that I had misspelled his name in the paper years ago. He brushed it off as no problem.

Turpen was a presenter at one of the workshops at the convention, so he headed to his assigned room, which was just down the hall from mine.

“May I come in and take your picture,” I asked?

“Sure,” he replied. “Just email me a copy.”

So, I took the photo that is at the top of this page and later sent him a copy from my iPhone.

“Hello Mr. Turpen” I wrote with my thumb as a greeting before spell-correct on my phone got ahold of it.

It came out “Hello Mr. Turpentine.” I failed to self-edit and hit “send.”

Turpen later sent me a “thank you” for the photo. He didn’t mention that I had misspelled his name AGAIN.

However, I quickly sent him an apology.

I got it right the third time.

A night to remember with Howard Schnellenberger

Howard Schnellenberger on the OU sidelines in 1995. (Oklahoman photo)

I’m sure by now you’ve seen the news that former University of Oklahoma football coach Howard Schnellenberger passed away this morning.

Schnellenberger coached OU for one unspectacular season in 1995, and was fired right after the 5-5-1 season ended.

By OU standards, it was a disaster.

Schnellenberger came to OU with decades of football success on his resume and the confidence of a Gen. Douglas MacArthur. It just didn’t translate to success with the Sooners.

Although I was just an outsider looking in that year, all I could see was a pompous old man who thought his mere presence would inspire success.

Then fate brought me together with Howard for one night in 1995.

I was working as a Business News reporter at the time for the Daily Oklahoman. One of my beats was writing about Oklahoma agriculture.

You might remember that the Oklahoma Farm Bureau made Schnellenberger their spokesman in an ad campaign in 1995. The ads appeared on Oklahoma TV stations and mainly featured Howard squinting into the distance as words described the value that the Farm Bureau brings its members.

Many folks thought Howard was an odd choice for the Farm Bureau. In fact, here’s something that Oklahoman columnist Berry Tramel wrote back in ’95:

“Sudden thought: Why did the Oklahoma Farm Bureau select Howard Schnellenberger as its marketing spokesman? Aren’t most of those folks OSU graduates?”

But Schnellenberger’s most recent job before OU was that of football coach at the University of Louisville, and the executive director of the Oklahoma Farm Bureau at the time was a Kentucky native. So, there was a thin connection.

Howard Schnellenberger (Oklahoman photo)

Then one day, out of the blue, my wife and I received an invitation from the Farm Bureau to attend a “media night” at Applewoods Restaurant. OU coach Howard Schnellenberger was the special guest speaker.

Paula and I loved Applewoods and its famous apple fritters, so of course we agreed to go.

Turns out, a local television reporter and I were the only “media” members at the dinner. And only about a dozen people total were at the Farm Bureau event.

Here’s all I remember about that night. Howard stood over our tables and droned on in a low monotone for about 30 minutes. I remember nothing about what he said.

My wife had an interesting experience, too. Howard’s wife, Beverlee, was with him and sort of latched on to Paula as her new best friend for the night. She never stopped talking.

I couldn’t wait for that painful evening now 26 years distant to be over.

And it wasn’t long before Schnellenberger’s tenure as OU coach was over, as well.

Rest in peace, Howard.

Bonus: Watch and read an oral history of Howard Schnellenberger at OU published by The Oklahoman in 2011.

Watch: OCAST interview with NextThought co-founder Ken Parker

In the video below, NextThought co-founder Ken Parker describes how his company uses technology to support what he calls “connected” online education. Read the related feature story in The Oklahoman.