New Arena Project Nearing an Important Milestone, Oklahoma AD Roger Denny Says

NORMAN — While the Oklahoma women’s basketball program already had plenty of momentum, the men’s program has made strides toward closing the gap in recent months.

Both programs added general managers to help shape the roster and Porter Moser’s program has utilized improved resources to add veterans B.J. Edwards from SMU and Duke Brennan from Villanova recently out of the portal after an earlier haul that included Pop Isaacs, Tyler Hendricks, Khani Booths, Akoldah Gak and Yaak Yaak.

Oklahoma athletic director Roger Denny said Thursday that adding additional resources to help make the basketball programs better was a concerted effort with construction underway on a new arena at the Rock Creek Entertainment District.

“Two years from now when we go out to market to sell that arena we’ve got to have those two programs humming,” Denny said in a meeting with a small group of reporters. “We can’t expect that we’re going to wait until two years from now and make a bunch of investment and get those things rolling. So investing today in basketball so two years from now when we get out to market and start selling that place we get the reaction that we want so that by the time we move in we’ve got it really full and loud and everything that every one of us hopes for out of our basketball arena.”

Since the groundbreaking ceremonies in May, construction has been underway at the arena site near 24th Avenue Northwest and Radius Way.

So far that work has focused on infrastructure and utility work in advance of construction on the arena and other buildings on the property.

The project is reaching an important milestone, Denny said, and soon after the project will ramp into high gear.

“We are kind of nearing the end of the operator selection process,” Denny said. “That procurement process will wrap up here in the next few weeks. We’ll select an operator and then we will dive in headfirst into the design of that place and not just the arena but everything around it. I expect a lot of movement on that project, especially movement that folks will begin to start to see and feel what that's going to look like here over the next few months.”

The decision on the operator is an important one, Denny said.

“I think as we think about what that partnership looks like with whoever ultimately operates that arena, where I’ve seen those things go bad is where the economics are bifurcated as such that the operator is making decisions in certain areas on the arena that benefit them more than the owner or vice versa,” Denny said. “So it’s finding a partnership where our interests are aligned. … Our interest is building community around our program, around the city of Norman, and around the state of Oklahoma. So we’ve got to find the right partner that understands that and is willing from time to time to lose a few pennies because it makes more sense from a broad perspective. Partners do that from time to time.”

The arena, which will host the women's basketball program in addition to the basketball teams, is scheduled to open during the 2028-29 season.

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