Five key questions for Oklahoma 2025 Assembly
The first session of the 60th Oklahoma legislature will start on Monday, February 3.
Oklahoma City – Officials on both sides of the alley support the move to extend a tax exclusion tax program by allowing professional sports of women to participate.
Senate bill 820By senator Mary Boren, D-Norman, seeks to encourage female professional sports to locate themselves in the state by widening the Oklahoma Five Major Sports League Rebate Program Act to include female professional sports teams.
Past and signed last year, House Bill 3959 became effective on November 1, but only offers tax incentives to male professional sports teams.
Boren said she had tried without success last year to have female sports included in the law.
THE Oklahoma City Thunder is the only team that qualifies under provisions which require investing $ 10 million in salary within one year. A team could qualify for incentives out of 5% of the real gross pay capped at $ 10 million per year per team.
“If we want to have a vision of economic development around professional sports, we must include female sports, because the future of female sports is really brilliant at the moment,” said Boren. “It’s up. Growth has really taken off with regard to media players and the participation of fans. »»
Professional sports of women have the potential to grow in Oklahoma
Oklahoma City has a professional female softball team called The Oklahoma City Spark, and Tulsa housed Tulsa Shock, a women’s team from the National Basketball Association. But the team moved to Texas in 2015 and became the Dallas wings.
Boren said she hoped that the measure could attract new professional basketball and women’s football teams in the state while helping Oklahoma City Spark.
Oklahoma City Energy Football Club said they were interested in a professional women’s team, said the mayor of Oklahoma City, David Holt.
Holt had not read Boren’s bill and the comments reserved, but said that the interest in professional sports of women is increasing.
The success of Caitlin Clark of the WNBA Indiana fever popularized the game, said Holt.
“They see crowds much larger than in the past,” said Holt. “So I clearly think that the league has become the most established.”
But Holt said the National Women’s Soccer League also gets a lot of “buzz”.
“Oklahoma City considers itself a city particularly interested in female sports, mainly due to our long-standing relations with the Women’s (softball) College World Series,” he said. “We undoubtedly have the female sporting event of the first college in the United States.”
Meanwhile, Oklahoma City will receive international attention while serving as a place for the Women’s Softball Olympic competition in 2028.
The author of the Law Chamber, the former head of the majority, Jon Echols, R-Oklahoma City, approved Boren’s measure.
“I think they should have the same capacity as male sports teams,” he said.
The bill adopted the Senate credit committee by a vote of 23-1. It is eligible to be heard on the Senate soil.
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