FC Tulsa

• 1. Introduction

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  FC Tulsa is a professional soccer club playing in the second tier of American soccer, rooted in a city whose identity was long defined not by the beautiful game but by oil. On the 18th of December 2013, two brothers named Jeff and Dale Hubbard stepped forward as co-owners and co-chairs of a new team, bringing with them the credibility of running the Tulsa Drillers, a successful minor league baseball franchise. They were not starting from nothing. They were reaching backward into history, toward a name that once packed stadiums and won a national championship.

  What would this club be called? Who would fill the seats? And what does it mean to build a soccer identity in a city shaped by roughnecks and oil derricks? Those are the questions this story answers.

• 2. A Name From the Past

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  Tulsa Roughnecks FC was the name chosen in February 2014, winning nearly 50% of the votes in a public naming contest. The name was a deliberate act of memory. An earlier Tulsa Roughnecks had played in the original North American Soccer League from 1978 until the league folded in 1984. That team was best known for winning Soccer Bowl '83, the championship of its era.

  The word "roughneck" carried double meaning. By dictionary definition, it names a worker in an oil-well drilling crew. Tulsa had long called itself the Oil Capitol, and the original team logo featured an oil derrick as its centerpiece. Orange and Navy Blue were chosen as the club colors, with Adidas supplying all kits. The identity was intentional from the start: a soccer club that looked and felt like the city it came from.

  On the 2nd of September 2014, the team logo, colors, and uniforms were formally introduced to the public. The club would spend its first years finding its footing, posting a winning record in 2017 and earning a conference quarterfinal appearance, while still searching for the ownership and direction that would define its next chapter.

• 3. New Owners, New Name

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  On the 20th of August 2019, the Craft family completed a purchase of the club from the Drillers ownership group and Prodigal Soccer. JW, Ryan, and Kyle Craft were Tulsa natives and brothers, which meant the club passed from one set of brothers to another. The transition brought a new sense of local commitment.

  The Craft family's first major act was a rebrand. On the 4th of December 2019, the club announced it would compete as FC Tulsa starting with the 2020 season. The new logo was designed by Matthew Wolff. The name dropped the oil-field reference in favor of something more direct: the city's name, full stop.

  The timing of the rebrand collided with a global disruption. The 2020 USL Championship season was drastically shortened. FC Tulsa played only 15 matches, finishing 6 wins, 2 losses, and 7 draws. Despite the shortened season, the club reached the conference quarterfinal. Rodrigo da Costa finished as the top scorer that year with 8 goals, and average attendance came in at 2,636 per match.

• 4. Home at ONEOK Field

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  ONEOK Field sits in the Greenwood District of Downtown Tulsa, a neighborhood with its own deep and fraught history. The stadium holds 7,833 seats and opened in 2010 as a baseball venue. FC Tulsa made it their home in 2015.

  Converting a baseball field to a soccer pitch requires a specific kind of ingenuity. Real sod is laid across the entire infield for match days. The pitch stretches the full length of the stadium, with one goal positioned on the North side and the other on the South. It is a workaround born of sharing, and it shapes the atmosphere in ways a purpose-built soccer ground never would.

  On the 22nd of November 2025, the stadium exceeded its own limits. A nationally televised USL Championship Final between FC Tulsa and Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC drew 9,507 fans, setting a new attendance record for the ground. That crowd was nearly 1,700 more than the venue's listed capacity.

• 5. Rivals and Community

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  Oklahoma City Energy FC is the club's primary rival, with both teams based in the same state. The fixture between them is called the Black Gold Derby, a name that nods to the petroleum history connecting the two cities. The supporters groups of both clubs agreed on a trophy: a four-foot wrench painted in each team's colors on opposing sides, awarded to whichever side claims the better regular-season record in the derby.

  The only officially recognized supporters group is 83UNITED, a name that almost certainly honors the year the original Roughnecks claimed Soccer Bowl '83. Two unofficial groups also exist: the Tulsa Lunatics and the 918 Brigade. The 918 area code covers Tulsa and the surrounding region, giving that group's name a geographic specificity.

  A second local derby exists with Tulsa Athletic. The two clubs have met three times in official competition, with those meetings possible only through the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup. In preseason the teams have faced each other more often, but the formal cup competition provides the only stage for meaningful results between them.

• 6. Championship Season

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  Taylor Calheira scored 21 goals in 2025, the most of any player in FC Tulsa's recorded history by a significant margin. The club as a whole posted 50 goals across 30 matches, finishing first in their conference with a 16-5-9 record and a points-per-game mark of 1.90, the best in club history.

  On the 15th of November 2025, FC Tulsa defeated New Mexico United 3-0 to claim the USL Championship Western Conference title. That victory carried them to the championship final, where they faced Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC. The club finished as runners-up in the 2025 USL Championship, the first time the club had reached the final in its history.

  Head coach Luke Spencer led the club through that run, supported by sporting director and general manager Caleb Patterson-Sewell and technical director Mario Sanchez. The year-by-year record shows that no previous FC Tulsa or Tulsa Roughnecks FC season had come close to the 2025 points total of 57, making it a clear departure from every earlier campaign.

• 7. International Connections

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  During the 2017 and 2018 seasons, when the club still carried the Roughnecks name, it held a formal MLS affiliation with Chicago Fire FC. That connection had a personal dimension: the head coach at the time, David Vaudreuil, had made 26 appearances for Chicago during the 2001-2002 MLS season. The affiliation ended in January 2019.

  A different kind of partnership followed in February 2020. After the club posted a playful tweet about forming a friendship with a Championship-level side in England, Wigan Athletic of the EFL Championship responded. The exchange turned into a formal partnership, announced on the 11th of February 2020.

  On the 18th of January 2024, FC Tulsa announced a more structured arrangement with US Triestina Calcio 1918, a Serie C club in Italy. The partnership covers scouting, data analysis, player development, and operational best practices. For a second-tier American club, that kind of technical collaboration with a European side points toward the direction the organization wants to grow.