Why did Tina Floyd start the OKC Spark and bring pro softball to Oklahoma? 'It's a calling'
One day after the Oklahoma City Spark had finished practice, Tina Floyd watched as a couple of kids bounced from player to player asking for autographs.
The softball players obliged because, well, no softball player has ever said no to a kid who wants an autograph. The awe in kids’ eyes. The smiles. The excitement. It’s impossible to turn away.
But on this day, Floyd got the sense the players were the ones in awe, even the likes of Jocelyn Alo and Keilani Ricketts. That's because the kids asking for the autographs were there with their mom, Jennie Finch, one of the greatest softball players ever and a player many on the Spark roster grew up idolizing.
A few had probably even stood in line for her autograph.
Floyd, the Spark’s owner, felt like she was watching something come full circle.
“Our players were in awe that she was there,” Floyd said of Finch. “That was a great moment.”
But ask Floyd when she knew she’d made the right decision to start a Women’s Professional Fastpitch franchise in Oklahoma City, and she says the day Finch and her kids came to practice is just one of many great moments.
“It’s every day,” she said.
As the Spark prepares to play in its permanent home for the first time Saturday ― USA Softball Hall of Fame Stadium needed a little downtime after the Women’s College World Series ― the new franchise is already making a mark. Through Wednesday night, it had a 7-2 record, only half a game out of first in Women’s Professional Fastpitch.
A year ago, the Spark didn’t exist.
Now, it’s fighting for the league lead.
To know how the Spark got here, you have to know about Floyd, a 49-year-old wife and mother of four who decided to turn her softball fandom into a softball franchise.
More: What to know about the OKC Spark's inaugural softball season
Who is Tina Floyd?
Tina Floyd was born and raised in Tuttle.
But she learned a lot about how to live on her grandparents’ farm in southeast Oklahoma.
Floyd’s parents were young when she was born, and ultimately, they divorced. While they did what they could, Floyd ended up spending lots of time with her grandparents, Cecil and Wanda Poteet.
Her grandma taught Tina all sorts of skills. Cooking. Cleaning. Sewing. Gardening.
“She truly taught me how to be a self-sufficient woman,” Floyd said.
“She taught me how to live.”
As important as anything, though, her grandmother showed Floyd how to treat people. Never say bad things about other people. Think about their feelings. Treat them the way you want to be treated.
“Just a kind, kind soul that would do anything for people,” Floyd said. “I want to be a kind person and help women because she helped me learn who I was and what I wanted to do, what I didn’t want to do and who I wanted to be.”
But before Floyd decided to be a softball-team owner, she was an educator.
She spent years teaching, then eventually got two master’s degrees and even a doctorate to work as an administrator, but all along the way, she remembers seeing inequities. There were female teachers who had pay lagging behind male peers. There were girls who were sometimes treated differently than boys, whether in class, in the hall or in sports.
“Wait a minute,” Floyd remembers thinking. “That’s not right.”
When two of her daughters ― she and husband, Robert, have three daughters and a son ― decided to go into the military, Floyd heard lots of disbelief from people.
“Your daughter wants to go?” they’d ask.
Such inequities didn’t hit Floyd like a boulder.
They were more like grains of sand in her shoe.
“Those little things probably just built up along the years for me,” she said.
Eventually, the irritation became motivation.
More: Why OU softball great Jocelyn Alo, teammates know OKC Spark will 'be a smashing success'
Can’t start a fire without a spark
About a year and a half ago, Tina and Robert Floyd started talking about how they could get involved with Women’s Professional Fastpitch.
They had become big fans and supporters of OU softball and had gotten to know WPF commissioner Lauren Chamberlain, the former Sooner slugger. Tina loved not only the way the Sooners played but also how empowered the women in the program were. She wanted to help Chamberlain build the same thing in the WPF.
“What can I do to help get females equality, equity, whatever it is in the world that they deserve?” Floyd asked.
She considered becoming a WPF sponsor; she and Robert own Floyd’s RVs. Or maybe she could be a partner in an ownership group; the league was looking to expand after its inaugural season last year.
She needed to do something.
“I need to be part of this,” she remembers telling her husband, “because it’s a calling to me.”
Finally, Floyd realized there wasn’t an obvious fit with other potential owners and if she was going to be an owner, she and Robert would have to go it alone.
“If this is what you’re passionate about and you feel like … you’re the best fit and you want to do it,” she remembers him saying, “I support you 100%.”
On July 26, the Floyds signed the franchise paperwork with the WPF and became the owners of the Oklahoma City Spark.
Chamberlain remembers calling on Floyd when the league was founded in 2021. Chamberlain simply asked Floyd to answer the phone if she called and needed a sounding board or a bit of advice.
“What started really as just kind of vote of support from a well-respected woman in Oklahoma City turned into now the owner of the Oklahoma City Spark,” Chamberlain said.
Floyd never shied away from big goals.
“I want to take this Oklahoma City team and turn it into the premier franchise of WPF,” Chamberlain remembers Floyd telling her.
For Floyd, being the best was about more than wins and losses.
More: Oklahoma City Spark releases schedule, will open inaugural season with home game June 15
Tina Floyd’s vision for the Spark
Tina Floyd knew she wanted to be an owner who empowered her players.
If they didn’t understand what was in their contract, she wanted to put them in touch with someone who could explain it. If they had kids and required child care, she wanted to provide financial assistance. If they needed help finding housing or work during the season ― WPF salaries aren’t enough to live on ― she wanted to help.
But Floyd needed some help, too.
She had a passion and a vision but no experience running a pro sports franchise. She called on Michael Byrnes, president and general manager of the Oklahoma City Dodgers.
“I have really valued her level of curiosity,” Byrnes said.
He said he knows lots of sports fans believe they understand the ins and outs of running a franchise, but the reality is different.
“There’s just so much that goes on behind the scenes,” Byrnes said. “So as Tina transitioned from being a fan of the game to now being in the profession, I have really valued that our conversations have been with such a high level of curiosity.
“The depths of follow-up question two, three and four … is what’s really struck me about her as someone that’s picking all of this up at one time.”
Floyd admits she’s still learning.
She didn’t want to overhire in the team’s first year, but how do you do that and still have enough interns to throw out T-shirts and enough employees to sell sponsorships?
“It’s the stuff that I don’t know that I don’t know,” she said.
But she’s willing to roll with the punches. If the dugout needs to be cleaned after a game, she’ll pick up trash. If the team needs a place to store gear on the road, she’ll keep 35 bats in her hotel room.
She isn’t deterred.
“I gotta at least try,” she said, “try to do it the right way.”
Floyd realizes everything won’t be perfect right away. Player salaries, for example, will take years to grow. Same for ticket sales and broadcast viewers.
“But maybe,” she said, “this is laying the groundwork to get where it needs to be.”
Tina Floyd has always been willing to do whatever it takes to make her way in the world, to be who she wants to be and to do what she wants to do. Now, she wants to enable her players to feel the same way.
Perhaps along the way, they’ll inspire others.
A few months ago during the WPF Draft in Oklahoma City, Floyd wore a blue blazer lined with material featuring the Spark logo along with softballs and bats. Everyone could see the detail on her rolled-up cuffs.
But stitched inside her jacket in small script lettering were the words: “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
They were near her heart.
Jenni Carlson: Jenni can be reached at 405-475-4125 or jcarlson@oklahoman.com. Like her at facebook.com/JenniCarlsonOK, follow her at twitter.com/jennicarlson_ok, and support her work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.
Spark Hall of Fame Stadium Opener
When: 7 p.m. Saturday
Where: USA Softball Hall of Fame Stadium
Tickets: Season tickets and single-game tickets are available at www.okcspark.com/tickets.
Note: Several special events will take place before and during the Oklahoma City Spark’s first game at Hall of Fame Stadium. Darci Lynne will sing the national anthem, and a special guest will throw out the first pitch. The team’s mascot will be revealed, and after the game, there will be a drone light show.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OKC Spark's Tina Floyd went from softball fan to pro team owner
