Striking it Rich: The Story Behind the Tulsa Drillers

In 2002, when starry eyed recent college graduates Jason Klein and Casey White of Plan B Branding visited Tulsa, Oklahoma, on a research trip for one of their first projects, the spectacular view from their luxurious accommodations gave rise to a minor league baseball brand that has endured for more than a decade.

“We were staying at a Super 8 because we didn’t have any money,” Klein said. “On the outskirts of town, there were these great blue flames at night from the refineries as we were out on the more rural part of Tulsa.”

Plan B Branding, of course, would become the prolific minor league baseball branding firm Brandiose, and those blue flames would become one of the marks in the suite of logos belonging to the Tulsa Drillers.

The reason for the Drillers’ name is pretty obvious to anyone who knows the history of Tulsa. For most of the early 1900s, Tulsa laid claim to the title Oil Capital of the World, and was home to the industry’s glitterati—oil giants like Howard Hughes, J. Paul Getty, and William Sinclair.

“It’s basically what put Tulsa on the map, when they struck oil just south of Tulsa,” said Drillers Director of Public/Media Relations Brian Carroll. “It’s still very much an important part of the culture here in this city. As a professional sports team, we liked having that tie back to that era.”

So when a Double-A team from Lafayette, Louisiana, moved to Tulsa before the 1977 season, the name Drillers seemed like a natural fit. Oddly enough, the Lafayette team, which had only been around for two seasons, was already called the Drillers, so that made the transition pretty easy. Those Lafayette Drillers, Texas League co-champions in 1975, featured the likes of eventual Major Leaguers Jack Clark and Gary Alexander.

Oilers-Wayne-Mccombs — Photo by Wayne McCombs

The Drillers filled the baseball void left by another industry-themed team, the Triple-A Tulsa Oilers, who after 72 years in Tulsa, left Oklahoma in 1977 and are now the Louisville Bats, with stints as the New Orleans Pelicans and Springfield (Illinois) RedBirds along the way. (The name Tulsa Oilers lives on today in the form of a hockey team in the ECHL, founded in 1992.)

“It was very applicable to just keep the name Drillers when they moved here,” Carroll said. “It worked out perfectly because the Oilers had left town, but obviously the oil industry was very important to people at that time still, so the name Drillers just slotted right in.”

While big oil has declined in Tulsa, the name evokes the history of a city that, frankly, would likely not exist were it not for the industry.

“It’s really about history and what put Tulsa on the map. What changed the livelihood, what made it grow and prosper?” Klein said. “History allows us to provide a romantic angle to something like the oil industry that put you on the map.”

The approach that Plan B took, as with all of their early work, was to focus on a narrative.

“The story that we told, and all bought into collectively with the team, was this idea of the oil tycoon,” Klein said. “Here you are heading west, and as a prospector, you only needed to find one single drop of oil for your life to change as you knew it.”

For that reason, there’s no oil rig spewing oil all over the place in this brand—the current look, in use since the 2004 season, focus on that micro level.

“This is not a greasy, sticky identity,” Klein said. “It’s a very regal, majestic identity, specifically designed to highlight that idea of the single drop that would change your life.”

Photo by Rich Crimi/Tulsa Drillers. Via MiLB.com

The Drillers’ brand fits right in with their relatively new parent club, the Los Angeles Dodgers. In their second season in the LA farm system, the Drillers are starting to see alumni like Julio Urias (above) and Corey Seager make it to the bigs.

“Our colors match perfectly with the Dodgers, and I think that’s helped with the interest there,” Carroll said. “That relationship is starting to build and I think that will only get better and open up more doors in that area for us.”

And while the Drillers are a Double-A team, when they unveiled their new look in 2004, they wanted a brand that reflected the Major League aspirations of their players.

“We knew you could probably sell more caps by going the cartoon character route, or something like that. We didn’t want to go that direction,” Carroll said. “I’m not trying to knock anyone else and what their look is, but we want people to know that we’re a professional baseball team.”

You won’t find the Drillers on the list of minor league baseball’s top merchandise sellers, as they lack the splash of the Isotopes or Chihuahuas, the market size of Louisville or Oklahoma City, or the historical cache of the Bulls or Mud Hens. But you will find in them a brand that is consistent, relevant, and clean, and that’s an animal that’s becoming more and more rare in the current landscape—a landscape that has a slightly different look when you see it from the front door of your motel room at the Super 8.