Midland-Odessa Combined Statistical Area

I'm from Monahans, Texas.

I'm deep in the oil country over here, about 20, 30 miles west of Midland, Odessa.

And that's oil country?

That's oil country.

Like, I did plenty of work in the Permian Basin area when I was younger and I had hair and I was skinny and all that.

Uh, but it's great to be back in Midland, Odessa, you know, the Monahans and, and, uh, and that whole area there has just really been, um, welcoming and across political boundaries.

I think when we have real conversations about the issues that are important to people, it's-- e-especially for this sort of thing where it's our economy and our energy infrastructure, it's not, it's not so much red team, blue team, it's who's gonna get some, uh, stuff done.

And then, um...

And so if I'm in, in West Texas in the Permian Basin, those people want to keep energy production strong.

It's-- we think it's the backbone of the Texas economy.

Wait till you walk around in Midland and Odessa.

Most of the people are employed in or around the industry.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, or, like, Midland-Odessa.

That is the edge of the earth.

Um.

You know, I miss doing high school football.

I did Midland-Odessa a long time, then I did Westlake for several years.

Ain't nothing like great high school football in Central Texas and the State of Texas.

Yeah, and I, I'm from Pittsburgh, and so it's pretty big in Western Pennsylvania as well.

It's certainly a statewide issue.

I mean, we look at numbers from the Midland Odessa area where DWI is out the roof and You know, this is a very car-centric state.

You know, even our major cities don't have, you know, robust public transportation systems, you know, relative to, you know, the East and West Coast.

And so it's, you know, it's a problem that's going to require a whole-of-community approach.

Everybody kinda went down in this blaze of glory.

Um, but my television career, and the people coming in from Texas are, if they're listening to this right now, they're like, "Oh, okay, he's, he's connecting with us a little bit." You know, my television career started in Midland-Odessa, which was the movie Friday Night Lights.

Right, yep.

My wife and her brother played on that team highlighted in the movie of 1991 of Friday Night Lights.

We're a gorgeous 1827 seat venue.

we're a dual market between Midland and Odessa.

We are oil country.

And I love it right now because everyone who's watching Landman has come up to me and said, Oh my gosh, is that what life is really like in Midland? I'm like, parts of it are very real.

I love that it, to your point, it would have been so easy for people to place a building like that in one of those other cities.

And I just love that it does have its place in, you know, Western Texas.

And it is kind of in this great area of Odessa and Midland and stuff like it's, you know, it is probably providing such an amazing service to that side of the state and bringing the arts and everything to it, you know, where there may have been a little bit of that lacking prior to the building opening.

Oh, 100%.

Yeah, that's right.

To this fan base's credit and from a lot of people that have season tickets and you're driving in from Midland, Odessa, you're flying in from Houston.

I saw a lot of discussion about people flying in from Houston that weren't wearing U of H stuff.

They were wearing Texas Tech stuff.