Could Louisville support a Big 4 sports team?

[CHRDANHUTCH]

1. Duke/UNC are over 2 hours away from Charlotte.
2. The Hornets "Struggle" by bringing in $240 million in revenue and turning a profit. If that's "struggling" then yes, Louisville would "struggle" in the NBA.

then u add in Wake Forest into that NC mix, if not NC State

 

[KevFu]

then u add in Wake Forest into that NC mix, if not NC State

NC State and Wake are further away from Charlotte than Duke/UNC.

Davidson and Charlotte are near Charlotte. North Carolina is a basketball mad state. Those programs are supported... and Charlotte NBA is supported. Every metric of support is just fine for Charlotte. "But they're near the bottom in attendance/revenue" So what? They're healthy. If you're the 30th richest person, you're still rich.

 

[HisIceness]

Seems like the consensus here is NBA only or not at all. Hopefully this area can get a NBA team some day, would love for them to have their own sports team and to see a major league have a team in Louisville.

They've tried before.

-In the late 90's Les Alexander threatened to relocate the Rockets there, all in an attempt to get what would be the Toyota Center, so nothing serious but it put Louisville in the conversation.

-The owner of the Vancouver Grizzlies originally was torn between Louisville and St. Louis, but the league wanted to keep the conferences in tact IIRC so St. Louis became the front-runner. In the end however, Memphis got the franchise.

-George Shinn wanted to relocate the Hornets to Louisville in 2001. At that time, the city was in the process of putting together a plan to build what would be the KFC Yum Center (would have been called the KFC Bucket), but the mayor at that time for whatever reason refused to get behind the project. As such, Louisville was quickly taken off the board and the franchise ended up in New Orleans.

Keep in mind all of this was in a span from about 1999 to 2002, so 20 years ago at this point. It's kind of hard to say whether their time has come and gone, but now with Seattle still having a vacancy, Las Vegas having interest, and even a possible re-birth in Vancouver due to the rising popularity of the league in Canada, that's going to make their path all the more harder. That is unless some very wealthy investor drops by and makes an offer too good to refuse.

 

[HisIceness]

I see people are talking about the Hornets.

The Hornets problem is they just suck. Poorly managed, poorly drafting/developing players, an owner who lives off his name, former glory as a player, and shitty merchandise (All NBA teams will be sponsored by Jumpman next season so MJ just gets richer here). And this goes back to the original Hornets as well, remember this is the same franchise that drafted Kobe Bryant and then traded him for two years for an unhappy Vlade Divac, who left for Sacramento as a FA and had a career revival.

But even then people still go to games. A lot of it is dudes in designer clothes w/ their dates drinking the expensive cocktails or they are there to see LeBron/Curry/Giannis, but butts in seats is butts in seats. They are still somewhat living off the novelty of being the Hornets again after an unsuccessful stint as the 'Bobcats' but despite that fading, and despite Kemba Walker leaving, people here still talk about them and wear the apparel. Sellouts are not common, but in their case they are doing fine and are backed well financially.

Even if Charlotte had an ACC school, I'm still sure people would show up to games. I've been when UNC plays Duke/State/Wake/Kentucky and crowds are still 80% or higher. Keep in mind that Charlotte is a heavily transplant city, and there are people here who didn't grow up with and don't give a shit about ACC hoops.

Anyways, I don't mean to get off-topic, just wanted to address the Hornets situation.

 

[MMC]

Also, I already have ideas for other areas I'd want to start a discussion about, but if anyone has any ideas they'd like to see, let me know in the replies

 

[Voight]

Yes I do, but that doesn't mean it's going to be easy or will happen. I would think one of the two winter leagues (NBA/NHL) is the more likely scenario, but I suppose MLS could be of interest. NFL and MLB are probably long-shots, especially NFL with nearby Cincinnati and Indianapolis already occupied.

Louisville has a few things in their favor, they've got a couple of Fortune 500 companies in town (KFC Yum Brands and Kindred Healthcare), another that drifts in and out of the list (Humana), and they've also got Papa Johns, a Ford motor plant, and UPS Airlines has their Worldport there. So there's corporate support in place. They also are a tourist destination, sort of a Nashville-light I guess (Kentucky Bourbon trail and the Derby are popular w/ out-of-towners). They would also have no competition in state except for NCAA, which could be a bit of a deterrent, but other markets like Raleigh and Columbus, and even Nashville have to compete with NCAA as well.

According to Google, Kentucky appears to have two Billionaires living in the state. One is B. Wayne Hughes, founder of Public Storage and an investor in Horse Racing and the other is his own daughter. Mr. Hughes is in his 80's and his daughter is in her late 50's. Are either interested in being an owner for a sports team? Nothing I've seen suggests so and I would doubt it at this time, especially at this stage in their lives. So this would mean an out-of-stater would likely have to get involved.

Naturally, the NBA would be the perfect fit since the state is hoops-crazy. The market would be similar to other markets like Memphis, Orlando, OKC, Sacramento, Utah, Portland, and San Antonio in that they would be NBA-only or only have MLS to deal with on a major-league level. However, the NBA and small-markets I think are kind of at an impasse right now. The franchise in these markets tend to be bottom-feeder to the big boys and w/ the NBA being a superstar-driven league, that's just going to make recruiting and keeping star players all the more harder, we will see what happens w/ Giannis in Milwaukee next summer. Louisville might be interesting to some U of K stars to play there, but then again a lot of that programs top talent comes from other states.

What I do think the city could potentially support, would be yes, the NHL, especially if they had a Vinik/Dundon or even a Nashville-type of owner. It's a college market, similar to Raleigh, Nashville, and Columbus. It's a growing market, not quite as rapidly as others but still growing. It's 46th largest metro puts it in the "realm" with Buffalo, New Orleans, Salt Lake City, and Memphis, so it's on the smaller scale but it's "do-able". It's TV market is also on the smaller scale but still "do-able". It would be the only other NHL-only US market besides Raleigh, and unlike Raleigh they would have the state of Kentucky to themselves, and possibly even market to Indiana, which has no NHL franchise.

Now comes the real question. U of L has their mens/womens hoops and volleyball teams, and other university events, hosted at KFC Yum Center. Are they willing to share? I would doubt it. The building itself seems perfect for the NBA, not really sure for NHL but it's in a good location, it's somewhat new, and appears to have adequate number of suites. It's just again, U of L occupies the building heavily during the NBA/NHL seasons.

So yes, of all the "untapped" markets left, I think Louisville is the last option that major leagues would be interested in. Austin already got their MLS franchise so for arguments sake I took them off the table. That doesn't mean it will happen, but no one should be surprised if they are given a shot.

Actually 2 plants.

As for OP - I have a ton of family there and spent a lot of my childhood there. I fully believe they could support a major league basketball or football team. most likely basketball, but I think an NFL team would work as well.

 

[IU Hawks fan]

I would be for it, as I never found the Bulls to be a rival on par with Indiana; if anything, I always feel like we are far beneath Chicago. However, Louisville and Indianapolis are cities that are similar in size and theology, plus in sports, there's a rivalry in soccer called the LIPAFC, or Louisville-Indianapolis Proximity Association Football Competition that could also exist in the NBA level if we were to reignite a rivalry like the in old ABA days between the Pacers and the Kentucky Colonels (though with today's climate, "Colonel" might not be the popular nickname).

The problem is NBA rivalries tend to come and go.

When I was growing up in the mid-late 90s, the Pacers were definitely their arch rival. But before that it was Detroit, and both the Cavs and Heat have had periods of being it since.

Meanwhile Milwaukee never really has been despite being up the street, since they've never been good at the same time.

I definitely don't think Chicago is 'above' being rivals with Indy. Our biggest rivalries are with Detroit, St. Louis, Minnesota, and friggen Green Bay, so it's not like city size matters. They're just not in the same division in the right sports.

 

[Big Z Man 1990]

In my proposal to expand MLB to 40 teams years after expanding to 32, Louisville gets an NL team. Louisville last had MLB in 1899. Until Montreal, Louisville was the last city to lose an non-Federal League MLB team without getting a replacement. The two Federal League metro areas not currently represented in MLB, Buffalo and Indianapolis, are likewise part of my 40-team plan.