BKIslandersFan
F*** off
Its not going to immediately bounce back. People everywhere do not have money to spend.
Shaq: Multiple NBA teams for sale. One might end up in Las Vegas
- Thread starter LadyStanley
- Start date
Maybe not immediately, but by the time an NBA team is ready to move? I'd bet by then we'd be fine. Provided things cool off soon. Either way I don't really want another team here just yet.
Ernie
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Is this really the time to be adding a team to Las Vegas though? It's likely the hardest hit city economically in the US by covid-19.
No way the economics work for Vancouver unless the Canadian dollar suddenly rebounds to near par. Which isn't happening any time soon, as much as I'd like to see a team in Vancouver.
a lot of nba teams are in dumb market. memphis, charlotte, orlando and new orleans are incredibly dumb places to have nba teams.
By the time a possible relocation if one were to happen, Seattle's arena would be done and opened up. Seattle has David Bonderman minority owner of the Boston Celtics as co-majority over of NHL Seattle.
LeHab
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NFL is by far the most valuable league. NBA has very solid fundamentals especially with generous TV contracts making them less vulnerable to empty arenas woes.
If teams are for sale, more likely owners are looking for cash to finance other businesses. However selling a team is not a quick process and ultimately has to be approved by peers. Smaller stake could make sense for short term. Also a reloc would incur relocation fees.
Only team on open market at the moment that I am aware of are NY Mets.
tarheelhockey
Offside Review Specialist
They're no worse than the next 4 places you could name to move them.
There's a reason the NHL also has teams in similar markets. The NBA and NHL don't want to compete for arenas, TV ratings, STH bases. Given the choice, the leagues are better off playing in Charlotte (NBA) and Raleigh (NHL) than both being in Pittsburgh or Seattle at the same time.
The biggest issue in the 4 cities you named is that these are their records over the past 3 years:
Charlotte 98-131
Memphis 87-142
New Orleans 109-119
Orlando 97-132
The NBA has created a dynamic where your team is either a dynasty or a total non-factor, with no in-between or serious hope for a reversal of fortune. If your team is a non-factor and stumbles into a star, you are basically just watching the clock run down before he goes to a dynasty. There's no real purpose for a small-market fan to get emotionally invested in the team. Of the 4 big leagues, the NBA is by far the worst about this and it shows in the way its small markets are basically welfare cases surviving on sellouts by road team fans.
It's really hard to overstate how extreme this is in the NBA. The four franchises above have played a combined total of 104 seasons. In those 104 seasons, the only time any of them have ever won a 3rd round game was Orlando during a 2-year blip with peak Dwight Howard, and that blip ended when Howard... left to go to the Lakers.
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I'm all for it. The Raiders will have a built a deep rooted following in Vegas by default just by virtue of being an NHL destination. I don't doubt how much people love the VGK but they've got a roster to be competitive for a good little while. I'd rather see the VGK really deepen their roots among fans in the area before we start thinking about adding another major sports franchise to distract from their attention with competing seasons.
That's the thing Vegas might already be tapped out as a sports market with NFL and NHL. The virus issue just made it harder for a 3rd team of the big 4 to come in and succeed in terms of the cooperate dollar. The cooperate dollar available has been seriously reduced due to the virus and it'll take a while (couple years) before it recovers.
NBA will do fine in Seattle even with a NHL team. And its all been setup to where the sponsor $$$ increases if a NBA team were to show up. The sponsor deals include a NBA clause in it. Note If the NBA were to give Seattle their team back, it'll be under the same ownership group as the NHL. One group owning both teams.
The idea that the NBA doesn't want to be in a market that is home to a NHL team is ridicilous. Note Detroit pistons used to be in their own building in the suburbs now they play in the same building as the red wings.
tarheelhockey
Offside Review Specialist
That's easy to say about a top-15 market like Detroit or Seattle.
When you talk about moving 4 NBA teams, you're talking about Seattle as BY FAR the biggest market, followed by a bunch of markets that would either be clearly oversaturated (Kansas City), in an unwinnable head-to-head with the NHL/NFL (Pittsburgh, Vegas, St. Louis, Nashville), or a market no better than the one they just left (Louisville, San Diego, Cincy, Baltimore). The options run out really fast.
Under the right setup, both the nba and nhl can work in the smaller markets example same owners. There is a false idea by a small group of seattle fans that believe that the nba will never return to seattle as long as key arena is the only option.
tarheelhockey
Offside Review Specialist
Under what setup would any of the small markets work well with a terrible NBA team? After a brief relocation honeymoon, Louisville or Cincy will give a perennial loser the same level of tepid support as a Charlotte or New Orleans. If there's also an NHL team splitting the market, it's almost inevitable that the market fails to support both teams -- and that goes double in a place like Nashville where the NFL is also in the mix.
This issue is clearly reflected in this chart:
List of American and Canadian cities by number of major professional sports franchises - Wikipedia
That chart is visually appealing because you can visibly see how the NBA and NHL have danced around each other to avoid sharing smaller markets. That is not random or driven by circumstance... there is a reason the NHL strategically picked places like Nashville, Columbus, and Vegas in its most recent expansions.
But MSAs are not really the best way to look at population... switch over to a chart of TV markets, which better reflect the The smallest market in North America with both an NBA and NHL team is Denver, which is the 18th largest TV market (including Toronto). Over the years there has been a dance between the leagues around top-15 markets like Atlanta, Houston, Seattle... places where the leagues' failure to co-exist is more circumstantial than market-driven. It's clear that there is a range where the leagues are comfortable co-existing.
But once you get down to around the 20 range (Tampa and Orlando, extreme examples of Florida sprawl which changes the dynamic, show up a little higher) you very clearly see the divergence. The highest-ranked TV markets for an NBA relocation would be St. Louis and Pittsburgh, terrible choices from a market-saturation standpoint. The first city with a growing economy and little market competition is, I guess, San Diego? Or Kansas City? Those teams won't support a terrible team either, hence nobody jumping on an NBA team to relocate there. It would be just as well to stay in an Orlando or Charlotte and try to make it work.
LeHab
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I believe lack of parity in NBA is by design. If you want national and international growth, super teams with superstars is the way to go. Those out of market fans are less likely to be loyal to a specific team but want to see winners. Basket is the perfect fit to generate superstars as a single player has so much influence over outcome of games. Not something you can pull with hockey and why NHL will never have similar recognition.
Sucks for the small market NBA teams but as long as you have good revenue sharing among the have and have not I think this is the best strategy for the whole league to maximize value. There is still hope for the smaller markets if you manage to score that generational talent. Cavaliers and GSW were small potatoes before becoming powerhouses and all attention was there...until success runs out. Let's see what happens with Pelicans if Zion lives up to the hype.
Centrum Hockey
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The nba has stated in the past that they have a lot of regret about how the Vancouver situation played out and they have a praised the market on multiple occasions since.
They were talking to the vancouver media of course they would say that but will they get their team back who knows. They also regret about the seattle situation too when the sonics left. Seattle has better odds of getting their team back than vancouver does.
Skinnyjimmy08
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Centrum Hockey
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I am pretty sure David Stern(RIP) and Adam silver to a lesser extent had an intense dislike For the political climate in Seattle and how they where treated in 2006-2008. The NBA’s attitude towards the city has seemed to have gotten better now that there is an viable arena getting built and most of the people involved with the late era Sonics are no longer involved with anything.
Stern admited he had regrets about seattle issue later on. Its why the nba has fought so hard to avoid another relocation of a team after the seattle mess. If they didnt care about teams moving, the kings would been moved to seattle with the dead sodo project happening.
Eh i wouldnt be so sure. Nba wasnt too happy about the all star event there some years ago.
No guarantees nba relocates a team there when there are better markets nor will they ecpand any time soon.
Ernie
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The way that expansion was handled was blatantly unfair and intended to limit the success of the franchise. The NBA blocked Vancouver (and Toronto) from having ANY top five picks in the draft for the first 3 seasons. The expansion draft allowed teams to protect 8 players on their rosters, which basically means that the every single team in the NBA was able to keep ALL their starters and any useful bench players. Toronto and Vancouver were left fighting for whatever scraps were left.
The Grizzlies were set up to fail. They also shot themselves in the foot by selecting "Big Country" Reeves, or as my coworkers called him, "Big Stupid", with the 6th overall pick.
So yeah, the NBA should absolutely be regretful with how things went down. But that doesn't mean that there is an economic case for a franchise right now, as much as I'd love to see a team in Vancouver. It works in Toronto because the market is 2.5 times size of Vancouver.
And right now is the worst time for another Canadian team with the Canadian dollar way down.
HisIceness
This is Hurricanes Hockey
If you're not a fan of a certain few teams that can contend for a championship, investing in the NBA as a die-hard just seems pointless these days. I can pick up tickets for $15-20 in the nose-bleeds for a Hornets vs Wizards game at Spectrum Center and move up to the lower levels of the upper deck. This pisses off the season-ticket holders but there's just not a lot of demand to go see a lousy team w/ little hope for improvement.
The NBA used to have their bread buttered with two groups of markets, the big leagues like New York and the "one-horse towns" like San Antonio, but fewer and fewer people care for the actual 'team' in this day and age and just root for the stars. I've been in Orlando when the Magic were playing and there was more interest in their MLS club who were not in season, and the Magic used to be a great small-market for the league. Family in Memphis tell me the same thing with the Grizzlies, everyone knows they have no shot in competing with the Lakers so the interest is not there and the novelty of having an NBA franchise has worn off. I go to Hornets games often and people are there for the experience more so than to cheer on the local team, or to see LeBron play.
Unless the parity improves, it's only going to get worse.
The NBA used to have their bread buttered with two groups of markets, the big leagues like New York and the "one-horse towns" like San Antonio, but fewer and fewer people care for the actual 'team' in this day and age and just root for the stars. I've been in Orlando when the Magic were playing and there was more interest in their MLS club who were not in season, and the Magic used to be a great small-market for the league. Family in Memphis tell me the same thing with the Grizzlies, everyone knows they have no shot in competing with the Lakers so the interest is not there and the novelty of having an NBA franchise has worn off. I go to Hornets games often and people are there for the experience more so than to cheer on the local team, or to see LeBron play.
Unless the parity improves, it's only going to get worse.
Centrum Hockey
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Did the distance between Seattle and Vancouver hurt the grizzles chances at success. The raptors have the advantage of the Buffalo/Upstate New York market being vacant.
Na Vanccouver was set up to failure. I was just saying with this whole virus mess, adding another canadain team wouldn't be the right movie at the current moment.
SwivelSchwartz
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There is also a large portion that have been sitting on cash and waiting to use it now too. There’s people making a lot of money right now
