[rquoter]In the summer of 1976, with the ABA at the point of financial collapse after nine years, the six surviving franchises (the Virginia Squires went bankrupt immediately after the final season) began negotiating a merger with the NBA. But the senior circuit decided to accept only four teams from the rival league: the Nets (the last ABA champion), Denver Nuggets, Indiana Pacers and San Antonio Spurs. The NBA placated John Y. Brown, owner of the Kentucky Colonels, by giving him a $3.3 million settlement in exchange for shutting his team down. (Brown later used much of that money to buy the Buffalo Braves of the NBA.) But the owners of the Spirits, the brothers Ozzie and Dan Silna, struck a prescient deal to acquire future television money from the teams that joined the NBA, a one-seventh share from each franchise, in perpetuity. With network TV deals becoming more and more lucrative, the deal has made the Silnas wealthy, earning them $186 million as of 2008, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and $255 million as of 2012 according to the New York Times.[1] (The NBA nearly succeeded in buying out the Silnas in 1982 by offering $5 million over eight years, but negotiations stalled when the siblings demanded $8 million over five.) On June 27, 2007, it was extended for another eight years, ensuring another $100 million-plus windfall for the Silnas. In 2014, the Silnas reached agreement with the NBA to end the perpetual payments and take a lump sum of $500 million instead. [2] In the last few years of the deal, the Silnas were receiving $14.57 million a year, despite being owners of a team that hadn't played one minute of basketball in 35 years.[3][/rquoter] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirits_of_St._Louis
Honolulu, Hawaii I'm surprised no one has mentioned this... There's literally nothing here... no Single/Triple A team, no D-League team, no professional sports of any kind to root for or watch. Instead we have the crappy University of Hawaii Warriors (who suck in every sport except women's volleyball).
NFL would be the only possibility because of the week of downtime. I can't imagine an NBA or NHL team flying out to Hawaii from New York (or wanting to) for a back-to-back.
MLB will never, ever move to Nola. MLB will never put another team in Florida either. NFL will never, ever move to SA as long as Jerrah an Bob are alive. Probably longer. NBA in Seattle has to happen.
New Orleans is too black and maybe too Southern for baseball. Football always wins out in the South and basketball always seems to be right there in the offseason. Also, I'm not sure New Orleans is as populous as its reputation indicates, so radio revenues, which are why most mid-level cities don't have teams, could be pretty brutal. Baseball in general probably shouldn't expand at all, they don't have any revenue or wage parity so a new team in a smaller city could easily breach the sub-50 win level and do so for multiple years.
A pro football franchise in Central Texas is automatically the fifth most popular team in San Antonio, people seem to forget that college alumni typically work and live in large metros.
Yeah, because there's a trillion things better to do there than eat a $15 hot dog in a cramped stadium, let alone sitting at home watching it on TV. Your state is awesome, deal with it.
And as long as athletes are their twenties and early thirties with millions of dollars, six months of free time every year, and a near pathological competitive streak. And it remains the female entertainment and service worker of the world, with some of the quickest and easiest marriage and divorce laws in the country.
I think every NBA team should play one game in Vegas as a neutral site. Can you imagine Clutchfans buying a sweet, suite in Vegas for one game each year?
The obvious one is Houston and the NHL. How does the 4th largest city (soon to be 3rd) in America not have a hockey team? It doesnt make sense at all. LA needs an NFL team, but they've had their chances.
Vegas should get an NBA team. People don't realize how popular basketball is here. You used to not be able to bet on college athletics involving any of the University of Nevada schools, but that was changed and now you can. You can't use the presence of books as an excuse anymore. Most lines are generated offshore anyway. People really need to get over the taboo on gambling. Sports wouldn't be as popular as they are today if it wasn't for sports betting. The two go hand in hand.
I posted about this a -long- time ago and was set straight in short order. UT is Austin's pro franchise: Basketball, Football and Baseball. Those three sports seem to have a shot at college championships ever ten years or so. What Austin is ripe for is NHL. A good chunk of their population is from more northern climes and a hockey team wouldn't have any competition from UT.
