subject: Contraction For Dummies, Or Why Shrinking The Nba Does Nothing For Anyone [print this page] Terence Moore of FanHouse argues that the NBA should take LeBron's (initial) advice and cut 3-4 teams. He names the Memphis Grizzlies, New Jersey Nets, L.A. Clippers and Atlanta Hawks as prime candidates.
Bad attendance is used as a decision point on which teams are worthy of contraction. The Hawks draw 14,000 fans a game and the Lakers draw 19,000. Those 5,000 missing fans, 41 times a year ... that's the justification despite the cold cash the 14,000 fans who do show up are spending, and the millions the networks (local and national) pay the NBA for the right to air their games, and the millions in Joe Johnson jerseys and Hawks hats and logo toasters (no, really!) the team and league earn? Contractionists like Moore are dealing in small potatoes, y'all. David Stern is looking at the big picture, and it's filled with money. It's a giant frame filled with dollars.
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Look at Seattle. The metropolis got knocked out of the NBA because the taxpayers wouldn't pony up a new arena, and the NBA and local ownership couldn't (or wouldn't) figure out another way. How much money do you think the good people of Seattle are spending on the NBA right now? No jerseys, no gate, no merch, no parking revenue. No Sonics logo toasters. The NBA -- and laugh if you want, but I do believe this -- tried really hard to stay in Seattle. They will probably try hard to return to Seattle if an arena is built (or KeyArena is updated). David Stern does not discriminate against dollars from certain longitudes. He's a brilliant businessman, and it killed him to leave the Emerald City ... even if his pissed-off soundbites told a different story.
If there was no money to be had, he wouldn't have cared. If there was no money to be had, the NBA wouldn't have spent hundreds of thousands trying to find an arena solution in Sacramento. If there was no money to be had, the NBA wouldn't have bailed out George Shinn and bought the Hornets.
If there was no money to be had, no thirst for pro basketball in non-glamour cities, taxpayers in cities like Oklahoma City and Kansas City wouldn't fund arenas without an NBA tenant in place. OKC built the Ford Center before Clay Bennett took over the Sonics, all on the hopes of landing an NBA squad. Kansas City did the same, and waits.
You think all these multi-millionaire businessmen are dummies? You think Michael Gearon, who fought for years to settle the Hawks' ownership quarrel, did all that because he likes to rub elbows with T.I. and not because there is mad loot in owning an NBA team?
You kill the Hawks, and you decimate (if not eliminate) the revenue the NBA makes in a major city. All because a quarter of the arena's seats are empty on any given Tuesday night in December? How dumb is that?
