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Saints/Hornets to leave city? How serious is this?

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Blitz, Feb 10, 2009.

  1. micke77

    micke77 Member

    Somebody mentioned Tom Benson's greed earlier?
    That's exactly part of the road that will lead the Saints out of the Big Easy.
    I work in Louisiana and, trust me, he's still the subject of ridicule after trying to all but get the team out of New Orleans post-Katrina. Not until he got criticized from one end of Bourbon Street to the next and ripped by us media guys did he back off.
    But you can't convince me he's not going to take them out of N.O. one of these days and maybe in the not so distance future. Los Angeles would be the likely landing site.
     
  2. dixiehack

    dixiehack Well-Known Member

    No way does the NBA need two teams in Tennessee drawing 10k per night.
     
  3. Blitz

    Blitz Active Member

    Again, I think short term we'll see the $27 M ponied-up and handed over to the 2 teams.
    My concern is long-term (like next 2-5 years)
     
  4. Football_Bat

    Football_Bat Well-Known Member

    The largest media market without an NBA team is, naturally, No. 14 Seattle. The next largest one is No. 21 St. Louis. Wonder if the sweetheart Silna deal precludes any relocation/expansion there.
     
  5. albert77

    albert77 Well-Known Member

    Saints: My heart tells me they'll never abandon New Orleans, my head tells me they've had one foot out the door for at least 6 years. If they do leave, it won't be for while, though, because they are selling out right now with a pretty good team that plays fan-friendly ball. But if this current bunch starts to fade, if the paper bags start coming out again and the number of empty seats starts to grow, they'll be gone so quick it will take your breath away. And then we can start getting used to the words Los Angeles Saints.

    Hornets: Whoever said the NBA is going to nail Shinn's feet to the floor in N.O. as punishment for screwing it up in Charlotte has it exactly right. Now, if in 2-3 years, he's drowning in red ink and has to sell the team, then all bets are off, and my money would then be on St. Louis.

    To be blunt, New Orleans has never been a big enough city to truly support major-league sports, and that is doubly true in the wake of Katrina. People in Louisiana love them some sports, but with the major issues they're facing with the economy and the post-Katrina fallout, the quickest way for Jindal to get his ass run out of Baton Rouge would be for the state to pony up a bunch of money for a football and basketball team.
     
  6. Screwball

    Screwball Active Member

    Don't rule out Anaheim and San Jose as NBA relocation candidates. Big markets, big money owners available if needed, arenas already built and in use.
     
  7. Starman

    Starman Well-Known Member

    The NBA isn't very enthralled with the idea of being the second tenant in an arena.

    The arrangement they want is:

    a) Arena built for free (by taxpayers if possible, or some other generous dupes)

    b) NBA team gets complete carte blanche in scheduling

    c) NBA team gets all revenues from all other events in arena (concerts, conventions, etc etc)

    If an NHL team is a prior tenant in the arena, b) and c) are rather unlikely.

    That's why there are two arenas in Phoenix and Minnesota less than 10 miles apart. The NBA wants to have the whole cake and eat it, too.


    None of which rules out either Anaheim and San Jose, but if NBA teams move there, the existing NHL franchises would have to make huge concessions. The one exception would be the Clippers, who are currently the third-class tenants at Staples Center. Being No. 2 at the Pond would probably beat being No. 3 at Staples.
     
  8. Simon

    Simon Active Member

    The NBA will never go back to St. Louis because of the ABA deal:

    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 $168 million as of July 2006, according to a Los Angeles Times report. (The NBA nearly succeeded in buying out the Silnas in 1982 by offering $5 million over eight years, but negotiations floundered when the siblings demanded $8 million over five.) The current TV deal gives the Silnas $14.57 million a season; on June 27, 2007, it was extended for another eight years, ensuring another $100 million-plus windfall for the former Spirits owners.
     
  9. Screwball

    Screwball Active Member

    Stern tried for years to get the Clippers to Anaheim. Sterling wouldn't go, even knowing he could make more money in Anaheim. A third team in SoCal wouldn't hurt the Lakers at all, but it would hurt the Clippers, and now Stern doesn't care. The folks that own the Ducks also run the arena, so an NBA lease wouldn't be an issue.

    In San Jose, Larry Ellison (Oracle) is the guy that wants the team, and he could afford to leave a few pennies on the table to make the deal work.
     
  10. Double J

    Double J Active Member

    What an awesome deal they made, eh? And it actually stemmed from a desire to do right by the Virginia Squires rather than simply milk the ABA survivors; the Silnas had planned to be among the survivors and wanted to make sure the Squires owners would be fairly compensated when they were left out of the merger.

    When the Squires didn't even make it to the merger talks and then the Spirits were told they weren't welcome in the NBA, they took the Squires deal for themselves, thank you very much.

    On that basis, the Silnas, who were in the ABA for only two years, have to be the savviest people who ever owned a pro sports franchise.
     
  11. trifectarich

    trifectarich Well-Known Member

    Neither team is going anywhere in this economy and the sooner the state realizes it needs to spend its money elsewhere, the better off everyone will be. Let 'em threaten to pack up and move.
     
  12. Starman

    Starman Well-Known Member

    Yeah, but unless there's some provision the NBA cannot place a team in St. Louis, however much money they have to pay the Silnas is irrelevant (I suppose there might be some codicil in there that the Silnas would have a first right to bid on a St. Louis franchise).

    Since the St. Louis market is one of the top 25 in the nation, at least in theory it would strengthen the league and increase TV revenues to have a team there, so it would be nonsensical for all involved to permanently blacklist St. Louis as a city out of spite over the Spirits deal.

    But once again, any NBA team going in there would have to go in as tenants of the Blues at Scottrade/Savvis or whatever they're calling it these days. That's probably the real killer in the deal.
     
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