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Isn't there some sort of double jeopardy or three strikes and your out law in regards to franchises? If a city couldn't keep one hockey team, okay--if a city lost two though, maybe you're not a good hockey market.
Then again since their last two teams left for Calgary and Winnipeg, maybe it's just another potential future team relocation to Canada--and lord knows, people in Canada really want more hockey teams.
Last edited by CanuckInPortland; 04-30-2015 at 02:24 PM..
Seattle jumps out as a city that could use an NHL and NBA team. The Seattle Sonics leaving was a crying shame.
LA could also use an NFL team. It's Amazing to me that Jacksonville has a team but LA doesn't.
I do think the Hampton Roads area could use a team (NBA jumps out the most). I think that's a big enough region to support major league sports. My concern would be that the Military population is transient and that may not bode well for drawing new fans (transient people allegedly already support teams). Richmond could probably support a team too, but I think the Hampton Roads area is a more appealing option due to the size and relatively rapid growth.
I'm not as sold on Las Vegas. For starters, the metro area is pretty small. Second, it would be competing with a lot of entertainment options.
Austin might be able to, but I'm not sure what. It's a big enough city to support a team on paper, but it's also very much a college sports town. I don't know if an NFL or NBA franchise (or even an MLB franchise) could compete with Texas sports.
It has almost 2 million people; more than Hampton Roads and Austin. I think market size-wise it's fine but the gambling aspect and high transient factor kind of prevent it from being a good market imo.
- MLS: 1) Phoenix, AZ; 2) Minneapolis, MN; 3) San Antonio, TX; 4) New Orleans, LA; 5) Las Vegas, NV; 6) San Diego, CA; 7) Saint Louis, MO or Kansas City, MO; 8) Austin, TX; 9) Sacramento, CA.
Sacramento is one of the top contenders for an expansion slot...Minneapolis just got the last open one.
Isn't there some sort of double jeopardy or three strikes and your out law in regards to franchises? If a city couldn't keep one hockey team, okay--if a city lost two though, maybe you're not a good hockey market.
Then again since their last two teams left for Calgary and Winnipeg, maybe it's just another potential future team relocation to Canada--and lord knows, people in Canada really want more hockey teams.
It was the utter lack of management of these 2 hockey franchises, both management teams were a joke. Atlanta loves Hockey and could certainly support one since there are millions of transplants from northern regions.
Seattle jumps out as a city that could use an NHL and NBA team. The Seattle Sonics leaving was a crying shame.
LA could also use an NFL team. It's Amazing to me that Jacksonville has a team but LA doesn't.
I do think the Hampton Roads area could use a team (NBA jumps out the most). I think that's a big enough region to support major league sports. My concern would be that the Military population is transient and that may not bode well for drawing new fans (transient people allegedly already support teams). Richmond could probably support a team too, but I think the Hampton Roads area is a more appealing option due to the size and relatively rapid growth.
I'm not as sold on Las Vegas. For starters, the metro area is pretty small. Second, it would be competing with a lot of entertainment options.
Austin might be able to, but I'm not sure what. It's a big enough city to support a team on paper, but it's also very much a college sports town. I don't know if an NFL or NBA franchise (or even an MLB franchise) could compete with Texas sports.
Cities like Seattle and LA losing their teams was similar to Atlanta losing its NHL team a few years ago. It wasn't about support or attendance, but about either poor management/ownership or just simply the sale of the team to a new owner that wanted the team elsewhere. These cities are large enough to get new teams in the future.
You and I have talked about this at length, but I'll put everyone at speed here:
I'm not a big believer in 2 team markets for any sport given how mobile American society is and the lack of loyalty to a "neighborhood" like you see in European cities. There always IS a lead team that gets all the attention and resources and a junior team that, no matter how often they win, will never achieve the same fame as the primary team.
That isn't to say that a 2nd team in a market isn't profitable, because as the sale of the Clippers and Nets have shown, they can be. But in terms of actual fandom and fanbases, and not "projected media viewership", not even close. The Knicks haven't won anything since America was in Vietnam, while the Nets were perennial Finals contenders in the early 2000s, but yet this is what's going on at Nets playoff games:
So really, I would move the 2nd teams of every market and put them in the largest market without a team.
You're right as far as saying 2 team markets usually lead to a primary team and a junior team, but aside from the Giants and Jets or the Lakers and Clippers, I'm not sure team loyalty is as irrelevant to geography as you claim.
The fan bases of the Mets and Islanders have traditionally been centered on Long Island/Queens, while people in Manhattan, the Bronx, and Staten Island tend to root for the Yankees and Rangers. The Giants and Jets used to have this distinction too (The Giants played at Yankee Stadium, the Jets played at Shea), but both have played in another state for the past 30 years.
The Nets? They don't even have any pretensions about representing all of NYC. People from Brooklyn usually consider themselves Brooklynites first and New Yorkers second, and the Nets are making that their niche.
The Cubs and White Sox are an even better example. They're nicknamed the "Northsiders" and "Southsiders" for a reason.
Then you get places like the Beltway and the Bay which support multiple teams that represent distinct towns within the same metro area. Very akin to traditional soccer derbies.
I guess my point is, its really a case by case basis. The Jets and Clippers are pretty irrelevant outside of the rare occasion that they're able to be more successful than the more established team they share their building with, but for the most part, second teams do still usually have a geographical niche of some sort.
I'm going to stick with US only cities... because I think the major American leagues could definitely find support in Vancouver, Toronto, and Mexico City due to market size alone and possibly the biggest European markets like London and Paris, though travel would be an issue.
Let's start with the obvious.
Los Angeles needs an NFL team.
The next most obvious is probably the NBA coming back to Seattle.
Other than that, I think there are a handful of mid-sized metro areas that could potentially support a pro franchise that are currently without one.
Austin, Louisville, Las Vegas (gambling issues...), Birmingham, Louisville, Raleigh (though its proximity to Charlotte may be problematic) Virginia Beach or Richmond, the Inland Empire, etc. come to mind.
NFL team in Vegas, that would be a gambling person's dream and sort of crazy i know it will never happen but it should.. LA is about to get an NFL team.
NFL team in Vegas, that would be a gambling person's dream and sort of crazy i know it will never happen but it should.. LA is about to get an NFL team.
I wouldn't count on it. Farmer's Field was the most realistic option, given that there was a financier behind it (AEG), but that fell through because the sale of AEG really screwed things up.
All the other options (Carson, Inglewood) are even more far-fetched.
>inb4 cities voted yes on them
Cities vote yes on almost everything all the time if there is a way to increase city coffers.
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