Sacramento Kings moving franchise to the OC, CA.

It was popular in the original ABA as well, with Carolina, Virginia and Florida having multiple home courts at times.

 

In 1972, when the Kings left Cincinnati, they really didn't want to play games in Omaha but had to make the best course of action because, at the time, Kansas City only had Municipal Auditorium and there were not 41 feasible home dates. So they played 15 in Omaha.

Then, two years later, Kemper Arena opens but the NHL also expanded to Kansas City with the Scouts. For two more years, not enough feasible home dates so the Kings had to play in Omaha. Once the Scouts left, the home dates opened up.

Then the Comets of the MISL showed up in 1981, taking nearly all of the Johnson County (in other words, white suburban) indoor sports support away from the Kings. The Comets drew 12,000 for a while as the Kings had 8,000 a game.

 

why can't they just play in the space needle?

 

Or maybe the opening of the TD Garden in 1995 had something to do with the Celtics leaving Hartford? It's not that hard to look this stuff up.

 

It'd make them dizzy, the damn thing spins.

 

I could very well be wrong but think the Celtics finally quit playing in Hartford because after they drafted Bird and McHale they no longer sucked and had a good enough team to sell out the Garden every night instead of having to resort to gimmicks like playing the dregs like the 1970s Cavs in Hartford (or Springfield) to raise their attendance.

The mid70s Celtics of Jo Jo White and Cowens were decent but they had slipped considerably bv 78-79, if I remember correctly.

 

THe Celtics still played a handful of games in Hartford during the Bird era. The games ended when the TD Garden opened. This stuff is not hard to look up.

 

The Celtics played in Hartford for the entirety of the Bird era ... and beyond. Last game there was April 15, 1995. They played in Hartford at least three times a season throughout the Bird era.

 

Let us all forget the Atlanta Hawks experiment of playing 12 home games in New Orleans during the 1984-85 season.

 

The Mall had about 1,000 more seats than the old Garden and for a long time was the biggest arena in New England.

The Celtics also played there to protect their TV territory, as there was some litigation in the 1990s regarding this. I don't remember all of the specifics ... some of them are outlined here in a Courant story: http://articles.courant.com/1992-10-16/sports/0000111154_1_knicks-fans-blumenthal-rough-territory.

 

Apparently (I pay only nominal attention to the NBA) TV territories can overlap now. This has always been a Hawks market (not that you could ever tell) but Grizzlies games started airing 2-3 seasons ago, and now we get the Hornets as well.

 

i know they'd lose a lot of the dinner crowd, but how about if they just turned off the spinner while the game was being played?