Sacramento Kings moving franchise to the OC, CA.

Bob, if you're looking to tap into corporate money, the telecom and insurance industries -- as well as the Buffett residual -- would be a damn fine place to start.

 

Mark 2010 thought Oklahoma City works as an NBA team ONLY because of Durant and Westbrook.
Yet...when New Orleans was there, they drew well.

Some of those larger markets I mentioned before I maintain could succeed with good management and a suitable arena. Most of the failed teams there have had neither.

I mentioned Birmingham and I'm a little shocked when I checked the population...250,000 was about 100,000 less than I thought. But them Tuscaloosa is nearby and would add to that.

Virginia was once an ABA city and places like Virginia Beach have grown considerably since then.

Austin, if not for the proximity to San Tone, has the numbers (nearly 700,000 people) and money.

 

Portland has less than 600,000. Woops, 2 million counting Salem and the total market. Damn.

 

Add the Lincoln metro area, it's about an hour from the center of Lincoln to downtown Omaha, and you are at right about 1.1 million. But there's not much else to draw from in Nebraska. The only other part of the state with a significant population is the Grand Island-Kearney-Hastings area, which has less than 200,000 people total and would be quite a drive for locals wanting to go to week night games. But the way people in Omaha support Creighton hoops and minor league sports and the corporate base might make it a possibility, or at least a threat for an NBA or NHL team looking for a new stadium or renovations.

 

Birmingham and Virginia Beach are not pro sports markets.

Is Omaha a better market than Kansas City? I know Omaha does a fabulous job with the College World Series, but that's a once-a-year, 10-day event that draws out of town visitors from plenty of places. Not the same as an NBA/NHL game on a Tuesday night in January. Just not sure if there are enough people within reasonable driving distance of Omaha to pack a 17,000-seat arena 41 dates a year.

Oklahoma City had really boomed in the last 10 years and it's also driveable from Tulsa, north Texas and even Wichita. It will be interesting to see how they do when the team is not competitive, but they have some assets going for them.

And, yes, it always helps to hook a fan base if you win right away (Dallas Stars, Colorado Avalanche, Carolina Hurricanes, etc.) after you arrive in town.

 

I don't know if I would say Omaha is a better market than Kansas City, but I think a NBA franchise would do better in Omaha than in KC.

 

Yeah, what defines better market? Omaha-Lincoln-Council Bluffs couldn't support MLB, NFL, MLS, NASCAR, KU/K-State/Mizzou basketball and football they way Kansas City does, but all those things might have the KC market tapped out. Omaha-Lincoln might be in a better position to add NBA or NHL when the only real competition is Husker football, and even with that you are talking about seven home games a year. Creighton basketball would be the big loser if an NBA team came to town, unless the Blue Jays got really good and the NBA team sucked, sorta like Memphis a few years back.

 

If you look at Sacramento, they supported a World League team pretty well. Minor-league baseball has done well there... People act like you don't want a pro franchise there because the Bay Area is only two hours away, but the market there was starved for a local pro team. I don't think they could support a NFL or MLB team there, but NBA was a pretty good fit there until the Maloofs ruined (probably intentionally) it.

I've covered games at Creighton, Nebraska-Omaha and Nebraska-Kearney and they all draw incredibly well or at least they did back in the day. I know women's basketball and women's volleyball have drawn incredibly well at Nebraska.

Nebraska has great sports fans and they support the local teams. I'll take that over anything the NBA could hope to do in Anaheim, Virginia Beach or Pittsburgh.

 

One reason that the Maloof's wanted out of Sacramento was that it was a small television market, only 20th in the nation. Omaha is 76th. Omaha is not getting an NBA franchise.

 

Where does Oklahoma City rank?

The NBA has a select few teams (Lakers, Celtics, Knicks, Bulls...) that are always on TV no matter what. Then there are a few others that are on only because they're good (Heat, Clippers, OKC, San Antonio). Most of the rest of the teams are almost never on.

The Kings would not be on TV any more than they are now if they were in Virginia Beach or Anaheim.

Seattle deserves a team. If the Kings stay in Sacramento, I'm guessing Seattle will have an expansion team or some other team will move there within 1-2 years.

 

OKC is 44th. Neilson has them at 705,000 television homes. the Omaha market has 418,000. The smallest television market with an NBA team is New Orleans at 52nd. New Orleans lost a lot of population after Katrina and that lead to the decline in their market size.

The Kings would not be on national television more if they played in Seattle, Sacramento or on Saturn. But local cable normally shows the games that are not on a national network. Since the cable companies charge per subscriber that is where smaller markets are at a disadvantage.

http://www.nielsen.com/content/dam/corporate/us/en/public%20factsheets/tv/nielsen-2012-local-DMA-TV-penetration.pdf

 

If Omaha got a team, I could see every market in the state wanting to televise games. I've heard it's like that in Oklahoma and it was like that in Oregon when Drexler was in Portland.

I'm not saying Omaha is going to happen, I just threw out the name several pages back because it's not a city you hear mentioned much for expansion that I think would do pretty well.

There are plenty of teams in markets with millions of people who don't give half a shit about the local teams. I guarantee you that would not be the case in Omaha.