Sacramento Kings moving franchise to the OC, CA.

I agree with Bubbler. When defining a "market", it seems reasonable to include the areas outside of the city where the franchise is located. The Utah Jazz are a good example of this. Their NBA TV market extends for hundreds of miles in multiple directions, some of it populated, some not. Ditto for the Seattle Mariners and Colorado Rockies/Avalanche and Portland TrailBlazers.

Those are viable viewers when it comes to TV numbers and if the team plays it cards right in marketing, those people are ripe to be plucked as diehard fans. Too few teams have extended their marketing efforts outside their immediate locales.

 

Throw Sioux City in the mix too.

 

Is it true that Omaha's arena is better configured for hockey than basketball?

 

i went to several games during that time. it was a shit-ton of fun. the only thing that topped it was going to five games during the championship season as a young guy. everybody was just so absolutely surprised, they just figured "WTF? let's go for the ride."

i was too young to make the championship parade, which was a madhouse. i still regret that.

 

Why build an arena for a team when you don't have a team promised to you?

 

Creighton basketball and UNO hockey play there, it hosts Berkshire Hathaway's shareholders meeting and it's hosted NCAA basketball and wrestling tournaments and the Olympic swim trials twice, so there were reasons to build it other than luring an NHL or NBA team.

 

Omaha would definitely be a good landing spot for a hockey team as well.

As has been pointed out, you put a team in certain parts of Jersey or Orange County and most of the sports fans in that area already would be fans of existing teams. That's probably not the case in Omaha because that area is a complete wasteland for professional teams, which is one of the reasons why it would work better there than in some of the bigger markets.

 

Which pro franchises can and do count on support from secondary markets? After growing up in Kansas, I moved to North Carolina and was living in the Triangle when the Panthers played in the Super Bowl. I was shocked by how little people in Raleigh-Durham cared when by comparison, I figured if the Chiefs ever made it back to the Super Bowl that would be all anybody in Wichita would talk about.

I think, in general, teams in Plains states can count on more regional support. The Chiefs used to have six different states worked into their logo. Old timers where I'm from tell me that when the A's moved to KC that really cut into the Cardinals fanbase, but Cards territory still covers a huge area. It seems like the Thunder rely, at least a little, on Tulsa and Wichita. I know Cuban voted against the Sonics move to OKC because he viewed Oklahoma as a secondary market for the Mavs.

A team in Omaha would likely count all of Nebraska, the Dakotas and big chunks of Iowa and Kansas as local in terms of getting games on TV and radio. If it could include Kansas City as part of the TV market that would be huge.

 

exactly ..you don't think all of Louisiana is LSU's market? Same for Arkansas? The Thunder's footprint through Fox Sports goes into north Texas as well as parts of Kansas.

 

I think it might be a bit of a reach to think people in Kansas City would get behind a basketball team in Omaha. I could definitely see people in Des Moines and parts of South Dakota getting behind them though....

 

I don't think you'd pick up a lot of diehard fans in Kansas City, just saying that if you could get games on Fox Sports KC or whatever then you are talking about an overall market with a lot of households.

 

Probably true...