Cities Most Likely To Gain A Pro Sports Team Via Relocation Or Expansion By 2028

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Chef

Personally I would like to see the Coyotes move to Milwaukee. Wisconsin should have an NHL team, it is already part of hockey's natural base in the US. Unfortunately that doesn't seem to enter into Bettman's calculations.

i've heard (don't know if it's true) that milwaukee falls within the blackhawks' exclusivity territory, such that the blackhawks can single-handedly block any proposed NHL expansion into milwaukee.

and milwaukee is a small market metro that already has an NBA team; i don't see milwaukee being able to support both an NBA team and an NHL team (whose seasons directly overlap with each other).

but yeah, were it not for the blackhawks ability to block, and the existence of the bucks, it would be cool to have an NHL team in milwaukee. oh well.

[ThePhun1]

There's just not enough room. Luckily for them, the NFL team is not directly local. Milwaukee is well served by having 2 1/2 teams for a city its size plus can root for 5 teams close by in Chicago.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by ThePhun1

plus can root for 5 teams close by in Chicago.

yeah.... no.......

apparently you are unaware of the FIB/Cheesehead dynamic in this region.

the IL/WI border isn't referred to as the "Cheddar Curtain" for nothing.

it's a very hard edge dividing the two cities with no love lost on either side.

[Boisebro]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

i've heard (don't know if it's true) that milwaukee falls within the blackhawks' exclusivity territory, such that the blackhawks can single-handedly block any proposed NHL expansion into milwaukee.

and milwaukee is a small market metro that already has an NBA team; i don't see milwaukee being able to support both an NBA team and an NHL team (whose seasons directly overlap with each other).

but yeah, were it not for the blackhawks ability to block, and the existence of the bucks, it would be cool to have an NHL team in milwaukee. oh well.

I think that's a bit of an urban legend. while it's true that Wirtz (Bill, not Rocky) considered Milwaukee his territory (it's not), if Milwaukee had an ownership group that would support an NHL team, I believe they would've been awarded one by now.

In fact, I'll have to do a bit of research, but I believe Milwaukee was considered a favorite for a team in the early 90's, but the ownership group pulled out.

edit: here's what I was referencing:
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1...e-admirals-nhl

while I think Milwaukee would be a great NHL town, I think it's a bit to small for the MLB, NBA and NHL -- and neither the Bucks or Brewers are going anywhere anytime soon. frankly, I think Milwaukee would be a better hockey town than NBA, but the Bucks are pretty well entrenched now with the new arena.

[ThePhun1]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

yeah.... no.......

apparently you are unaware of the FIB/Cheesehead dynamic in this region.

the IL/WI border isn't referred to as the "Cheddar Curtain" for nothing.

it's a very hard edge dividing the two cities with no love lost on either side.

Yeah, I'm sure that dynamic exists pretty much everywhere. They could at least root for the Chicago hockey team.

[cannedairspray]

It's pretty well known that the majority of Sox fans were going to migrate to Brewers fans if the year moved to St Pete in the early 90s (which apparently was decently close to happening).

Maybe Milwaukee dislikes Chicago, but I have to say living in Chicago for more or less the first 21 years of my life, I rarely gave Milwaukee much thought at all. And hell, I lived there for the spring of 2001.

[Steely Dan]

^ i was speaking within the context of sports fandom.

look at any fan allegiance map between bears/packers, cubs/brewers, or bulls/bucks, and the cheddar curtain becomes readily apparent.

i guess for NHL hockey, SE wisconsin is more blackhawks territory than it is anything else, but i distinctly remember being in a milwaukee sports bar for one of the hawks' 2015 finals games against the lightning, and while the group of chicagoans i was with was quite loud and boisterous (we were the only people in there wearing hawks' jerseys), much of the rest of the crowd in the bar seemed anywhere between moderately excited and completely disinterested. it was NOTHING at all like being in chicago sports bar during a hawks' finals game.

[osmo]

I don't see the Memphis Grizzlies surviving long term. It was brought there under dubious terms and aside from some luck with the draft they have barley done better from a franchise standpoint versus it's predecessor in Vancouver. The franchise is only now going into a true rebuild and it will be the markets first real taste of crap basketball since the team arrived. It's one of the NBA's smallest markets. I don't see the team there in 10 years time form now.

[xzmattzx]

People in Wisconsin are stuck rooting for a hockey team from either Minnesota or Chicago. I guess there are fans of either, but I would guess there's general apathy across the state, rather than actively rooting for a team from a city that is otherwise a rival city in the other sports.

You see this elsewhere: what basketball team do people in Pittsburgh root for? Cavaliers? Raptors? 76ers? These are all otherwise rival cities in some way. It can work though, I guess. Somehow people in Buffalo root for the Yankees or Blue Jays, even though Toronto and New York are rival cities in hockey and football.

[dave8721]

Whats up with the White Sox? I know they are the forgotten stepchild of Chicago but its getting pretty ugly these days.

From todays game:

https://twitter.com/RickTarsitano/st...56535761379331

[Shawn]

Originally Posted by dave8721

Whats up with the White Sox? I know they are the forgotten stepchild of Chicago but its getting pretty ugly these days.

From todays game:

https://twitter.com/RickTarsitano/st...56535761379331

My god that looks worse than a Marlins home game!

(Sorry Dave, I was going to write that before I remembered you're a Miami formumer - no disrespect intended)

[suburbanite]

Camden Yards looked quite empty as well from what I saw of the Jays-Orioles game.

That being said this is one of the coldest starts to the baseball season in a long time. Give it until May and I'm sure numbers will improve across the board.

[ThePhun1]

Originally Posted by osmo

I don't see the Memphis Grizzlies surviving long term. It was brought there under dubious terms and aside from some luck with the draft they have barley done better from a franchise standpoint versus it's predecessor in Vancouver. The franchise is only now going into a true rebuild and it will be the markets first real taste of crap basketball since the team arrived. It's one of the NBA's smallest markets. I don't see the team there in 10 years time form now.

Yep, brought to a small, mostly impoverished market. They never had a chance short of being as successful as the San Antonio Spurs, who wouldn't still be where they are without being as dominant as long as they have been over the last 30 years (San Antonio's most ideal sport that could survive long term is football, in theory).

Vancouver didn't get a fair shake, the team was never given a chance to become good, though in turn Canadian teams struggle to attract free agents and retain draft picks, most famously in the case of Steve Francis, who whined his way into being traded away from Vancouver before playing after being drafted by the Grizzlies. Had he sucked it up, they had a team good enough to become competitive shortly thereafter.

[ThePhun1]

Originally Posted by xzmattzx

People in Wisconsin are stuck rooting for a hockey team from either Minnesota or Chicago. I guess there are fans of either, but I would guess there's general apathy across the state, rather than actively rooting for a team from a city that is otherwise a rival city in the other sports.

You see this elsewhere: what basketball team do people in Pittsburgh root for? Cavaliers? Raptors? 76ers? These are all otherwise rival cities in some way. It can work though, I guess. Somehow people in Buffalo root for the Yankees or Blue Jays, even though Toronto and New York are rival cities in hockey and football.

This is very true. Rather than root for the Dallas Stars, people in general in Houston ignore the NHL. It NEVER gets covered in the local news, possibly including the Stanley Cup Finals unless a local player is being featured. And since Houston produces exactly zero NHL players regularly (the only current NHL player from Houston effectively grew up in Alberta), that doesn't happen.

[Nomad9]

Originally Posted by ThePhun1

Yep, brought to a small, mostly impoverished market. They never had a chance short of being as successful as the San Antonio Spurs, who wouldn't still be where they are without being as dominant as long as they have been over the last 30 years (San Antonio's most ideal sport that could survive long term is football, in theory).

I’m curious where the Spurs comments are coming from. I engage in these types of discussions fairly often and have never heard the Spurs mentioned as a team that could/would have been moved. They were in SA a long time before the Duncan/Pop dynasty and seems like they did fine as a franchise. Even if they weren’t considered one of the model franchises in all sports, they’d still probably be fine from a financial and attendance standpoint as the only major pro franchise for hundreds of miles around and in a large, growing city. The fact that it’s overshadowed by its flashier in-state siblings says nothing about its capability of supporting a pro team.

Also, wow @ that Sox picture. This spring is a perfect example why baseball shouldn’t start until May. It is not a good cold weather sport.

[xzmattzx]

Originally Posted by Nomad9

I’m curious where the Spurs comments are coming from. I engage in these types of discussions fairly often and have never heard the Spurs mentioned as a team that could/would have been moved. They were in SA a long time before the Duncan/Pop dynasty and seems like they did fine as a franchise. Even if they weren’t considered one of the model franchises in all sports, they’d still probably be fine from a financial and attendance standpoint as the only major pro franchise for hundreds of miles around and in a large, growing city. The fact that it’s overshadowed by its flashier in-state siblings says nothing about its capability of supporting a pro team.

Also, wow @ that Sox picture. This spring is a perfect example why baseball shouldn’t start until May. It is not a good cold weather sport.

One person made an unfortunately uneducated comment speculating that, and people are riding that like it was ever feasible. It's a non-starter.

[ThePhun1]

Originally Posted by Nomad9

I’m curious where the Spurs comments are coming from. I engage in these types of discussions fairly often and have never heard the Spurs mentioned as a team that could/would have been moved. They were in SA a long time before the Duncan/Pop dynasty and seems like they did fine as a franchise. Even if they weren’t considered one of the model franchises in all sports, they’d still probably be fine from a financial and attendance standpoint as the only major pro franchise for hundreds of miles around and in a large, growing city. The fact that it’s overshadowed by its flashier in-state siblings says nothing about its capability of supporting a pro team.

Also, wow @ that Sox picture. This spring is a perfect example why baseball shouldn’t start until May. It is not a good cold weather sport.

The NBA wasn't as big in the 70's and early 80's as it is today, let alone at it's peak in the 90's. David Robinson and Tim Duncan were just the stars that the organization and city needed to make it viable. Both were good on the court and David Robinson was a charismatic superstar off the court and, as a Navy veteran, an excellent face for the franchise in a military town. Not only were they model citizens (Duncan can be a prick and ignorant in private but is a law abiding citizen who doesn't draw many non-basketball related negative headlines) but they were great on it and helped mold the best organization in the NBA.

Without them, there's little chance the Spurs last in San Antonio. Even today, the metro area is only at 2.1 million (despite the large municipal population of 1.5 million) and it has a low level of disposable income per capita for any large MSA. Even with all of their winning, they still struggle to truly sell out games sometimes. Yes, San Antonio is barely a major league market, Austin is much better suited to host pro sports.

They aren't the only franchise for hundreds of miles, Houston has 3 (4 if you count MLS) 180-200 miles away and Dallas-Fort Worth is only 300 miles away with 4 (5). Austin and College Station are close and have big time college sports. Consider that if the Spurs aren't good in the 90's, the Rockets' golden age, then maybe San Antonio fans become Rockets fans.

The only other way they could have survived was being the only game in town, as San Antonio, until recently, had no other high level sports above high school. And UTSA is hardly what can be considered major league, so the Spurs still are it.

[JAYNYC]

Originally Posted by dave8721

Whats up with the White Sox? I know they are the forgotten stepchild of Chicago but its getting pretty ugly these days.

From todays game:

https://twitter.com/RickTarsitano/st...56535761379331

Unbelievable! Not to mention, the MLB season just started.

People within this thread who have suggested that a second or third team in NYC, LA or Chicago would fare better than one team in say, Kansas City, Pittsburgh, St. Louis et al should refer to this photo.

[JAYNYC]

Originally Posted by Nomad9

I’m curious where the Spurs comments are coming from. I engage in these types of discussions fairly often and have never heard the Spurs mentioned as a team that could/would have been moved. They were in SA a long time before the Duncan/Pop dynasty and seems like they did fine as a franchise. Even if they weren’t considered one of the model franchises in all sports, they’d still probably be fine from a financial and attendance standpoint as the only major pro franchise for hundreds of miles around and in a large, growing city. The fact that it’s overshadowed by its flashier in-state siblings says nothing about its capability of supporting a pro team.

Also, wow @ that Sox picture. This spring is a perfect example why baseball shouldn’t start until May. It is not a good cold weather sport.

Refer to the first post in this thread - a post from me - for context. My point was that I believe that, long-term, Austin - a city that is only 60-70 miles north of Austin - is likely better suited to be able to support the team long-term than San Antonio.

[BnaBreaker]

Originally Posted by osmo

I don't see the Memphis Grizzlies surviving long term. It was brought there under dubious terms and aside from some luck with the draft they have barley done better from a franchise standpoint versus it's predecessor in Vancouver. The franchise is only now going into a true rebuild and it will be the markets first real taste of crap basketball since the team arrived. It's one of the NBA's smallest markets. I don't see the team there in 10 years time form now.

Originally Posted by ThePhun1

Yep, brought to a small, mostly impoverished market. They never had a chance.

Nope, I don't think they're going anywhere. The city is devoted to the team, and the team is devoted to the city with one of the most expansive community outreach programs league wide. They play in one of the best arenas in the league. The owner just retained a controlling stake and reaffirmed his commitment to the city. The NBA loves having a team in Memphis due to St. Jude and MLK and other reasons, and has reaffirmed it's dedication to the city and franchise time and time again. The team has gone through one rebuilding phase before (06/07-/09/10), and may be about to go through another one, but through it all and the seven straight postseason appearances they made in the Grit n Grind era (second longest streak only to the Spurs) they've built one of the most authentic connections to the city they call home of any team out there. The Grizzlies *are* Memphis, and they're there to stay.