FR Turbo
03-30-2006, 11:14 PM
From NewsOK.com:
Go ahead and renew, the Hornets are staying
By Berry Tramel
The Oklahoman
Arms folded, face stern, Mike Mullen sat a few rows up from the Ford Center floor the other night and dramatically declined to renew his Hornets season tickets.
Mullen was not displeased with the entertainment value of pro basketball, or the Hornets’ nose dive since the All-Star break, or even the hefty financial toll required of an NBA patron.
Mullen was protecting his heart. He, like many an Oklahoma City fan, wasn’t willing to give the Hornets another year of his passion when he believes they are headed back to New Orleans in 2007.
“I don’t want to get attached to the Hornets, because I don’t think they’re going to be here,” Mullen said.
That’s a common belief in OKC, thanks to all the rhetoric from David Stern and George Shinn about plans to return to New Orleans.
But it’s misguided. The Hornets are not going back to New Orleans.
Do whatever you want, Hornets fans. Boycott next season or buy their tickets. It’s your money.
Just know this. The Hornets are not going anywhere. They are in Oklahoma City to stay.
The New Orleans talk is all posture. All politics. You can’t get Shinn to admit it, but the Hornets are mapping an exit strategy and planning to make OKC their permanent home.
No other conclusion is possible when you do what you should always do when considering big, big business, which the NBA is.
Follow the money.
This Hornets story has not been a crusade of candor. Sometimes, it seems the only people telling the truth are me and Byron Scott.
But there is no doubt that Stern, the NBA commissioner, and Shinn, the Hornets owner, merely are cushioning New Orleans’ fall. Gently bidding farewell. Saying all the right things, doing all the right things, while at all times knowing no way will the Hornets return to the city that was their home for three years.
Are Stern and Shinn lying to the good folks of Louisiana? Technically, no. The Hornets will give New Orleans the opportunity to reclaim the franchise.
“I believe they’re going to give us a fair shot,” Shinn’s New Orleans attorney, Bill Hines, told the New Orleans Times-Picayune.
That will happen. Shinn will give New Orleans every chance to meet his needs. And New Orleans will fail. The city, still devastated from Katrina, is in no position to compete for the Hornets.
An NBA franchise is not a hobby, at least not for Shinn. It’s a business that requires big revenues. Shinn won’t, and frankly can’t, return the Hornets as a goodwill gesture. Bankruptcy does no one any good.
New Orleans will face relocation scrutiny the way a new market would, maybe more scrutiny than New Orleans faced when he moved the Hornets from Charlotte. And New Orleans has no past success to fall back on; New Orleans was not cutting it as an NBA city even before the hurricane.
Here is what Shinn has in Oklahoma City and will require from New Orleans: ?
1. Investors. Shinn has a deal on the table from an Oklahoma City group willing to buy just as much of the team as Shinn is willing to sell. Hines says a Louisiana group is interested in investing, though no names have been produced.
Will the Louisianans truly produce? This we know. Clay Bennett’s group stands ready with a cashier’s check that Shinn knows will not bounce.
2. Sponsors. Shinn had five major corporate sponsors, each in for $1.5 million, within a couple of weeks of relocating to Oklahoma City. Shinn had only one such sponsor in New Orleans and can’t be sure he’ll get even that upon return.
Little Oklahoma City zoomed into the upper half of NBA corporate support. Those five major sponsors, of which The Oklahoman is one, tell Shinn as much as the packed house at the Ford Center that this is the place for his team.
3. Season tickets. Oklahomans bought more than 10,500 season tickets in the six weeks from relocation to opening night, and Shinn knows that when he announces the Hornets are here to stay, that number will escalate.
Shinn has no idea what he’ll get in New Orleans, but he knows it’s far south of 10,500. The Hornets were next-to-last and last in league attendance the previous two years, before the troubles hit. If Shinn is smart, he will require a ticket commitment from New Orleans, and no way the city can provide that.
All of which brings us to the lease at the New Orleans Arena, which requires the Hornets’ return. That same lease also agrees to provide a new practice facility and headquarters for the Hornets.
Think about that argument some New Orleans politician will have to make. A city that a couple of weeks ago had two hospitals and four schools up and running, a city with square mile after square mile of devastation and desertion, a city that seven months after Katrina hasn’t even started some cleanup, much less the rebuilding, wants to spend $20 million on a practice facility for a basketball team that relatively few were excited about to begin with?
As an NBA official told me three weeks ago before the Hornet-Laker game in New Orleans, “If they’re not ready to have us back, they’re not going to want us to come back.”
This is meant as no disrespect for New Orleans, which was dealt a cruel blow. It would be a grand story if the Hornets returned to help buoy the spirits of the rebuilders.
Except if the Hornets return, they will be sucked into the abyss. They will wither and falter and threaten the financial viability of Shinn, who does not have the bottomless pockets of some NBA owners.
David Stern himself said he had no desire to give New Orleans a trial run. If the Hornets are to return, he said, it’s because the franchise can prosper there. “The prospect of having a team come back and then moving again is not a good prospect,” Stern said.
So back to that great seat at the Ford Center, which Mike Mullin is ready to give up.
Bail on the Hornets if you want. Bail on them because you’ve tried the pro game and it’s not to your liking. Bail on them because they’ve tanked in this pennant race. Bail on them because they trotted out Linton Johnson in the starting lineup Wednesday night.
But don’t bail on them because you think they’re leaving. They are going nowhere.
In September, I told you, Oklahoma City, this NBA experiment was up to you. Support this team, and the Hornets would not leave.
You did, and they are not.
Go ahead and renew, the Hornets are staying
By Berry Tramel
The Oklahoman
Arms folded, face stern, Mike Mullen sat a few rows up from the Ford Center floor the other night and dramatically declined to renew his Hornets season tickets.
Mullen was not displeased with the entertainment value of pro basketball, or the Hornets’ nose dive since the All-Star break, or even the hefty financial toll required of an NBA patron.
Mullen was protecting his heart. He, like many an Oklahoma City fan, wasn’t willing to give the Hornets another year of his passion when he believes they are headed back to New Orleans in 2007.
“I don’t want to get attached to the Hornets, because I don’t think they’re going to be here,” Mullen said.
That’s a common belief in OKC, thanks to all the rhetoric from David Stern and George Shinn about plans to return to New Orleans.
But it’s misguided. The Hornets are not going back to New Orleans.
Do whatever you want, Hornets fans. Boycott next season or buy their tickets. It’s your money.
Just know this. The Hornets are not going anywhere. They are in Oklahoma City to stay.
The New Orleans talk is all posture. All politics. You can’t get Shinn to admit it, but the Hornets are mapping an exit strategy and planning to make OKC their permanent home.
No other conclusion is possible when you do what you should always do when considering big, big business, which the NBA is.
Follow the money.
This Hornets story has not been a crusade of candor. Sometimes, it seems the only people telling the truth are me and Byron Scott.
But there is no doubt that Stern, the NBA commissioner, and Shinn, the Hornets owner, merely are cushioning New Orleans’ fall. Gently bidding farewell. Saying all the right things, doing all the right things, while at all times knowing no way will the Hornets return to the city that was their home for three years.
Are Stern and Shinn lying to the good folks of Louisiana? Technically, no. The Hornets will give New Orleans the opportunity to reclaim the franchise.
“I believe they’re going to give us a fair shot,” Shinn’s New Orleans attorney, Bill Hines, told the New Orleans Times-Picayune.
That will happen. Shinn will give New Orleans every chance to meet his needs. And New Orleans will fail. The city, still devastated from Katrina, is in no position to compete for the Hornets.
An NBA franchise is not a hobby, at least not for Shinn. It’s a business that requires big revenues. Shinn won’t, and frankly can’t, return the Hornets as a goodwill gesture. Bankruptcy does no one any good.
New Orleans will face relocation scrutiny the way a new market would, maybe more scrutiny than New Orleans faced when he moved the Hornets from Charlotte. And New Orleans has no past success to fall back on; New Orleans was not cutting it as an NBA city even before the hurricane.
Here is what Shinn has in Oklahoma City and will require from New Orleans: ?
1. Investors. Shinn has a deal on the table from an Oklahoma City group willing to buy just as much of the team as Shinn is willing to sell. Hines says a Louisiana group is interested in investing, though no names have been produced.
Will the Louisianans truly produce? This we know. Clay Bennett’s group stands ready with a cashier’s check that Shinn knows will not bounce.
2. Sponsors. Shinn had five major corporate sponsors, each in for $1.5 million, within a couple of weeks of relocating to Oklahoma City. Shinn had only one such sponsor in New Orleans and can’t be sure he’ll get even that upon return.
Little Oklahoma City zoomed into the upper half of NBA corporate support. Those five major sponsors, of which The Oklahoman is one, tell Shinn as much as the packed house at the Ford Center that this is the place for his team.
3. Season tickets. Oklahomans bought more than 10,500 season tickets in the six weeks from relocation to opening night, and Shinn knows that when he announces the Hornets are here to stay, that number will escalate.
Shinn has no idea what he’ll get in New Orleans, but he knows it’s far south of 10,500. The Hornets were next-to-last and last in league attendance the previous two years, before the troubles hit. If Shinn is smart, he will require a ticket commitment from New Orleans, and no way the city can provide that.
All of which brings us to the lease at the New Orleans Arena, which requires the Hornets’ return. That same lease also agrees to provide a new practice facility and headquarters for the Hornets.
Think about that argument some New Orleans politician will have to make. A city that a couple of weeks ago had two hospitals and four schools up and running, a city with square mile after square mile of devastation and desertion, a city that seven months after Katrina hasn’t even started some cleanup, much less the rebuilding, wants to spend $20 million on a practice facility for a basketball team that relatively few were excited about to begin with?
As an NBA official told me three weeks ago before the Hornet-Laker game in New Orleans, “If they’re not ready to have us back, they’re not going to want us to come back.”
This is meant as no disrespect for New Orleans, which was dealt a cruel blow. It would be a grand story if the Hornets returned to help buoy the spirits of the rebuilders.
Except if the Hornets return, they will be sucked into the abyss. They will wither and falter and threaten the financial viability of Shinn, who does not have the bottomless pockets of some NBA owners.
David Stern himself said he had no desire to give New Orleans a trial run. If the Hornets are to return, he said, it’s because the franchise can prosper there. “The prospect of having a team come back and then moving again is not a good prospect,” Stern said.
So back to that great seat at the Ford Center, which Mike Mullin is ready to give up.
Bail on the Hornets if you want. Bail on them because you’ve tried the pro game and it’s not to your liking. Bail on them because they’ve tanked in this pennant race. Bail on them because they trotted out Linton Johnson in the starting lineup Wednesday night.
But don’t bail on them because you think they’re leaving. They are going nowhere.
In September, I told you, Oklahoma City, this NBA experiment was up to you. Support this team, and the Hornets would not leave.
You did, and they are not.