A little bit of discouraging news for the NBA in Louisville campaign

[hoosierhateruklover]

The preseason game between the Atlanta Hawks and New Orleans Hornets set to take place at freedom hall will now be played in Little Rock, AR. I hope this doesn't hurt Louisville's chances with the NBA. What a disgrace to move the game to the middle of nowhere, aka Arkansas. For those who bought tickets, I hope you can get your money back....Oh well, its only a matter of time before the hornets come back, this time FOR GOOD!

[Trueblujr]

In Light of everything that is going on down in New Orleans, The city of Louisville should offer to let the Hornets make it home for a season or two while New Orleans recovers from the disaster. This would give the city a good opportunityon a real time basis to gaugehow an NBA team would be recieved here. If it works great, lets shoot for an expansion or show another team that Louisville can support the NBA, if it doesn't work thenthe Hornets return home to New Orleans when things are improved andThe city of Louisville isn't out anything.

[RP_McMurphy]

One problem I see here is we keep putting it as Louisville's team. In fact it would be a Commonwealth team that the whole Commonwealth could support like the Colonels of the ABA.

[delkfor3]

Trueblujr wrote: In Light of everything that is going on down in New Orleans, The city of Louisville should offer to let the Hornets make it home for a season or two while New Orleans recovers from the disaster. This would give the city a good opportunityon a real time basis to gaugehow an NBA team would be recieved here. If it works great, lets shoot for an expansion or show another team that Louisville can support the NBA, if it doesn't work thenthe Hornets return home to New Orleans when things are improved andThe city of Louisville isn't out anything.
I never thought of that, The Hornets can't play on NOLA this season for sure, they have to play someplace, why not here?

[delkfor3]

RP_McMurphy wrote: One problem I see here is we keep putting it as Louisville's team.
I can assure you that would never happen. Everytime we have flirted with NBA teams, the idea was to make a KENTUCKY team, not just for Louisville. That's the only way, this will ever happen.

[hoosierhateruklover]

Man I'd love to see Louisville get that Hornets franchise while its out there for the taking!

[delkfor3]

hoosierhateruklover wrote: Man I'd love to see Louisville get that Hornets franchise while its out there for the taking!
All the big Texas cities have NBA teams, so Louisville is the only option(if it were to come to that) that I can see.

[DenCat]

Trueblujr wrote: In Light of everything that is going on down in New Orleans, The city of Louisville should offer to let the Hornets make it home for a season or two while New Orleans recovers from the disaster. This would give the city a good opportunityon a real time basis to gaugehow an NBA team would be recieved here. If it works great, lets shoot for an expansion or show another team that Louisville can support the NBA, if it doesn't work thenthe Hornets return home to New Orleans when things are improved andThe city of Louisville isn't out anything. That is a good idea. The only thing I see wrong with it would be finding dates in Freedom Hall. It is usually booked solid.

[MurphyLee]

DenCat wrote: Trueblujr wrote: In Light of everything that is going on down in New Orleans, The city of Louisville should offer to let the Hornets make it home for a season or two while New Orleans recovers from the disaster. This would give the city a good opportunityon a real time basis to gaugehow an NBA team would be recieved here. If it works great, lets shoot for an expansion or show another team that Louisville can support the NBA, if it doesn't work thenthe Hornets return home to New Orleans when things are improved andThe city of Louisville isn't out anything. That is a good idea. The only thing I see wrong with it would be finding dates in Freedom Hall. It is usually booked solid.If Freedom Hall is booked,then how about thinking oustide the box.How about dividing games between Lexington,Louisville,and Cincinnati.I think this concept has been proposed before when trying to lure teams.If the Hornets can't find a home close to NO for this season then surely the 41 home dates could be worked out between these 3 cities.Maybe not the best plan but not terrible either.

[DenCat]

MurphyLee wrote: DenCat wrote: Trueblujr wrote: In Light of everything that is going on down in New Orleans, The city of Louisville should offer to let the Hornets make it home for a season or two while New Orleans recovers from the disaster. This would give the city a good opportunityon a real time basis to gaugehow an NBA team would be recieved here. If it works great, lets shoot for an expansion or show another team that Louisville can support the NBA, if it doesn't work thenthe Hornets return home to New Orleans when things are improved andThe city of Louisville isn't out anything. That is a good idea. The only thing I see wrong with it would be finding dates in Freedom Hall. It is usually booked solid.If Freedom Hall is booked,then how about thinking oustide the box.How about dividing games between Lexington,Louisville,and Cincinnati.I think this concept has been proposed before when trying to lure teams.If the Hornets can't find a home close to NO for this season then surely the 41 home dates could be worked out between these 3 cities.Maybe not the best plan but not terrible either.I didn't think of that, but it could work.

[delkfor3]

MurphyLee wrote: If Freedom Hall is booked,then how about thinking oustide the box.How about dividing games between Lexington,Louisville,and Cincinnati.I think this concept has been proposed before when trying to lure teams.If the Hornets can't find a home close to NO for this season then surely the 41 home dates could be worked out between these 3 cities.Maybe not the best plan but not terrible either.
What I seem to remember was the team would have played in Louisville,Lexington and Bowling Green, until an arena could be built,but Cincy would probably be a better option. If I'm Jerry Abramson and Ernie Fletcher, I go to the Hornets owners, and NO cityofficials with a proposal, and give the Hornets a home.

[Athens2005]

One of the problems with playing in multiple arenas, or playing in a temp home in a city that you know won't be the final home, is that it's very tough to get fan support.



As popular as the NFL is, the Oilers had trouble drawing fans in Memphis. So much trouble, in fact, that they cut their stay in the Liberty Bowl short by one year, and played games at Vandy.

As unpopular as the NBA seems to be in KY, I have trouble seeing a Lexington/Louisville/Cincy triangle being good for fan support.

Look at an NBA schedule - there just aren't that many intriguing games.

Personally, I love the NBA. I am a Lakers fan, and I find Lakers games to be entertaining.

But, thought of paying a decent chunk of money to see the Hornets & Clippers play on a Tuesday nght in Lexington, just doesn't seem that appealing.

If a temp home is offered, I think it would be best to offer it for a single city, and insinuate that the Hornets may move their permanently.

Little Rock is a decent option because they have a nice, new arena downtown.

If Louisville were willing to build the new arena, they could probably woo a team in the next few years.

[delkfor3]

Athens2005 wrote:

If Louisville were willing to build the new arena, they could probably woo a team in the next few years.

A new Arena will be built, it's just a matter of figuring outwhere it will go, and naming rights and such. UofL will be the main tenent supposedly. The Hornets are going to be homeless for the next year(maybe longer), they're going to need a place to play, Louisville is the logical city for them to play, imo.

[MurphyLee]

Athens2005 wrote: One of the problems with playing in multiple arenas, or playing in a temp home in a city that you know won't be the final home, is that it's very tough to get fan support.



As popular as the NFL is, the Oilers had trouble drawing fans in Memphis. So much trouble, in fact, that they cut their stay in the Liberty Bowl short by one year, and played games at Vandy.

As unpopular as the NBA seems to be in KY, I have trouble seeing a Lexington/Louisville/Cincy triangle being good for fan support.

Look at an NBA schedule - there just aren't that many intriguing games.

Personally, I love the NBA. I am a Lakers fan, and I find Lakers games to be entertaining.

But, thought of paying a decent chunk of money to see the Hornets & Clippers play on a Tuesday nght in Lexington, just doesn't seem that appealing.

If a temp home is offered, I think it would be best to offer it for a single city, and insinuate that the Hornets may move their permanently.

Little Rock is a decent option because they have a nice, new arena downtown.

If Louisville were willing to build the new arena, they could probably woo a team in the next few years.

I wasn't really sold on it when I posted it.Just saying in an emergency the dates for 41 "home" games could be found this way.

Maybe the NBA could do like MLB with Expos and send them to Puerto Rico for several games.:P:D

[Doug Hardin]

Athens2005 wrote: As popular as the NFL is, the Oilers had trouble drawing fans in Memphis. So much trouble, in fact, that they cut their stay in the Liberty Bowl short by one year, and played games at Vandy.


I was going to post this, too, but you beat me to it, so I'll add to it a little.

With the Oilers/Titans, it was amazing to see when the fans embraced the team. They played in Nashville at Vandy's stadium and couldn't even fill it up, and that stadium seats, what, 40k-50k people? The team wasn't that bad either (8-8 with an exciting young nucleus of not-yet-in-their-prime Steve McNair, Eddie George, Derek Mason, and others. Basically, no one cared and everyone was wondering if Bud Adams had made a colossal mistake to move an NFL team to Nashville.

Then in the offseason, they change their name from the Tennessee Oilers to the Tennessee Titans, get new colors, logos, anduniforms, and move into The Coliseum. I was at the first game there against the Bengals in Sept. of 1999, and it was a sell-out with a very loud, enthusiastic crowd. Remember, this was the FIRST game, well before the Music City Miracle and coming up one yard short in Super Bowl XXIX, so these weren't bandwagoning fans waiting for the team to get good.

So basically, it seems simplistic,but I think changing the name to something original really helped get the fans behind the team b/c they finally looked at them like, "This is OUR team," not "Oh, the Oilers are playing in Nashville now." I don't know why other teams don't do this. The Grizzlies and Hornets (who obviously have new problems) still aren't drawing that well in their new cities,possibly for this reason,but teams like the Titans and Nationals did great after changing their names (although I think Washington was so hungry for baseball they'd still be popular as the Washington Expos).

So the point of this rambling as to the NBA in Louisville? While I'd love to be able to drive 5-10 minutes and see some NBA games this year, I'm afraidmaking Louisville a temporary homewould kill any chance of Louisville ever getting a permanent NBA team. No one would pay money to see the New Orleans Hornets vs. (any other NBA team without about 5 exceptions) at Freedom Hall, and by "no one" I mean they'd average 5k-10k fans per night.

Now if ina few years the Hornets or some other franchise moved to Louisville, played in a new downtown arena, and officially became the Kentucky Colonels or Louisville Racehorses or something like that, then I think a team could be successful here.

And by the way, I'm pretty sure this is Dallas2000 from the old place, so I'm glad to see you made it over here.

[MudCat]

hoosierhateruklover wrote: Man I'd love to see Louisville get that Hornets franchise while its out there for the taking!
Trust me, you do NOT want the Hornets franchise here. (At least while Shinn is still the owner.)

[cumberlandredskin]

Looks like the Hornets are off to Oklahoma City for a least part of their home schedule.

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_ylt=Asso5mqfqYWILXjpmn9HNEE5nYcB?slug=ap-hornets-oklahomacity&prov=ap&type=lgns