2013-2014 NBA Season to kick off in Jax [Video]

[JayBird]

Mayor Brown announced that on October 9, 2013 the NBA will kick off their 2013-2014 season with a preseason game at Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville featuring the Orlando Magic vs. new league team New Orleans Pelicans.  They are calling it "NBA in Jax". 

http://youtu.be/x1hraFYTZEk

[Keith-N-Jax]

Ugh not a great match up,

[tufsu1]

Mayor Brown presents preseason semi-professional basketball

[thelakelander]

No Heat? Booooo....(just joking)...

[JayBird]

So when Nikki Kimbleton from WJXT4 posted the news on Facebook his morning, the very first comment was "any plans for moving Magic to Jax?".

It has begun.

[thelakelander]

Lol, why would the Magic want to leave a brand new, start-of-the-art arena and larger market for a smaller one?

Instead, the Magic have plans to build a $100 million downtown Orlando entertainment center around their new arena:

Orlando Magic executives said Monday they believe there is enough demand for additional hotel rooms, office space and retail in downtown Orlando to move forward with a $100 million sports-and-entertainment complex in Parramore.

Magic CEO Alex Martins hopes construction could start on at least part of that complex in about a year, on city-owned land across the street from the Amway Center arena. But it will likely be built in at least two phases because Orlando Police Headquarters sits on part of the land and the city's officers couldn't be moved that quickly.

full article: http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2013-04-22/news/os-magic-entertainment-complex-20130422_1_orlando-magic-magic-ceo-alex-martins-amway-center-arena

[duvaldude08]

Mayor Brown presents preseason semi-professional basketball

Im surprised we didnt see a " Mayor Brown major sports announcement" headline anywhere along with a news conference. 

[carpnter]

I hope the city didn't pay to have the basketball floor put out just for this news conference.  The Giants season is over and right now the Sharks are playing arena football in the arena. 

[KenFSU]

Terrible matchup, but a decent litmus test to gauge interest in professional basketball in Jacksonville. If the city is serious about wanting the NBA one day, this the type of team we'd be looking at for years before getting lucky in the draft, and the type of match up that wed need to be able to sell 15,000 tickets for on a random weeknight. Small market NBA can be rough.

[duvaldude08]

Terrible matchup, but a decent litmus test to gauge interest in professional basketball in Jacksonville. If the city is serious about wanting the NBA one day, this the type of team we'd be looking at for years before getting lucky in the draft, and the type of match up that wed need to be able to sell 15,000 tickets for on a random weeknight. Small market NBA can be rough.

I agree. Just about all small market NBA struggle, and not many of them have very good teams. I was curious why the Jaguars got beat up so much, so I did some research on the small market NBA teams and man...they get it worse than the Jaguars do. Small markets in professional  sports generally dont get respect, and usually dont have the resources largers market do. So maintaining is usually a struggle.

[JayBird]

Terrible matchup, but a decent litmus test to gauge interest in professional basketball in Jacksonville. If the city is serious about wanting the NBA one day, this the type of team we'd be looking at for years before getting lucky in the draft, and the type of match up that wed need to be able to sell 15,000 tickets for on a random weeknight. Small market NBA can be rough.

Agreed, NBA seems to be lucky just to "break even" in most markets apparently and I cannot see Jax getting any more professional sports other than what we have at least in the next decade.

Mayor Brown presents preseason semi-professional basketball

Im surprised we didnt see a " Mayor Brown major sports announcement" headline anywhere along with a news conference. 

LoL I was surprised that it wasn't called "Mayor Brown brings NBA to Jax"

No Heat? Booooo....(just joking)...

Haha 

I am kinda disappointed with that name though, the Pelicans?  Almost as bad a name as the Montgomery Biscuits!  [Favorite line at a Suns game "and now batting for the Biscuits ..."]

[Tacachale]

Pretty weak matchup, but it sounds like a lot of fun. Nice pickup by the city.

[funwithteeth]

Anyone going to this? There's gonna be a block party before the game.

THE ORLANDO MAGIC AND NEW ORLEANS PELICANS WILL KICK OFF THEIR 2013-2014 WITH THIS PRESEASON GAME. THIS EVENT WILL FEATURE A SALUTE TO THE MILITARY COMMUNITY AND INCLUDE A FAMILY-FRIENDLY INTERACTIVE FAN EXPERIENCE BEFORE THE GAME. THE FAN EXPERIENCE WILL BE FROM 5PM-7PM IN FRONT OF THE VETERANS MEMORIAL ARENA. THIS EVENT WILL INCLUDE LIVE ENTERTAINMENT, OBSTACLE COURSE, 3 POINT, 2 BALL AND KNOCKOUT CONTESTS, DRUMLINE AND DANCE SQUAD AS WELL AS AN APPEARANCE BY NBA LEGENDS.

The legends are gonna be Artis Gilmore and Christian Laettner, right?

[tufsu1]

I'm sure there will be at least 500 people in attendance