With ticket sales down, city barely breaks even on NBA game in Jacksonville

[CityLife]

Yea Artis Gilmore is a pretty big deal locally. Led JU to the NCAA title game in 1970 and was a star in the ABA and NBA.

Here's a good story about his role as sports ambassador

http://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/showstory.php?Story_id=540904

[KenFSU]

^ And here's a really great piece on that 1970 JU team:

http://grantland.com/features/how-jacksonville-earned-credit-card-paul-hemphill/

[I-10east]

I don't understand why Orlando does not do more to target our market. The way the Jaguars have reached out to markets just outside of Jacksonville. I think they are missing big time on it. They should play a preseason game here every year.

+100

[KenFSU]

I don't understand why Orlando does not do more to target our market. The way the Jaguars have reached out to markets just outside of Jacksonville. I think they are missing big time on it. They should play a preseason game here every year.

Completely agree. You can leave Jacksonville and be inside the Amway Arena is less than two and a half hours. The Magic could definitely benefit from more aggressive marketing in Northeast Florida, particularly during stretches like this when they are in rebuilding mode. It wouldn't hurt to have some fans from Jacksonville making the trip over, and with the Magic's local television contract with FSN coming up for renewal soon, it wouldn't hurt to have some extra eyeballs watching either.

Once the London gig is up for the Jaguars, I would love to see us work out some kind of a friendly agreement where Orlando gets a Jaguars' preseason game, and we get three or four Magic preseason games. I'd even be perfectly happy trading a regular season game for a handful of regular season Magic games, assuming the NBA would approve it. It'd be a win-win, each team would gain valuable exposure in the opposite market, and if both sides are getting something out of it, you would probably avoid much of the paranoia about Orlando trying to poach the Jaguars, or vice versa.

The Magic organization seems largely pro-Jacksonville. They used to hold their training camp at UNF during the Dwight Howard era, and last year they held a preseason game here. The Magic have also expressed a strong desire to launch an NBA D-league affiliate in Jacksonville, though that will ultimately depend on when and if the D-league expands to the Southeast.

[CityLife]

Given Mayor Brown's goal of bringing an NBA team to Jax, I would be willing to bet he has strategically avoided the Magic. If the Magic become "Jacksonville's team" and locals frequently travel there for games, there becomes even less local demand for an NBA team.

[spuwho]

Jacksonville should not, repeat, should not try to host an NBA franchise.

If any town should get a franchise...it should be Seattle.  They were robbed by Stern and should get a team back.

[I-10east]

They were robbed by Stern and should get a team back.

Huh??? If you wanna blame someone for the Sonics leaving, blame the awful owner at the time, Mr Starbucks himself Howard Schultz. He sold the team directly to an OKC guy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Schultz

[spuwho]

Yes Schultz sold them, but there was some influentual moving parts going on behind the scenes the Stern was fostering that facilitated the move.

There were alternative groups that offered to buy the Sonics from Schultz and keep them in Seattle but there was some interference being run by Stern that made the OKC group the favored option.

It seems inconsistent that the Seattle City Council refused to subsidize a new BB arena when they gladly approved a new football and baseball stadium. The Sonics were profitable and Schultz did well. Just not as well as other owners in their more modern, more public paid arenas. Schultz needed a modern arena but was unwilling to put up enough capital to cover his share of the risk.

In walked an oilman who was willing to overpay for a franchise and provide large sponsorship dollars for a speculative arena being built in downtown OKC.

The rest is history.

[pierre]

Given Mayor Brown's goal of bringing an NBA team to Jax, I would be willing to bet he has strategically avoided the Magic. If the Magic become "Jacksonville's team" and locals frequently travel there for games, there becomes even less local demand for an NBA team.

It can be his goal all he wants but it is never going to happen. It would be better to try and embrace the Magic and become a secondary market for them.

[KenFSU]

^ ESPN did a great 30 for 30 on the Seattle robbery. One of the biggest sports tragedies of our lifetime. Pretty lame of Steve Ballmer also to fight so hard for an NBA return to Seattle, and then bail at the first chance to grossly overpay for the Clippers.

Seattle's best chance now at bringing the NBA back is to do the same thing to the Bucks that OKC did to them. When the Bucks were sold over the summer, the NBA put a clause in the contract that stated that if the Bucks don't have a new arena designed, built, and open by the start of the 2017 NBA season, the league can buy the team back for $575 million and sell to new ownership. As of now, Milwaukee doesn't even know where they would build a potential new arena.

The conspiracy theory is that NBA owners do not want a new arena built. When 2017 comes, they could buy the team for $575, sell it to an ownership group in Seattle (for an estimated $1.5 to 1.8 billion), and each walk away with over $30 million profit from the sale. Seattle would get its team back, the owners would have little blood on their own hands, and Milwaukee would be screwed.

[CityLife]

Given Mayor Brown's goal of bringing an NBA team to Jax, I would be willing to bet he has strategically avoided the Magic. If the Magic become "Jacksonville's team" and locals frequently travel there for games, there becomes even less local demand for an NBA team.

It can be his goal all he wants but it is never going to happen. It would be better to try and embrace the Magic and become a secondary market for them.

I was just pointing out that the Mayor has likely avoided embracing the Magic because its counter to his goal of bringing an NBA team here. I think most realistic people in town feel differently than the Mayor.

[urbanlibertarian]

Doesn't the NBA have a "minor league"?  We could start with one of those.

[KenFSU]

Doesn't the NBA have a "minor league"?  We could start with one of those.

They do -- the NBA D-League -- but unfortunately, the D-League has no presence in the Southeast:

[funwithteeth]

And not every NBA team has their own dedicated D-league team; several pro teams even share the same D-league affiliate.

Orlando's, by the way, is the Erie BayHawks in Erie, Pennsylvania.

[pierre]

I wonder if you could get the Magic, Heat, Hornets and Hawks to put teams in cities like Jacksonville, Birmingham and Knoxville