Does anyone believe Jacksonville is or could be a “basketball cityâ€â€¦.or maybe even an NBA city?
If Jacksonville had an ABA (American Basketball Association) semi-pro team this year, would you attend games at the Arena?
No
Jax has had SEVERAL minor league basketball teams over the years. They have played at venues such as the old Colliseum, UNF, Christ the King(yes, a grammar school gym), Ed Waters, FCCJ, etc. All folded. Sometimes the league folded, sometimes the team itself folded... but in all instances, the games did not draw well no matter the venue/league/team record.
Jax has great basketball at the Arena now.... JU Basketball. And those average under 2k people for most games(been going to JU games since the magical year of '86). Usually the UF or FSU game will draw in the 6-8k range and the annual free game Modis holds will put 6-8k butts in the seats. JU in the past hosted UNC and Georgetown in the old Colisseum to very large crowds.
From what I understand, JU though gets a special economic deal to hold the games at the Arena(part of the schedule still includes games at the sweatbox Swisher Gym for lower drawing schools).... so I can't imagine a minor league basketball team being able to afford games at the Arena.
BTW, your guy Eric at CHP... cool guy. Great asset to your establishment!
Right now, absolutely not. The NBA is my favorite professional sports team by a mile, and basketball would be my number one choice of sports to come to the city, but I just don't think it would be a success at this moment in the time. 10-15 years from now, maybe, but not now. Would rather hold out until it had a genuine chance of being successful than come too soon and fail.
Plus, I don't know how big of a basketball city Jacksonville is. The sports bar are always surprisingly slow for the NBA playoffs.
We will never get an NBA team in Jacksonville. Of all the major sports, it requires the most corporate support and people willing to spend big bucks on premium tickets. Neither of which, we would have. People in this town complain now when a Jaguar player signs a deal for 3-4 million a year. What would say this when an average NBA player gets 10 million?
This city's focus needs to be 100% on the Jaguars.
Jacksonville will never have any other major sports team, unless the dynamics and mindset of the citizens change. Jacksonville does not support anything. But yet, we complain about what we don't have. The media had to throw us under the bus for us to get behind our football team like should, major concerts rarely come here because we enough people don't even buy enough tickets to fill the arena. I am a born and raised Jacksonville native and I have noticed that Jacksonville is a city of 800+ complainer's. Everybody wants to yell about the problem, but doesn't offer to be a part of the solution.
I am really thankful the NFL had faith in us and still does. The Jaguars are all we have and ever will have until the mindset of the city changes. PERIOD
No. I play hoops constantly and pickup games were impossible to find at times. There's almost no public courts at all on the southside outside of inside gated communities clubhouses. Football, baseball, fishing and hunting rule here.
JU has a good team though.
JU basketball is experiencing a revival right now. Coach Warren has done great things here. Seeing them beat Arizona State in the NIT this past season was amazing considering in 2005 they only won one game. And don't sleep on UNF either. Coach Driscoll made a great turnaround in his first year and they have resources available to them that JU does not.
Quote from: rjp2008 on August 05, 2010, 03:09:39 PM
No. I play hoops constantly and pickup games were impossible to find at times. There's almost no public courts at all on the southside outside of inside gated communities clubhouses. Football, baseball, fishing and hunting rule here.
JU has a good team though.
You should move to Riverside... Boone Park and Fishweir always have some pretty decent pickup games on the weekends :)
Abbes Park usually has some decent games on the weekends around your neck of the woods.
i'm with everyone else, no way. i love basketball, was born in new york and love the chicago bulls, but there is no way that a team is given to jacksonville. jacksonville is known as a football town and we can barely fill the stand in our own stadium, what do you think the veterans arena would look like?
^ like MCI Arena when the Wizards play . . . empty.
I dont think that Jax is ready at the moment but i also dont think it will be long before we are ready!!! The two exhibition games held at the arena combined for a total of over 22,000 fans. Though those games were only preseason games, the arena holds a little over 14,000 ppl for basketball which means it should have been atleast 28,000 seats sold in the combined games to be sell-outs. And i believe the NBA requires over 20,000 seat arenas so that would mean atleast 40,000 for those two games to be sell-outs.
please...JU has been good for the past few years and can't get more than 2,500 fans for a regular game....Jax. is a long way off from being a b-ball city
we could name them the Jacksonville Crickets, because that is all you would hear
Quote from: tufsu1 on August 05, 2010, 04:44:13 PM
please...JU has been good for the past few years and can't get more than 2,500 fans for a regular game....Jax. is a long way off from being a b-ball city
JU doesnt really play anybody...but like mentioned earlier when they do play big named schools the crowd is much bigger...and also mentioned earlier, jax is not ready for pro. basketball YET but we are not "a long way" from there. AND i like basketball but you wont see me going to no boring low profile JU game but if you was talking about some big names like lebron or kobe or wade comin to town to play against our Jax NBA team then i would be the first person in the door and im sure there is a lot of ppl that feel the same way as me BUUUUUUT i dont believe there is ENOUGH ppl right now so like i said were not ready right now but i wont be long until we are!!!!
No thanks. The Jaguars are enough. Don't need anything else. We have enough trouble fielding this NFL team.
"HU"
No way in the next 20 years Jax could support an NBA team economically. We have our one professional sports team for our market size. The only markest with more than one professional team smaller than ours are New Orleans (and that's almost entirely due to post-Katrina population numbers) and Buffalo (gee, a town on the Canadian border having an NHL team as their second professional team - go figure). The smallest one larger than Jax with more than 1 team (Milwaukee) has us beat by 225k people and 12 spots in the rankings. Jacksonville would have to have a major growth spurt to justify any other league deciding to bring a professional team to town. Not only that, but most Florida teams have a well earned reputation of being complete fair-weather fans - the only way Jax gets a second professional team is if one is somehow poached from another Florida city - which is highly unlikely.
We can't even support a losing football team, so unless they were winners right out of the box, no way!
Quote from: Clem1029 on August 05, 2010, 08:20:43 PM
The smallest one larger than Jax with more than 1 team (Milwaukee) has us beat by 225k people and 12 spots in the rankings.
Milwaukee's metro has more than 400k than ours and they got their NBA and MLB team in '68 and '69 respectively. And during that time Milwaukee's city population was almost 750k.
well,OKC is a NBA city. we probbaly couldnt support both and NBA and NFL team. I wonder of OKC could support an NFL franchise.
I wish the Jacksonville Barracudas would return. Any news on that??
if the city did jack up their rent in the arena, causing them to move to skate world, they would still be around.
I will give you four reasons Jacksonville will never have an NBA team.
Sacramento
Memphis
Indianapolis
Minneapolis
Four of the smallest markets in the NBA. They are also four of the bottom six teams when it comes to attendance and play at crowds under 80 percent capacity.
Quote from: TheProfessor on August 05, 2010, 10:13:47 PM
I wish the Jacksonville Barracudas would return. Any news on that??
ditto!
When we yelled GO CUDAS we didn't mean show them the exit! :'(
I dislike basketball. I'd never go to a game, the Jags are enough for me.
Love colledge hoops... despise pro hoops.