Grizzlies Roaring to Leave Vancouver - Brief Article

Basketball Digest, May, 2001 by David Stone

THE GRIZZLIES APPEAR TO BE on their way out of Vancouver. Owner Michael Heisley has spent the spring touring American cities that have shown interest in his team. Staying in Vancouver is "highly undesirable," according to Heisley:

The Grizzlies never really established a strong presence in western Canada, despite having stars such as Shareef Abdur-Rahim and Mike Bibby. They're expected to lose $40 million this season; a little more than year ago, Heisley paid $160 million for the Grizzlies.

At the time of Heisley's purchase, sentiment in the league appeared to be against relocation of the Grizzlies. Times have changed; the league extended its March 1 deadline to apply for relocation by nearly a month in order to provide Heisley with more time to court, and be courted by, dries and their representatives.

At presstime, Memphis appeared to be the choice to become the new home of the Grizzlies. A five-member NBA committee will study the city selection for up to four months before making a recommendation; final approval of any franchise relocation must come from the league's Board of Governors. The last NBA relocation came in 1985 when the Kansas City Kings moved to Sacramento.

Memphis, with a metropolitan population of just more than 1 million and a TV market ranked No. 40 in the nation, would become the smallest NBA city. However, a recent SportsBusiness Journal survey rated Memphis ahead of Louisville and New Orleans as a prospective NBA locale.

Memphis has never been host to an NBA franchise, although it hosted the Tams, the Pros, and the Sounds in the ABA during the 1970s.

AutoZone founder J.R. "Pitt" Hyde III leads the investment group seeking a large minority share of the team. Heisley has said he may sell up to 50% of the Grizzlies to local interests. The Memphis bid also features a proposal from Memphis-based FedEx to buy the team and arena naming rights from Heisley.

If the Grizzlies move to Memphis, the city would immediately begin constructing a new arena; the Grizzlies would play two seasons in The Pyramid, the current arena in Memphis. Opened in 1991, The Pyramid seats about 20,000 for basketball.

Heisley's relocation tour had taken him through Las Vegas, New Orleans, Louisville, Anaheim, and St. Louis. Las Vegas is a controversial city for the NBA because of the presence of legalized gambling, but otherwise it is a very attractive market for a franchise. Louisville, which was "willing to do whatever is necessary" to attract the Grizzlies, according to Greater Louisville Inc. president Steve Higdon, is a strong basketball market but doesn't currently have an NBA arena to offer.

Heisley took a long look at the Pond in Anaheim, which is the current home of the NHL's Mighty Ducks. "I told him that we really wanted him and his team here," Anaheim mayor Tom Daly says. Anaheim is a vibrant basketball market, as evidenced by its strong support for the Clippers when they were Pond part-timers. However, there was concern at the NBA office about placing a third team in the Los Angeles market, and Heisley certainly had worries about the Ducks' lease, which states that any NBA team that moves into the Pond would have to share significant revenues with Disney, owners of the hockey team. In addition, an NBA team would not receive any share of naming-rights revenue. Ogden, which operates the Pond, had reportedly offered to help buy out the remaining four years on Heisley's lease at the GM Place in Vancouver, and Daly says that Disney has agreed to certain lease concessions.

Hornets owner Ray Wooldridge, who originally planned on applying to the NBA for relocation, will not do so because a Charlotte City Council committee voted to hold a referendum to approve funding for a new arena in June. In fact, Wooldridge's about-face on the issue comes at the same time he has indicated a willingness to sell the team to local interests and be rid of the Hornets. Wooldridge said earlier this year that if the vote was delayed until November he would be forced to leave Charlotte because the team is losing too much money at the Coliseum. The June referendum will package six projects and a total of $352 million, $215 million of which is earmarked for the arena. This "bundling" of arts, cultural, educational, and recreational projects has become a popular means of creating sports facility financing, although Charlotte mayor Pat McCrory could veto the council's approval because he prefers a maximum of only two projects per package. Even with McCrory's approval, the North Carolina legislature would have to approve funding sources and give the city permission to have a nonbinding referendum.