The Finch Formerly Known As Gold

30 May 2007

Insert "sinking" metaphor here

Professor Gary Roberts of Tulane University, arguably the nation's most prominent specialist in sports law, is getting ready to leave New Orleans, and, he says, the Big Easy's two major-league sports teams will eventually be doing likewise:

New Orleans is a much smaller and much poorer city than it was before the storm, and it was a marginal market before the storm. The reality is that unless New Orleans pulls off an absolute miracle and comes back a richer, stronger city than before, the Saints and Hornets will eventually leave. I can't imagine the Hornets being here five years from now. The Saints could last a little longer because the economics of pro football give them more of a cushion, and this is football country.

How long is "a little longer"?

The fact that [Saints owner] Tom Benson has finally backed out and allowed competent people to run the team means that they'll probably have a better product on the field than before, and that may well prolong the period of time they can survive here. Because of that, there will be more enthusiasm for them and more willingness on the part of fans to buy tickets and to obtain sponsors. But at the end of the day, the way things are going in pro sports I just can't see New Orleans being a major league city 15 or 20 years from now. The NFL can last longer here than the NBA, and there are more places that the Hornets can go than the Saints can go. You have to have an $800 million facility to justify relocating. In basketball, there's a facility in Oklahoma City and several other places waiting for a team. The Hornets could easily move. This is not a basketball city for the most part, and it's not a rich city.

Absolute miracles are not unheard of, even in sports (cf. the 1969 Mets), but that's seldom the way to bet.

Still, you can be absolutely certain that if the Hornets end up in Oklahoma City, there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth and charges of skulduggery and a predictable piece of performance art by the professional race pimps who will charge that it's all a matter of melanin. Expect the same, minus one or two decibels, should they move to Las Vegas or Kansas City or really anywhere else.

That said, I don't think the Saints are going anywhere: the town has gotten behind the team even when it was at its suckiest, and they have a long way to fall to reach those depths again.

(Via Chris Lawrence, who will be teaching at Tulane this fall.)

Posted at 9:02 AM to Net Proceeds


I first visited New Orleans in 1993, and until that moment I had considered it one of the nation's most important cities. I really couldn't tell you what about it changed my opinion, but changed it was. And that was 12 years before Katrina.

And yet, it's still the gateway port to the Mississippi River and its tributaries, still vital transport routes in the heart of the country; it is, or at least was, a vital center of offshore oil production in the Gulf. If those functions don't move upriver, New Orleans will still have a role to play in American commerce until the real Big One hits.

The city's identity in most people's minds comes from the food and music, and those are what used to bring the Super Bowl to town. I think as long as there are still people -- however many, and note that the description includes more than New Orleans proper -- between the river and the lake those things will abide until the very end.

Posted by: McGehee at 10:38 AM on 30 May 2007