The Finch Formerly Known As Gold

14 May 2008

When David gets all Goliath-y

I've suggested that the ongoing Seattle vs. Oklahoma City wars might be good theater, if nothing else; it hadn't occurred to me that what we're seeing might simply be a deeply dysfunctional business plan, and we're the enablers:

[T]he only way [NBA Commissioner David] Stern could continue to pursue a faulty business model was through a Ponzi scheme of pitting one city against another — exactly the situation he has aided in creating here.

Playing off the feelings of inadequacy in Oklahoma City (and that is not intended [as] an insult at all; it is clear from their language that they want the NBA so they might be elevated to a "major league city"), Stern has managed to create a sense of urgency in both cities, to the point where a total approaching half a billion dollars is being proposed to reconstruct existing arenas.

When I wrote about this last year, my argument was that the whole debate was upside-down, and that rather than having the cities chase the NBA, it should be the NBA chasing the cities. Let's face it, the NBA needs markets more than the markets need the NBA.

After all, do you think people in Las Vegas or St. Louis woke up this morning and cursed themselves for not having an NBA team? Do you believe residents of Memphis are patting themselves on the back with glee that they don't live in a hellhole like San Diego, a city barren of NBA basketball?

Given the Griz' attendance, I'm sure there are residents of Memphis who think, "What? We have an NBA team?"

I do like the idea of an inverted perspective, but David Stern still has scarcity on his side: artificially created to be sure, but still scarcity. And if playing one town against another turns out to work, it's prudent to assume he'll keep doing it until such time as it stops working.

I can't speak for anyone else in the local Sonics Thunderbirds Barons fan base, but I think things would have gone much more easily if Clay Bennett had written a check to the NBA and Stern had decreed, "For a new team shall be yours, and we shall add another one to the East for balance." As though the East would ever be balanced. And the Sonics? They'd be in Seattle, as they'd been for four decades.

Meanwhile, if anyone comes up with an explanation of why David Stern is so resistant to expansion, I'd like to hear it.

Posted at 12:00 PM to Net Proceeds