Which cities would be good for sports teams?

[Poiponen13]

The Hampton Roads area of Virginia (Norfolk/Virginia Beach/Newport News) is a large metro area and doesn't have any major league teams. That for sure would be a good place to get a major league team.

Might be too much of a transient military population to promote local team loyalties, with some residents sticking with their former home teams. The Washington DC metro area has a similar issue, but has a much larger population.

And a team name would be Hampton Roads Rhinos.

No

Yes. The Hampton Roads Rhinos were a potential National Hockey League expansion team that was to begin play in the late-1990s in Norfolk, Virginia.

That's why I think that Hampton Roads Rhinos should be the name of new Hampton Roads team, which should enter to NBA in next 15 years.

No

Very big yes.

What part of

NO

don't you understand?

That I think that NBA needs Hampton Roads Rhinos.

No means no.  Don't you have anything better to do than causing chaos on this forum?  How fucking clear do we have to be that we think your ideas are total shit?

Really though, what is the point of enabling P13 to post here?  This should be consolidated into this "in one thread" or deleted for causing a disruption.  Some of us actually want to talk about real sports (or non-crap hypothetical ideas).  This thread keeps getting top posted with this Rhino team nonsense.

The reason is that Hampton Roads is a large metropolitan area without any major league sports teams, and I think that this should change.

[Max Rockatansky]

The Hampton Roads area of Virginia (Norfolk/Virginia Beach/Newport News) is a large metro area and doesn't have any major league teams. That for sure would be a good place to get a major league team.

Might be too much of a transient military population to promote local team loyalties, with some residents sticking with their former home teams. The Washington DC metro area has a similar issue, but has a much larger population.

And a team name would be Hampton Roads Rhinos.

No

Yes. The Hampton Roads Rhinos were a potential National Hockey League expansion team that was to begin play in the late-1990s in Norfolk, Virginia.

That's why I think that Hampton Roads Rhinos should be the name of new Hampton Roads team, which should enter to NBA in next 15 years.

No

Very big yes.

What part of

NO

don't you understand?

That I think that NBA needs Hampton Roads Rhinos.

No means no.  Don't you have anything better to do than causing chaos on this forum?  How fucking clear do we have to be that we think your ideas are total shit?

Really though, what is the point of enabling P13 to post here?  This should be consolidated into this "in one thread" or deleted for causing a disruption.  Some of us actually want to talk about real sports (or non-crap hypothetical ideas).  This thread keeps getting top posted with this Rhino team nonsense.

The reason is that Hampton Roads is a large metropolitan area without any major league sports teams, and I think that this should change.

No.

I think you should be banned for post whoring (emphasis my opinion).  I think this is needed. 

[tmoore952]

76ers should come back to Syracuse.

When the Warriors come back to Philadelphia.

[GaryV]

The reason is that Hampton Roads is a large metropolitan area without any major league sports teams, and I think that this should change.

If you think that should change, then buy yourself a team and move them there. Then you can call them anything you'd like.

Until then, you are not doing yourself any favors on this thread, on this whole forum for that matter. This thread had degenerated into your typical "I think this is needed" bunch of responses, and it is getting very close to "in one thread" territory. I'm not a moderator, so I can't make that decision. I'm saying, don't keep tempting the mods to do so.

[1995hoo]

As has already been noted, there was an attempt to bring an NHL team to the Hampton Roads area in the mid-1990s, prior to the Hartford Whalers' relocation to Raleigh. The effort was unsuccessful, which might have been for the best because the guy leading the effort was George Shinn, who at the time owned the original Charlotte Hornets but later saw his reputation fall apart after a sexual assault trial (even though he was acquitted).

Nobody else since then has tried to land a pro sports team there, so I'm not sure why Poiponen has such a stick up his arse about it. No interested potential owner plus no suitable arena means no expansion team. Surely even Poiponen is not stupid enough to think a league will just place a team somewhere for free out of the goodness of their hearts. Consider also that neither the Washington Wizards nor the Charlotte Hornets would be particularly keen on seeing their local broadcast territory eroded and would almost certainly demand some serious compensation for allowing another team into the area.

BTW, recall that Hampton Roads did once have a pro basketball team, the Virginia Squires of the ABA. The team failed for various reasons. It's fair to recognize that the area was very different 50 years ago compared to now, of course. The team played at the Norfolk Scope arena, which is far too small for either the NBA or the NHL. It's currently the home to a minor-league hockey team, the ECHL's Norfolk Admirals (affiliated with the Winnipeg Jets), and that's about the highest-level team you're ever likely to see there.

[The Nature Boy]

Could Hampton Roads support an NBA team? Probably. It would be the only team between DC and Charlotte. If OKC can do it, Hampton Roads likely could. If you had an interested owner and good enough facility, I don't think the NBA says no.

I don't think it should be a priority though.

[1995hoo]

Could Hampton Roads support an NBA team? Probably. It would be the only team between DC and Charlotte. If OKC can do it, Hampton Roads likely could. If you had an interested owner and good enough facility, I don't think the NBA says no.

I don't think it should be a priority though.

I could certainly see them seeing "no" depending on what other cities were involved in the expansion derby. By all accounts, Seattle and Las Vegas are considered the two cities most likely to land teams if/when the league expands, and I can see a lot of reasons why they would be more attractive locations than the Hampton Roads area.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

Some metros large enough for a major team just don't have the intangible "pizazz" for a major sports team. Omaha is one. I doubt OKC ever gets the Thunder without Katrina forcing New Orleans to give it an unplanned test run before OKC ultimately stole the Sonics.

[thenetwork]

I would think a metro area the size of Salt Lake City should have a Pro Football and Baseball team.

The region supports 2 notable colleges for football and they have several farm league baseball teams with an hour's drive of each other, so "going pro" for the two sports should make it well there.

[gonealookin]

Some metros large enough for a major team just don't have the intangible "pizazz" for a major sports team. Omaha is one. I doubt OKC ever gets the Thunder without Katrina forcing New Orleans to give it an unplanned test run before OKC ultimately stole the Sonics.

Sacramento is another one lacking in that "pizazz".  They were pretty close to losing the NBA Kings a few years ago, before they finally got a deal for a new downtown arena (ironically, the notion of the Kings moving to the Hampton Roads area was semi-seriously floated for a brief time, but presumably after a little thought somebody realized, uh, NO).  There's not enough corporate money in Sacramento to support any other team though.  It might seem like a logical place for the Oakland A's to have gone to but that notion was never given any consideration at all.  Sacramento did briefly have a team in the Canadian Football League, playing at Sacramento State's stadium, when that league tried having a few teams south of the border, plus at times it has had WNBA and Arena Football, but other than that the most significant team they have supported has been baseball's AAA Sacramento River Cats.

At the time Arco Arena in North Natomas (the Kings home until 2016) was built in the 1980s, some work was done adjacent to the arena laying groundwork for a baseball stadium which was thought to be a home for a future AAA baseball team with the idea of it being expandable to host a Major League Baseball team.  It can be seen just north of the (since-demolished) arena in this satellite view.  No further work was ever done on the stadium though, and when the area did get the River Cats some years later the AAA ballpark was built in West Sacramento, just across the Sacramento River from downtown.

[The Nature Boy]

Could Hampton Roads support an NBA team? Probably. It would be the only team between DC and Charlotte. If OKC can do it, Hampton Roads likely could. If you had an interested owner and good enough facility, I don't think the NBA says no.

I don't think it should be a priority though.

I could certainly see them seeing "no" depending on what other cities were involved in the expansion derby. By all accounts, Seattle and Las Vegas are considered the two cities most likely to land teams if/when the league expands, and I can see a lot of reasons why they would be more attractive locations than the Hampton Roads area.

Fair point - I don't think they'd say no if someone bought an existing team and wanted to relocate, especially since it wouldn't involve expansion. The Wizards might be the only team with a reasonable objection but I think you could argue that Hampton Roads is far enough from DC to be a separate market.

Of course, I don't see this happening. Hampton Roads isn't a hot market for an NBA team and I don't know of any local interests who would be interested in buying an existing team and relocating.

[Scott5114]

Some metros large enough for a major team just don't have the intangible "pizazz" for a major sports team. Omaha is one. I doubt OKC ever gets the Thunder without Katrina forcing New Orleans to give it an unplanned test run before OKC ultimately stole the Sonics.

A good chunk of that was also the fact that Clay Bennett is from OKC, so if he still bought the team in a non-Katrina universe, he probably still would have moved it. Being steeped in OKC culture would have required him to do so anyway, but it was the path of least resistance, since OKC Mayor Mick Cornett was much friendlier to the idea of rolling out the red carpet for the Thunder than Seattle was.