No Big Easy way out of this one
The New Orleans question continues to trouble sports.
It has now been five months since Hurricane Katrina wreaked havoc there, dealing a blow from which the city is still struggling to recover.
A minor subplot in New Orleans’ effort to return to normalcy has revolved around the NFL’s Saints and the NBA’s Hornets, both of whom have temporarily relocated — the Saints (mostly) to San Antonio, and the Hornets (mostly) to Oklahoma City.
The fear is that neither team will be back in New Orleans any time soon; the reality is that they shouldn’t.
Sports is a business, one that must have access to a slice of a population’s disposable income to survive. The “New Orleans question” does not just revolve around when the structures the teams play in will be ready. It hinges on the readiness of the infrastructure of the community.
If you are the Saints, despite reports that the Superdome will be ready to go in November, it’s hard to do business. As Sporting News writer Dan Pompei pointed out recently, what free-agent football player will want to sign with the Saints? Until the situation is stabilized, what exists is a hobbled, nomadic franchise that has just come off a 3-13 season.
Furthermore, for a pro sports team to succeed, it has to be in a community willing to support it through both winning AND losing seasons. The Saints last made the playoffs in 2000 and are rebuilding. The Hornets have been in New Orleans full time only since 2002, and last season were a mere 18-64.
In fact, the Hornets’ case might be more damning than the Saints’. The NBA team drew a little over 14,000 per game last season, a league low. In Oklahoma City, the fan count this season puts them among the top 10 in the NBA at nearly 18,000, and there is a season-ticket base of 11,500.
The Saints, meanwhile, averaged nearly 63,000 in San Antonio this past season, which shows support. In 2004, the Saints drew a little over 64,000 per game in New Orleans.
No one wants to say it — people don’t even want to talk about it — but the fact remains that these teams cannot go back to New Orleans yet, as neither they nor the city is healthy.
An ideal setup would be to have the city focus on getting college teams in the area back in action and supported by the community. Let the NFL and NBA move the teams for now, but make them promise that within three years the teams will be back or the city will be first in line for expansion franchises or teams that want to move.
Be realistic, and let New Orleans thoroughly recover. Let the financial base not only be re-established, but solidified. Set up a model for success for all parties involved instead of a path for failure.