The House of Blue

Who would ever want to see a pro team of any sort come to your town? just more crazy lawless sorry activity.

The city begged UofL to go downtown. Jurich and Ramsay wanted an on campus arena. Don't blame them.

An NHL team is the answer and preferably an expansion team.

Of course the arena had to be downtown. Why would Jurich want an on campus facility? There is nothing around UL's campus except a few hotels, a couple of restaurants, CD, and a lot of low rent housing. Jurich got what he wanted in the sweet money and control deal that is killing the arena. Pitino doesn't want the competition for fan dollars and who would? Hockey, are you kidding me? There is not one youth hockey program in the state of Kentucky and zero interest. It would be a total bust in a small market like Louisville. Basketball is the only game and an NBA team would do fine in that NBA arena. The Colonels did very well, better than many NBA franchises in their day.

Exactly. How many folks trek to Indy to see the Pacers on a weekly basis? A handful at most. Heck, you can't get folks from outside Louisville to go to a cat game when they were in Freedom Hall.

Why would cat and Card fans get together to watch an NBA basketball game when our love is with the college programs!

You do realize that the Pacers were in Indy when the Colonels were in Louisville don't you? The two ABA teams were among the most successful in pro basketball and routinely outdrew many older NBA franchises. UL and UK had thriving college teams during the 9 year run of the franchise. I thought you were a Kentucky sports expert.

Well, that brings up a couple of points. The first is that the Colonels don't exist any more, and for a reason. The second is that what you are referencing was in a different era when TV coverage didn't matter as much because the TV money wasn't as much. Now we have conference going kaput over huge, multimillion dollar contracts. Don't think the NBA doesn't pay attention to this stuff.

LOU can / will sustain an NBA franchise...Sooner-rather-than-later. W/ the Kings to Seattle...The next target I'm looking for is the Milwaukee Bucks... (the NBA least valuable team - $268M via Forbes)...To be the next team to be transitioned to new ownership/look to relocate.

And the "Kentucky Bucks" just sounds right for this area. I mean, doesn't it??? The "Bucks" name/logo fits this state to a tee, IMO, while remaining neutral enough that local ND, UofL, IU, UK, WKU fans would unite behind the team w/o much complaint. Allowing a newly relocated team to avg. 17.5K/gm over 41 home games - (during 1st 3yrs in LOU - minimum) - when the new team would be building the fan-base & selling the future... (Drawing most paying fans from LouMetro+S.IN, CIN-NKY, Frankfort- LEX, Ft.Knox/E-Town). If they make the team competitive / potential play-off worthy team...They could sustain that kind of support for the foreseeable future!

I've read that the group interested in bringing a team to Louisville is more interested in a franchise team. In terms of building that team it would probably take a little longer, but with the right management and coach they could potentially make the right moves to put together a nice team.

One would think with the success of OKC and the recent news about Seattle/Sactown that Louisville would be higher on the NBA's crosshairs for future teams.