Kansas City wants the NBA, but does the NBA want us back? Maybe. It’s ... complicated
The red box went from Kansas City to New York this week and it could not have been more Kansas City without burnt ends and potholes: It was stuffed with barbecue sauce, chocolate, KC Heart socks, KC Heart shirts, KC Heart lots of stuff.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver can now dress like the guy socially distanced in front of you in line at the Plaza coffee shop the other day.
The Kansas City Area Development Council sent the swag this week, part of a very public and very sudden push to host the Toronto Raptors in Kansas City for the upcoming season should they need a temporary home, as Canadian law currently bans travel from America.
There is nothing subtle about Kansas City right now. Hard-to-get is not our strategy. Patrick Mahomes, Andy Reid and many local and area politicians are making the case publicly. This is the rare issue with bipartisan, bi-state support. We’re all over social media. The message is clear, shameless and at least a little vulnerable.
This is understandable. The NBA is reportedly targeting a Dec. 22 start to the 2020-21 season. The preseason would begin three weeks or so earlier. Schedules need to be set, travel plans booked, living accommodations made. A decision on the Raptors’ 2020-21 home probably needs to be made within two weeks, tops. That’s not enough time for traditional relationship building.
So we’re not here to criticize the approach.
Thinking about this is fun, the potential is enormous, and who couldn’t use a little fun and enormous potential right now?
It’s just that, well, please don’t shoot the messenger, but the totality of the NBA commissioner’s office response to Kansas City so far is that the Raptors are focused on making it work in Toronto first, which would be fine, except there are indications that the league has been more responsive to other potential backup hosts.
When we say this is a long shot, this is only part of what we mean.
KC has the chops
The NBA should be interested in Kansas City. That case is easy to make. Our TV market is bigger than four existing NBA markets, and Kansas City’s footprint extends even further in the thousands of square miles between Denver, Minneapolis, Chicago and Oklahoma City.
The NBA, like just about every other business except Clorox and Zoom, has lost stacks of cash this year.
One way to recoup some of that money is to establish a new television market.
Viewed through that prism, no place in the country can match Kansas City in terms of market size, growth opportunity and arena quality and availability.
A complete list of the markets bigger than Kansas City without a NBA team: Tampa Bay, Seattle, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Raleigh, Nashville and San Diego.
Take Seattle and San Diego off the list — the NBA is not going to put an Eastern Conference team on the West Coast during a pandemic that creates travel hassles. Baltimore is neighbors with the Wizards and Capitals in Washington D.C., and the other cities all have NHL teams.
That means scheduling conflicts for games and schedules and interest (and the condensation that sometimes develops from ice rinks under basketball courts). Louisville has been mentioned but is smaller than Kansas City, and its arena is a full-time host to men’s and women’s college basketball teams.
Kansas City’s T-Mobile Center is wide open, and particularly with concerts being canceled it could be made available for virtually any NBA dates. Plenty of luxury hotel space exists nearby in a booming downtown.
The arena is a central piece of this push. Not just for the availability, but quality. There’s a joke in NBA circles about the cell-phone reception there — ironic, considering the name — and hosting a team permanently would require upgrades to the video screen, ribbon boards, locker rooms and other infrastructure.
But for one season? The NBA is unlikely to find a better combination of availability and quality. The feedback and response for exhibition games here has been consistently positive.
Now let’s do growth. Kansas City is an untapped market for the NBA. This is a place that loves to feel big, loves to support local and loves to watch sports. TV ratings here are consistently among the highest in the country for games, even when no local teams are playing.
The popularity and success of teams in Salt Lake City, San Antonio, Milwaukee and Oklahoma City show that the NBA can thrive in smaller markets.
The Raptors would arrive with some built-in regional ties. Fred VanVleet went to Wichita State. OG Anunoby is from Jefferson City. Nick Nurse is from Iowa.
With diminished revenue from presumably limited attendance, the Raptors could effectively provide the NBA with an extra local TV deal. They’d still be broadcast in Toronto, where they’re wildly popular, and the league would gain distribution here in the Midwest.
If the NBA sees Kansas City as a potential expansion candidate someday, this is a rare opportunity to test our viability.
That’s the case, anyway.
Now let’s look at reality.
The sticking points
We have a geographic advantage over Seattle and Las Vegas. But we have a significant disadvantage when compared to Buffalo, Newark, Atlantic City, Louisville, Cincinnati — basically any city closer to Toronto, and in the Eastern time zone.
Those cities are mentioned for a reason. Each came up, unprompted, in various conversations over the past several days. The NBA has engaged at least a few of those cities more substantively than it has Kansas City. That’s not good for us. And that’s not all.
Two major problems for Kansas City came through more than others.
The first is corporate money. The NBA is driven by corporate money, and Kansas City has less of it than many peer cities. The corporate money that exists here is already stretched not just in sports, with the Chiefs, Royals, Sporting Kansas City and colleges, but with museums and cancer research and other community assets.
That’s more of a concern in landing a permanent team, yes, but if a potential permanent team is part of Kansas City’s appeal (and motivation to do this), then it’s important.
The other problem we have is with scheduling. One idea being floated around the league is for markets to pair up and to play the schedule in series, sort of like in baseball.
You’d play two games against the Knicks and two games against the Nets one week, for instance, and then two games against the Wizards and two against the 76ers the next week.
If that’s the way this goes, Kansas City lacks an obvious partner. Oklahoma City and Minneapolis are the closest NBA markets, but those are in the Western Conference. Chicago is the closest Eastern Conference team, but the Bulls play 90 miles from the Bucks.
If the NBA prioritizes ease in scheduling and travel, Buffalo or Newark make the most sense. All of this assumes the Canadian government doesn’t make an exception for the NBA, which some believe is possible in part because of Raptors owner Larry Tanenbaum’s close relationship with prime minister Justin Trudeau.
Of course, these priorities would be easier to decipher if the Raptors or league office returned some of Kansas City’s affection.
And unless that changes, that’s all that matters.
This story was originally published October 30, 2020 at 5:00 AM.