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Sprint Center

Kevin Pritchard gets it. The Portland Trailblazers’ GM, who is bringing his squad to the Sprint Center tonight to scrimmage against the Atlanta Hawks, thinks the NBA has viability in Kansas City. KUSports.com:

As far as Friday’s game … the location is perhaps a bigger story than the meaningless exhibition contest. Kansas City hopes to attract an NBA or NHL team to the Sprint Center sooner rather than later.

“I look forward to seeing the Sprint Center. I heard it’s unbelievable,” said Pritchard, starting point guard on KU’s 1988 NCAA championship team. “It’s such a basketball-crazy area. I think it could (support an NBA team),” he added.

Pritchard led the Kansas City Knights to the ABA championship in 2001, joining the San Antonio Spurs scouting department the following season.

“Being with the Knights was an amazing experience,” Pritchard said. “It was the minor leagues and by definition there are challenges. I got to learn from the bottom up. I learned to do a lot of different things that have been valuable to me.

“It’s nice to be playing a game in Kansas City again. The challenge has been all the ticket requests — about 70. That’s a good problem to have,” he added with a laugh.

Like Kev says, and like I’ve been saying for a couple years, KC is “basketball crazy.” We need an NBA franchise in here to showcase all the NBA talent playing in Lawrence, Kansas (and the one or two NBA players who might come through Manhattan and Columbia in the next ten years. Ha ha ha… )

The Kansas City Star speculates that the NBA won’t arrive in Kansas City anytime soon, despite the potential for bringing in spectators and ratings by drafting Kansas Jayhawk players (and–I’ll be generous here–even Missouri Tigers or Kansas State Wildcats). Is Kansas City just a big college town without the mass media market an NBA team requires?

While the grassroots organization NHL21 keeps the pulse alive for hockey, and AEG, which manages the Sprint Center, will bring an NHL exhibition game to the arena in September, there doesn’t seem to be much buzz in Kansas City regarding an NBA franchise.

After all, television ratings for early-round NBA playoff games were lower than two Royals rainouts. AEG, which is charged with bringing pro sports to Kansas City, flirted with two NHL franchises last year but has not made any public overtures to any NBA clubs other than Seattle, when SuperSonics owner Clay Bennett said he might consider Kansas City as an alternative to Oklahoma City…

Ask Brenda Tinnen, general manager and senior vice president for the Sprint Center, whether people would prefer the NBA or NHL, and the answer is always the same when she speaks to civic organizations and schools.

“It’s always 50-50,” said Tinnen. “Is there a buzz about the NBA? When you get to the point of the Stanley Cup finals and the (NBA) Western Conference championship and finals, there is a bit of a buzz. But nowhere near the buzz as when KU went to the Final Four.

“It was fabulous for the Jayhawks to win the Big 12 championship right here in Kansas City and go from that point and win it all. If we had an NBA team or an NHL team that was relevant to Kansas City, there would be a buzz.”

Personally, I think the saturation of the city with local NCAA college alums is a strength, not a weakness, where NBA potential is concern. I’m keeping my fingers crossed. Would love to see an NBA team enthroned in the state-of-the-art Sprint Center, which rivals top-flight arenas anywhere.

Meanwhile, Phil Miller of Market Power wonders if the animosity between KU and MU fans would keep them from jointly supporting an NBA team, and whether franchises will use Kansas City as a bargaining chip (i.e., If you don’t give us a sweetheart deal, we’ll move to KC!) Of course, Phil is an MU alum, so nothing he says can be trusted as most of it is probably outright lies.

Ha ha ha.