Should Portland Trail Blazers Host An All-Star Game?
As NBA fans, media members, and the league’s best players prepare for the Feb. 15 All-Star Game in New York City, the Portland Trail Blazers rabid fan base has to be asking themselves: “Why not us?”
The city of Portland put in yet another bid for the 2016 or 2017 all-star game, as one of three cities that has never hosted it. The others are Toronto and Oklahoma City. Toronto and the Toronto Raptors will host the game in 2016.
After Portland was officially eliminated from contention as host of the 2017 All-Star Game, fans of the NBA in the Northwest have to start asking themselves why former NBA commissioner David Stern and current commissioner Adam Silver hate this corner of the nation.
After all, the Portland Trail Blazers enjoy some of the best local fan support in the NBA, as more than 19,000 fans pack the arena every night. For a relatively small market, that is an absurd amount of fans, better than places like Los Angeles, Miami, San Antonio, and Boston.
So the fan support is clearly here, so why then does the NBA refuse to consider Portland as a destination for its marquee mid-season event?
According to Chris Haynes, of CSNNW.com, the main issue is hotel space, and the continuous delays of a major hotel project in downtown Portland.
"Adam Silver, the new NBA Commissioner, revealed to CSNNW.com last year that he would love to bring the fun-filled event to Portland, but says his main concern was hotel accommodations."
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However, Chris McGowan, president and CEO of the Trail Blazers has vowed to continue to work towards bringing the event to one of the NBA’s best fans.
“We just want the league to know that we’re trying and want to bring the All-Star Game to Portland,” McGowan told CSNNW.com at All-Star Weekend in New Orleans. “We have the best fans and attractive venues that I think would be a perfect fit. We’re open to any year available. We want to make it happen.”
Is it really about hotel space?
Still, is the real reason that the All-Star game has never been to Oregon simply due to hotel space? Or has the NBA’s marketing strategy long been to put this event in markets that make more strategic sense?
The game has been to the Northwest twice, but the first was 41 years ago and the last 27–the 1974 and 1987 all-star games were held in Seattle.
Everyone remembers the failed franchise that was the Vancouver Grizzlies, situated in a wonderful city, but fans never came to the games and the product on the court was mostly terrible.
Eventually, the team was relocated to Memphis, but the NBA has been eyeing Canada as a natural expansion territory for awhile. Local business in Vancouver says the city is ready for the NBA to return, and the NBA is scheduling another preseason game in the city.
Even if this expansion talk is not necessarily as a new team, it certainly has to do with growth as a market to watch games on television and to buy NBA merchandise.
Past games awarded to small markets
It is hard to imagine that Portland is not ready to host this event, when in the recent past we have seen cities such as New Orleans, Las Vegas, Charlotte, Denver, Cleveland, and New Orleans again.
The city has hosted big events before. Just recently Portland hosted the 2014 Major League Soccer All-Star Game.
MLS decided that even though Portland was not its largest market, the crazed fans and overall city atmosphere was enough of a reason to put its marquee event in the northwest. And it was a huge success:
”One of the great stories in Major League Soccer over the last number of years has been the enormous fan passion, civic support and stadium atmosphere in Portland,” MLS Commissioner Don Garber said earlier this year. ”We look forward to showcasing this phenomenon to the rest of the world.”
Sure, the MLS all star game is not as big as the NBA event, but nevertheless, clearly the NBA could make do and figure out the logistics if it wanted.
At this point, Adam Silver knows that the Portland Trail Blazers are a healthy franchise with great fan support. Rather than reward the fans for their loyalty, Silver and the NBA executives have decided to crap on their fans in favor of a better marketing opportunity.