Vancouver couldn't care less about the NBA

[lmanchur.]

Thanks to the Grizzlies moving and the way the situation was handled, I would guess that about 0.01% of the city of Vancouver now cares for the NBA . . . . . don't blame 'em... exactly how we felt here in Manitoba when we lost our NHL team.

[[Full Story on MyManitoba.com]]

NBA Grizzlies gone to Memphis and mostly forgotten by Vancouver sports fans
Posted: Friday, 26 Oct 2001 16:41:30 EDT

JIM MORRIS

VANCOUVER (CP) - The Vancouver Grizzlies are gone and pretty much forgotten.

Only some bitterness remains. For the first time in six seasons there will be no NBA basketball in Vancouver. The Grizzlies, who lost 359 games and never won more than 23 in a season, have packed their blue suede sneakers and moved south Memphis, the home of Elvis Presley and the blues. The collective reaction of most local fans - to paraphrase another famous southerner - is frankly, they don't give a damn.

"Who cares?" said former season-ticker holder Garnett Pawliw. "Basically I didn't go to see the Grizzlies. I went to see the teams coming in. The product was bad. The Grizzlies were just a bad team. They are gone."

Vancouver's two daily newspapers have followed Jordan's return to the game but the Memphis Grizzlies are rarely mentioned. Radio and television sportscasts are more interested in the Giants, the new Western Hockey League franchise, than the goings-on in Memphis.

The Vancouver version of The Team all-sports radio network asked how much NBA coverage its listeners wanted.

"I would say 95 per cent of the callers said they couldn't care less about the NBA and the Grizzlies overall," said Bob Marjanovich, co-host of a popular afternoon phone-in program on The Team.

"We had a few people who wouldn't mind an NBA segment once a week. I would say the vast majority don't really care."

"I think there are more people wishing them worse than wishing them better."

Owch -- strong words!

[Marc]

Yeah, I guess they need a reason to like the team, and Vancouver never really had that since the team was so dreadful when they were there. It's kind of a nasty cycle. Team needs fans, but fans need team.

[Spike]

Yeah I think it was a mistake to put an N.B.A. franchise in Vancouver in the first place because I heard a little after it was announced that Vancouver would get an N.B.A. franchise in 1995 that a survey was taken by a local newspaper in the area and most everyone said they'd rather have an N.F.L. team or a Major League Baseball team.

I think David Stern just saw a growing metropolis and surrounding area with its diversity and figured that would be a good place to spread his sport but in reality it wasn't a place that was yearning for basketball.

[J_Sinclair]

I think it was a mistake too. The reason that Toronto still has a team is because Toronto has real sports fans. Toronto fans have learned from the Leafs that you still have to love a team no matter how sucky they are. In vancouver, the grizzles sucked and because vancouver fans are young and impatient, they learned to judge vancouver too quickly, so after the first few seasons vancouver sucked and the fans gave up on them.

[TheRocketGuy]

It's a cause and effect kind of thing.

Vancouver didn't support the Grizzlies.

The Grizzlies didn't sell tickets.

The franchise didn't make money.

The owners weren't inspired to spend more money to get a winning team.

The team lost.

The fans continued to stay away.

The team moved.

Pretty simple, really. If the city had supported the team, the team would have become better. It was good that they moved to Memphis. Maybe Memphis will actually go out and support their team.