Thursday, July 02, 2009

Are you a Grizzlies fan?

You may not want to be after you read this guest post at 3 Shades of Blue talking about where the Grizz are as a franchise.
Here's the money shot:

So Heisley isn’t spending big money. He is spending the minimum money he is required to spend and rather than pursue a Free Agent for a 4 or 5 year deal, he traded for a 2-year red herring under the guise of getting a 20&10 guy – but really just fulfilling his minimum economic requirements with only short term exposure and no regard for the impact on the basketball court (or the impact on the fanbase).

And that is the dirty little secret of the NBA that Heisley figured out this year. If you keep your salaries between the NBA minimum and $50 million (and the Grizz will not go over $50 million this year or next), keep your front office expense low and do a good job of renting out your CapSpace and available roster spots to Capped Out and Taxed Out teams, then you can be profitable on annual basis even in a small market and even without fans and even with only making a pretense of caring about winning. And that is a safer economic approach than investing in long term talent and hoping to increase revenues by generating wins and ticket sales.

Makes you want to give up, doesn't it?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

So, how does that fit with the morning line about trying to get problem child Iverson?

Watching AI back in the day with his fearlessness, willing to risk injury, great moves, etc. used to thrill me, but AI seems to have totally worn out body and soul and to be reverting to his old selfish/sulky personality. Not a great addition to any team.

Still, every time I saw one of his teams play the Griz in Memphis, there were more locals lined up in his jerseys and T-shirts than in Griz gear, so it would possibly help ticket sales.