Recently, the @NBABirmingham Twitter account was created and burst onto the scene in the local twitter world.
Fifteen-year-old George Chamoun from Mountain Brook started the account, which became a Twitter sensation. In less than two weeks, the account has reached nearly 6,000 followers. Chamoun and company have started a petition, created t-shirts and are trying to raise money to help the cause. Chamoun has also been interviewed or featured by multiple media outlets including The Birmingham News and ABC 33/40.
With all that said, the question has to be asked: can the city of Birmingham and the state of Alabama support an NBA franchise?
In short, no. But, there are many reasons.
First, fans in Alabama are more equipped for college football. There are 12-14 games depending on how far your team goes, and seven or eight home games a year. It’s easy to travel and get excited for the festivities that occur every Saturday during the college football season.
But what about a random Tuesday, when your NBA team is facing the Washington Wizards? Or a back-to-back against the Houston Rockets and the New Jersey Nets? Would you really be excited to attend games like that?
In case you didn’t know, the NBA schedule is 82 games, with 41 home games, and often features back-to-backs against mediocre teams. Unlike the college football season, the NBA season is full of meaningless regular season games.
But even beyond the long and sometimes boring NBA schedule, there are really only two ways to bring an NBA team to a city near you: either by NBA expansion or team relocation.
The first is the least likely scenario. The last time the NBA brought in an expansion team was 2004 with the Charlotte Bobcats. In the franchise’s eight-year history, the team has advanced to the postseason once. As a fan, would you be willing to suffer through those struggles?
The next option, team relocation, would take a team owner or ownership group making a conscious decision to take their team and move it to Birmingham.
One reason fans have been mentioning Birmingham could support an NBA franchise has been the success of the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Thunder, formerly known as the Seattle Supersonics, were moved from Seattle, Wash. to Oklahoma City after being denied funding for a new arena.
Since moving to OKC, the Thunder have had only one losing season and played in the NBA Finals in its fourth year since the relocation.
The argument has been made that Oklahoma City (579,999- 2010 Census) has a smaller population than Jefferson County (658,555- 2010 Census). While this is true, people forget one thing: Oklahoma City had a trial run at hosting an NBA franchise.
From 2005-2007, the New Orleans Hornets were forced to relocate to Oklahoma City after Hurricane Katrina. The city adopted the team and showed they were more than capable of consistently supporting a franchise, making it an easy transition for Bennett when he moved the Thunder in 2008.
The chances of an NBA team coming to Birmingham are slim to none, but it is nice to know that kids still have dreams.
