Columbus Mayor hoping for NBA team at Nationwide Arena

It’s good for a city to have leadership that “thinks big”. Someone that will push to improve a city. That’s all that Columbus mayor Micheal Coleman is trying to do, to raise the profile of his city while also hopefully injecting some life and generate some additional revenue. He also happens to be a big basketball fan, so it’s not surprising that the Columbus Dispatch reported today that Coleman has supposedly written a letter to the NBA to express his interest in bringing in a team to share Nationwide Arena(now owned by Franklin County) with the Blue Jackets. This is not the first time Mayor Coleman has expressed his interest in an NBA team, as Columbus radio station 97.1FM’s Lori Schmidt tweeted earlier today.

Columbus already has two ‘Big 5′(yes, i’m including MLS) major league teams, the Blue Jackets and the Crew(as well as Major League Lacrosse’s Ohio Machine). As of late, both teams have struggled with attendance. Over the past three season’s, the Blue Jackets have a (reported) average attendance of 14, 587(80.4% of capacity) fans per game. Meanwhile, the Crew, as  MLS Cup champ in 2008, and a consistent playoff contender ever since, has averaged only 13,757 (68.3% of capacity) in the 20,145 Crew Stadium in that same time frame.

As it stands now, the Columbus market cannot support another major league team, at least not without major repercussions for the CBJ and Crew. Both teams, in addition to minor league baseball’s Clippers and now the Machine, who make their home in nearby Delaware are trying to squeeze every corporate dollar out of Central Ohio. An NBA team in Nationwide Arena would heavily siphon major monetary support from all these teams. If you really want to help your city, shouldn’t your focus be on supporting the sports landscape that’s already there? The arena lease is settled,  securing the Blue Jackets’ future. Meanwhile the Crew are scratching and clawing to get corporations, media, and casual sports fans to pay attention to them. I’m not sure adding major competition helps Columbus in the long run, if the current teams suffer.

All this may be a moot point anyways, as someone will have to pay a hefty fee to Cleveland Cavaliers’ owner Dan Gilbert, if someone could even convince him to consider allowing a team into his territory. The Pacers and Pistons may also have reasonable objections to an NBA team in Central Ohio. Also, Ohio State was none too thrilled to have the Blue Jackets and Nationwide Arena built in the first place, they may not welcome more major competition and certainly have some level of influence in Columbus politics.

The mayor has his heart in the right place. He’s dreaming of a bigger, better city, but i don’t think he’s weighed all the negatives of what an NBA team might set off. Perhaps he should use his position to further assist in pushing what’s already there.