Bohls: San Antonio Spurs 'on loan' to Austin but for how long?
Brace yourselves, Austin.
The NBA is coming. And soon.
Not permanently. Maybe not even regularly. But for much more than a cup of coffee.
For two days next spring, the San Antonio Spurs will transform into the Austin Spurs and play two regular-season games in the University of Texas’ Moody Center as part of an extensive campaign by that NBA franchise to incorporate Austin into its fabric as well as its fan base.
Circle April 6 and 8 on your calendar because that’s when Austin will host regular-season NBA games for the first time ever. It’s a big deal and the most recent sign that this is a big-time sports market, prime for the taking.
And the Spurs want their slice of the pie.
Asked why, Spurs CEO R.C. Buford told the American-Statesman, “Why not?”
Exactly.
In part because it can. They hold the territorial rights to Austin, guaranteed by NBA bylaws that empower a team to do something like this within 150 miles of home base. And the Spurs need an infusion off the court as well as on if they want to remain competitive with the Lakers and Warriors of the world.
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In short, the Spurs are looking to create what they call a mega region. They’re also playing one game in Mexico City on Dec. 17.
Small market no more, even if San Antonio is the seventh largest city in the country.
So get ready for the ever-expanding Mexico-San Antonio-Austin Mega Region. OK, so it doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.
“Not only is Austin vibrant and growing, but there’s a real appetite for pro sports there,” Buford said. “That’s pretty clear. And it’s such a transient workforce that was used to pro sports in their own backyard (before moving to Texas). We want to make sure professional basketball is front and center for Austin.”
This is the first step toward forming a mega region, making inroads in a market of 2 1/2 million people in the greater Austin area and staging everything from games to watch parties to corporate events to player engagement with the movers and shakers and more. Want Josh Primo over for your kid’s birthday party? Want Keldon Johnson to rub elbows at your next company shindig?
Get in line.
It’s overdue.
And it's a win-win for the Spurs and Austin. For San Antonio, we'll see.
“We haven’t been purposeful about our integration into Austin,” admitted Brandon James, the Spurs vice president and deputy general counsel who lives in Austin and leads a team dedicated to this operation. “We’re pretty bullish on this. We want to move to a top 10 TV market to compete with the Lakers and Nets of the world. We’ve outperformed our market size for so long, but the economics of the NBA have changed drastically, and we have to expand our scope.”
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So what do we call this branding to an area stretching 375 miles from Austin to Monterrey?
We could try Mexaussa, but San Antonio should really get top billing. We owe it that much since they’re loaning us its only professional sports franchise.
Perhaps SAmexaus, but then we come in last, and we don’t do last. (Please, no Kansas jokes.)
How’s SAausamexia?
OK, we agree. It’s going to take some work. Perhaps MexTex, hold the onions.
“We’re incredibly excited,” said Buford, who as the long-time general manager helped shape the rosters that brought five world championships and made Gregg Popovich the winningest coach in NBA history. “Our first 50 years have stacked up pretty well with the NBA. We have an opportunity to chart an even brighter future.”
Linked with Austin and Mexico and points in between that are currently contributing more than 10% of the franchise’s annual ticket sales, the Spurs are embarking on a new frontier, one that should bring the club into a more lucrative financial situation, but also making their home fan base a bit antsy in the process.
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Loan or no loan, we are borrowing the Spurs although the franchise clearly is treating this as much more than a pilot program. It had hoped to make this a two-year trial, but Bexar Country, which owns Spurs home AT&T Center and has a nonrelocation agreement with the team through 2032, balked understandably.
“We’ve done everything we can to be the team for San Antonio,” Buford said. “We have a unique relationship with our fans. The whole (Peter) Holt family as managing partner of our investment group has been clear. San Antonio is our home.”
But the reality is the San Antonio Spurs — one of the best franchises in NBA history with five league titles and the winningest, wine-drinkingest, grayest-haired coach in America — think enough of the 512 that they are sharing themselves with Austin on two nights and clearly want to make it more. Maybe four games? Six? More? That would require county approval. The Moody folks don’t want to talk about it.
The opponents for the April games will be revealed when the league releases its full schedule Wednesday afternoon, but don’t hold your breath for the Lakers or Celtics.
Those are also the final dates of next year’s regular season, which is impressive since the Spurs will be putting the wraps on their 50th anniversary season since they first rolled down I-35 from their time in Dallas as the Chaparrals.
Asked how many the Spurs might want to stage at Moody, Buford said, “We’re going to see how things go. We’re going to continue to work with Bexar County to build this region. Our market, if it’s strictly San Antonio, is in the bottom 10 of market sizes in the league. As we grow, we can move into a pretty elite group of markets.”
I didn’t really get why the Spurs would bring down the curtain on such a memorable year 70 miles from their home, but they are adamant they do not want to disrupt the Longhorn men and women in their inaugural season at the Moody Center. They need to stay in UT’s good graces.
The Spurs and the league office are now in the final stages of modifying the facility to NBA specifications down to honing little details like the locker rooms for two NBA teams and bringing the Spurs home floor to the arena. Yeah, the Coyote will come as well. “We’re picking up our arena and taking it to Moody,” James said. “It’ll look like a typical NBA arena.”
Buford insists the Spurs aren’t competing with the Longhorns but are “aligned in an amazing partnership.”
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In truth, the Spurs have fallen off the relevant map, are currently in a major rebuild (don’t say major tank) and need to broaden their horizons as well as their fan base although Buford said he knows “the competitiveness of our group and the capabilities of our coach.”
As for the coach, the 73-year-old Popovich will be back for a 27th season and, who knows, might even be coaching his final games on a Spurs bench in Austin, given the fact no one expects a playoff spot in San Antonio’s 2022-2023 future. How would that be for making some history?
Consider too that attendance has fallen off since the days of Tim Duncan and Tony Parker. Last season the Spurs ranked 27th in the league ahead of only Oklahoma City, Sacramento and Indiana. The year before, the Spurs sat 10th. And 12th the year before. So, middle of the pack.
In truth, the Spurs need Austin and they know it. They rank 31st in TV market size for all pro sports, and that ain’t good, especially when you just traded your All-Star, Dejounte Murray, away to Atlanta basically for three draft picks that turned into a trio of rookies. Hey, Spurs, your G League team is here in Cedar Park, not at the AT&T Center.
As Buford put it about market size, “there’s 100 ways to skin that cat.”
So skin away, Spurs.
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Quite simply, the Spurs need Austin’s corporate support, their fans, their dollars, their attention.
It’s hardly lost on them that Texas has more Fortune 500 companies headquartered here (53) than even all of New York (51) and California (50). Heck, Houston has only 21 and Dallas 11, and they’ve got NBA teams. San Antonio, last I saw, has H-E-B and USAA and iHeartMedia and that will only take you so far.
Top companies are falling from the sky to relocate here. Samsung will soon saturate nearby Taylor with change. Everyone from Dell to Tesla to Whole Foods are based here along with 43 other companies that employ more than 1,000 workers each.
Why wouldn’t the Spurs want a piece of all this?
It’s a sensitive subject since San Antonio will stay up nights worrying Austin might want to steal their precious Spurs. But would the Spurs have broken ground in November on new $510 million digs at The Rock at La Cantera for a training facility that will be ready next summer if they want to bolt?
But no one ever really knows for sure. Peter Holt can write all the open letters to San Antonio he wants, professing his love for the city, but business is business. And know that Michael Dell is now part of the Spurs investor group.
The Spurs know Major League Soccer and Formula One and the PGA Tour are thriving here. I penned a column in May suggesting an NFL team might show up on our doorstep at some point if you want to dream. Our mayor even endorsed the idea.
But this, the Spurs say, is simply a trial run to spark more fanfare and fans through the doors.
I understand your angst, San Antonio. I wouldn’t want to lose the Spurs either, but if Austin is attractive to MLS and golfers and auto racers, well, there’s room for NBA hoops, too.
It’s conceivable the Spurs could hold their training camp here in Austin someday. James said those discussions have been held.
“Not this season,” Buford said. “As of right now, we have no plans. But anything is possible."
For now, the Spurs have to branch out. It’s about survival if they want to compete.
Could the Spurs eventually become a legitimate regional team shared from Austin to Monterrey? Through a market research company, the club says it has identified 5 million Spurs fans in Mexico, half of them in Monterrey and Mexico City. The Spurs have twice played games in Mexico. They were a finalist in the NBA innovative marketing campaign with Viva Aerobus, which painted one of its planes with a Spurs theme and logo and regularly flies into San Antonio.
Other teams have done a great job of brand sprawl. Golden State owns the entire Bay area. How far is the Lakers’ reach? “Boston is really a club for five states,” Buford said.
Forget ticket sales and merchandise income, this could help in the free agent market as well. That’s no small point.
It’s never been a destination spot for NBA free agents. Jason Kidd once thumbed his nose at San Antonio. Kevin Durant wouldn’t give it a second look. Some have come, largely to sit at the right hand of Pop, absorb all he has to give and maybe latch onto a ring, kind of like KD did in the Bay Area, but it’s not had a true superstar since Kawhi Leonard and has missed the playoffs the last three seasons.
“It’s impossible to speculate,” Buford said. “But I don’t think it hurts in any way.”
Hey, KD, I’m sure you’re wanting to recast your own brand.
What’s truly amazing is that it took the Spurs this long to cast their own eyes to Austin.
“There’s probably a little truth to that,” Buford said. “The biggest reason is we have one of the most loyal and engaging fan bases throughout the world. And we’re in the middle of the fastest-growing region in North America culturally, geographically, economically, and we’re uniquely positioned to cultivate this mega region.”
He’s not wrong.
San Antonio will have to embrace this new, if uncertain future because this is on its doorstep and not going away. Mextex is here to stay. Bring on the mariachi band.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: San Antonio Spurs to play two NBA games in Austin in April 2023
