Maybe they did it for "basketball reasons." Or maybe they decided Benson was exactly the man they were looking for all along. Who better than Benson has understood Ray Nagin's advice that "there's money to be made in a storm"? He hasn't even had to actually "buy some dirt" as Nagin once encouraged other disaster profiteers to do. Instead he's mostly had it given to him at great taxpayer expense. Pretty nice gig if you can get it.
Benson's first instinct was to leverage the flood of 2005 as an excuse to execute his already in the works plan to remove the Saints to San Antonio. But that was shut down after much arm twisting by an NFL uncharacteristically sensitive to shame.
Sometimes the decisions we're forced into making are the luckiest ones, though. Benson went on to benefit from the ferocious love for the Saints exhibited by the recovering city he had no faith in. He now enjoys a package of concessions from the taxpayers of Louisiana more lucrative than what he had hoped for prior to the flood. When the Hornets signed a new lease that includes state funded stadium enhancements, is it any surprise Benson would want in on that?
Free money from the state is Tom Benson's business. He has long understood the importance of protecting that business. The importance of being "the only game" in a small market has been a point of emphasis in Benson's talks to other NFL owners. He has taken aggressive steps to protect his monopoly in the past. When the creation of the Colorado Rockies displaced the AAA Denver Zephyrs in 1993, Benson scrambled to prevent the Zs from relocating into his territory.
In 1993, Denver, Colorado, was awarded a Major League Baseball franchise. That meant their AAA team, the Denver Zephyrs (named after the legendary “Denver Zephyr” streamline passenger train), had to leave town. New Orleans attorney Rob Couhig formed and led a partnership to bring the Zephyrs to New Orleans. The team became embroiled in a legal battle before they even played their first game, though. Saints owner Benson acquired a AA-level team, and wanted to re-locate them to the city, reviving the name Pelicans. Major League Baseball did not approve this move, because the relocation of the higher-league Zephyrs trumped the AA team. Benson unsuccessfully sued MLB and the Zephyrs in attempt to further his claim to baseball in the city. Benson did not relinquish the name Pelicans to the AAA team, but “Zephyrs” worked just fine, because that was the name of the big wooden roller coaster ridden by generations of New Orleanians out at the Pontchartrain Beach amusement park.
The arrival of major league competition in the form of the Hornets has never sat well with Benson. And now he has managed to eliminate that competition. The consensus in the local media today is that this is "good news" for fans. But Benson also owns a big piece of the local media market himself these days so forgive me if I'm less enthusiastic than his current and prospective employees.
On the other hand, maybe that much needed "re-branding" of the NBA franchise we've been whispering about can finally happen. Does Benson still own the name "Pelicans"?
Tom Benson's team takes on the Utah (DAMMIT) Jazz tonight at 7:00PM in the New Orleans Arena.
No comments:
Post a Comment