Too many sports teams?

I read the Twin Cities Business Journal on a regular basis, and this morning, I read an article that caught my attention; apparently, the Twin Cities has too many professional sports teams.

The study was conducted by Portfolio.com, and they tested 82 markets to determine the financial capacity of cities in both the United States and Canada to support professional sports. The professional sports they studied are teams in baseball, football, basketball, football and soccer.

Here in the Twin Cities, we have a Major League Baseball (MLB) team, the Twins. We have a team in the National Football League (NFL), the Vikings. A team in the National Basketball Association (NBA), the Timberwolves, and finally, a team in the National Hockey League (NHL), the Wild.

This is the second time the Twin Cities has had four teams, in four major leagues. This region had four teams from 1989-1993. The Twins, Vikings, Timberwolves and our old NHL team, the North Stars. Of course, the North Stars moved to Dallas at the end of the 1993 season.

So, we've done this before, and we've done well - in my estimation. The reason the North Stars left had nothing to do with attendance (having been in the Stanley Cup Playoffs a couple years earlier). The move had a little to do with the arena (the Met Center was getting old, and with the Timberwolves' new Target Center having opened a year earlier, made it hard for the Bloomington arena to stay competitive). The move had a great deal to do with Stars' owner Norm Green and personal issues he was dealing with, including his marriage.

I read somewhere that Norm's wife (I believe it was in Jay Weiner's 2000 book Stadium Games) gave Norm an ultimatum: either sell the team, or move to Dallas. And to the disappointment of many Minnesotans, Green chose the latter.

The Twin Cities got an NHL franchise back on June 22, 1997, to begin play in 2000, and we've been a four-team market ever since. The Twins stuck it out and waited 11 years to get a new ballpark to keep them competitive. The Wild sell out every game at the Xcel Energy Center. The Timberwolves are happy, just uncompetitive on the court.

This is just my opinion, but instead of complaining about having too many teams, wouldn't that be considered a good business model? A market this size, supporting four teams? The Twin Cities isn't the size of Los Angeles, and yet, we have an NFL team, Los Angeles doesn't. Saint Louis is a good-sized market, as is Kansas City; and neither has an NBA team. Kansas City had all four teams back in the 70s, but lost their NBA team to Sacramento in 1985; and their three-year-old NHL team to Denver in 1975.

I don't quite understand why soccer was thrown into the mix. Yes, we do have a pro soccer team here, the Minnesota Thunder, but they are in a minor-league type situation. They are not a member franchise of MLS (Major League Soccer), which sometimes uses NFL stadiums for their games; although, many teams are building smaller, soccer-specific stadiums.

With the stadium issue of the Minnesota Vikings once again waiting to rear its head in the 2010 Minnesota State Legislative session, and the NFL deciding to cut its revenue-sharing program for smaller-market teams (i.e. the Vikings), it will be interesting to see how much longer the Twin Cities will remain a market with four (five if you throw in the Thunder) pro teams. But, so far, I think we're doing well.

To read the article from the Twin Cities Business Journal, click here:
http://twincities.bizjournals.com/twincities/stories/2009/12/14/story9.html

Thanks for reading, and have a great Christmas season.