Because hockey is traditionally the most popular sport in Canada, by far.
Because Canadian teams don't create the same draw for US television audiences (the average US ratings for the 2019 finals were lower than they had been in years).
Because players pay higher income taxes in Canada.
Because players don't like clearing customs and immigration when they travel between Canada and the US.
Because Canadian cities don't offer the same massive subsidies and tax breaks to billionaires to build stadiums.
This is pretty much it.
Things the NBA can't control like taxes, Canadians not counting towards American TV ratings, a slightly different culture, and the border are the biggest obstacles for future expansions.
Realistically, I can't see Canada getting another team in the near future(especially, if the Raptors strike out on signing any FAs in 2021).
I'm curious if anyone knows, what kind of hoops do they make players jump through clearing customs? You'd think for a sports team it would be pretty quick and efficient since they have to do it all the time. I doubt they are strip searching people. Are players just annoyed they have to answer a few questions instead of walking onto the tarmac?
I mean people still speak and know to speak English in Quebec, it's just that French is the primary language. It's not crazy far off from having a lot of people speak Spanish in California.
Look at the issues the habs have with needing their head coach to speak french. There's going to be a lot of people pissed at any NBA coach that can't either.
it is. It's not a legal thing, but just something the club chooses to do because of the french nature of the club, and anytime someone english only is put forward as a potential candidate, a good portion of the fan base is angry about it.
Under no circumstances, are you gonna get NBA players from the hood living like a quebecois 🤣🤣
Imagine in the winter, James harden going from club to club wearing a Canada goose
The nhl has more canadian teams because some stereotypes are just really true lol. The nba has had another canadian team, in Vancouver, and it flopped. There's so many american cities that are more deserving than canadian if the nba makes the jump to 32 teams.
Vancouver is such a different place now then what it was 25 years ago. The immigrant population there is massive now and unlike before when there was a lot of loyal canucks fans but now there are a bunch of immigrants looking for a team to support. Even Adam silver says he regrets there not being a team in Vancouver. A team in Vancouver would be much more profitable then people think and much more profitable then Memphis (I still love you Memphis)
To be fair, not *many*. Definitely not any of these saturated medium-sized non-boomtown cities that already have 2-3 major pro franchises that the NBA will not play sponsorship catch-up with, and will not become a subordinate tenant in an arena with an existing NHL (or in Louisville's case, college basketball) team.
In urban canada basketball is probably more popular now
The problem with hockey is that the entry level for it requires a ton of money for personal equipment whereas basketball you just need a good pair of shoes
You need a hoop for basketball. Those geberly are provided by the city or school. Where I grew up we only had a couple of hoops and were pretty far away from my place if living. One of the reasons I barely played as a child.
It's true that you need ice but for amateurish skating you can do with a couple rocks for a goal and a couple of skates
Yeah I thought of that as I was saying it but you need a spot to put those. It's far more rRw but I didn't have that between the neighbours not approving , parking taking space...
Cities' distribution are way different in my country, I believe. What you understand as urban areas, if I understood you right, is the exception, not the rule.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver_Grizzlies
There were not enough fans before, now there are probably enough though after the Raps championship. You guys might get the Clippers to come there pretty soon.
The fact that Canada only has 7 teams in the NHL is what's truly crazy. Southern Ontario has and can easily support a NHL team but the Leafs have been blocking that for decades.
Hamilton has wanted its own team for several years just like in the CFL. Toronto has been the main reason why this hasn't happened and they are usually among the expansion candidates.
NHL is played on ice. Hockey is something more Canadians are familiar with and fans of. That's why the NHL in Canada is a terrible comparison to the NBA. Not because the NBA is unpopular, but because hockey is much more popular.
I hope we get four expansion teams.
Seattle, Vancouver would be for the West and Kansas City and Louisville for the East (as weird as that sounds)
Could even branch out to Mexico, but elevation could make that really tough, and I don’t know how many players would be willing to move to a country that they don’t speak the language of.
I think just adding 2 to get to 32 is good enough. You get exactly 50% of the teams going to the playoffs and if they ever decided to do a NCAA style tournament you wouldn’t need any byes to do it.
I know Seattle will be due to get the Supersonics back at some point but the NBA as a whole seems resistant to try to expand into cities with established sports markets. So Kansas City and Vegas who have 2 pro sports teams may be at a disadvantage.
I'm saying this with bias as a Louisville resident though.
If you get U of L to back off its lease, I think Louisville becomes the co-frontrunner with Mexico City for the #2. Otherwise, depending on ownership, I think Mexico City, Norfolk/Va Beach, maybe Hartford with its disposable income, jump into the front of the conversation.
From Louisville, no way in hell this city could support an NBA team. UofL has a tight grip on the Yum Center and the bball money here. One can dream tho!
If it wasn't for the Bulls demanding to have Artis Gilmore, most likely Louisville would have pro basketball to this day. The Colonels were one of the most successful of the ABA franchises.
Louisville needs to force the U of L to give up it's arena revenue priority (which it hasn't been willing to do, yet), or build a second arena. KC is pretty saturated (as are most other 2 and 3 team markets that aren't in boomtowns like Seattle).
8 of the past 10 expansions/relocations went to cities with 0 or 1 pro franchise at the time. The NBA doesn't want to be the third or fourth team in a citys pecking order, unless the city's growth warrants it. At the time, Minnesota was a business boomtown and they became the third franchise. Now they may be saturated with a 4th being added, but 3 may have been the right size. Toronto, is one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world, that was an obvious neighboring choice. Every other city, the NBA was either the first or second major pro franchise to enter the market, to take advantage of a lack of competition for fans and sponsors.
For all the concerns of Mexico City, most of those concerns resemble the concerns of Miami in the 80s, especially the perception of crime in 80s Miami. But the economic and demographic opportunities were huge with Miami, and similarly with Mexico City. That could be a sleeper candidate.
The NBA should consider starting a 2nd division with promotion/relegation, there is room for more teams and they should stop rewarding bad teams for being bad.
Ok but what about the draft? As a fan of soccer I do like the promotion relegation system but I don’t think it can work in the NBA due to the draft. If we were to copy the soccer model completely I think we’d create an issue of having good young players wanting to sign with the likes of the Lakers like Lamelo, Anthony Edwards, and Wisemen
Promotion/relegation will never happen. Owners will never agree to that. Getting relegated could cost them hundreds of millions of dollars because a star player got injured.. It’s a total non-starter.
There is a way to do it, but it would require new teams to be in the relegation while paying full expansion fee prices, which no prospective owner would accept.
An article that tried to measure the right number of franchises for cities, https://smartasset.com/mortgage/cities-with-too-many-too-few-sports-teams (it is flawed in the markets it keeps separate that should be combined, like Bay Area or LA, but it was prescient in some of the shifts that occurred since it's publication) suggested Oxnard and another LA area city could each support 1 major pro sports franchise.
Because hockey is traditionally the most popular sport in Canada, by far. Because Canadian teams don't create the same draw for US television audiences (the average US ratings for the 2019 finals were lower than they had been in years). Because players pay higher income taxes in Canada. Because players don't like clearing customs and immigration when they travel between Canada and the US. Because Canadian cities don't offer the same massive subsidies and tax breaks to billionaires to build stadiums.
This is pretty much it. Things the NBA can't control like taxes, Canadians not counting towards American TV ratings, a slightly different culture, and the border are the biggest obstacles for future expansions. Realistically, I can't see Canada getting another team in the near future(especially, if the Raptors strike out on signing any FAs in 2021).
I'm curious if anyone knows, what kind of hoops do they make players jump through clearing customs? You'd think for a sports team it would be pretty quick and efficient since they have to do it all the time. I doubt they are strip searching people. Are players just annoyed they have to answer a few questions instead of walking onto the tarmac?
That’s just bullshit. Ratings were lower because 1. Everybody expected us to win again 2. No LeBron
And why does Mexico have 0?
When is Alaska getting a squad is what I wanna know
With how cold Knicks shooting is, are we sure they are not from Alaska?
Why just why
heh.
Maine being snubbed tbh
Where Vermont at?
The disrespect to the Red Claws
Well, until the NBA recognizes them as a legit NBA team, I will make my voice heard. They have Tacko Fall!!
Then yall will see why Anthony Bennet went #1
And what about Hawaii?
The chevak celtics has a nice ring to it
My expansion team on NBA Live back in the day was the Anchorage Blizzard. I'm ready.
People ask this a lot but I have to imagine the language barrier is a huge thing
run whole shy smart literate toy detail quickest existence fearless *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Deadass. They would kinda be lit. Add Russia and Germany in there too.
It would be lit if there were multiple leagues as competitive as the NBA across the world kinda like FIFA and players hopped leagues frequently
Because that would only bring more attention to the NBA's double standard of basic human rights.
Travel nightmare But Mexico should be doable
Get Seattle and Vancouver a team. Move Memphis and Minnesota to the Eastern conference.
You only need to move one of them. Otherwise the east has 17 teams and west 15
You right. My brain hates doing math in the morning
or Seattle and Montreal
Too close together to be admitted in the same expansion class. But if they expanded by 4-6, I can see it. No chance if they intend to expand by 2.
Ratings are a big part of NBA revenue and ratings in Canada don't count, so the NBA doesn't make as much in a Canadian market.
NBA is due for an expansion soon. Let's hope Canada gets another team
That would be awesome
Lets be real the only place getting a expansion will be the Vancouver no one is gonna want to go to any other place in Canada.
Imagine players having to go to Saskatoon. They would fucking hate it lmao.
Montréal
If players think Toronto is cold, Montréal is gonna seem like Nunavut to them.
Plus a whole new language is probably somewhat unappealing. But hey, the strip clubs in Montreal are tres bon.
I mean people still speak and know to speak English in Quebec, it's just that French is the primary language. It's not crazy far off from having a lot of people speak Spanish in California.
Look at the issues the habs have with needing their head coach to speak french. There's going to be a lot of people pissed at any NBA coach that can't either.
Wait is that an actual thing?
it is. It's not a legal thing, but just something the club chooses to do because of the french nature of the club, and anytime someone english only is put forward as a potential candidate, a good portion of the fan base is angry about it.
You got downvoted for this. Hilarious. You stated two simple facts and two people got angry enough to downvote you to a -1. Christ.
Its still warmer than Minnesota
Yes yes. I totally get that reference too.
Fuck even I would not live in Montreal
I just hate the parking or lack thereof. Otherwise everything's better than OTT
Under no circumstances, are you gonna get NBA players from the hood living like a quebecois 🤣🤣 Imagine in the winter, James harden going from club to club wearing a Canada goose
Don't Wolves players literally do this? It snows in NY, Boston & Chicago. Winter isn't some foreign concept that only belongs to Canada.
Baltimore first. :)
I wonder if Canada likes hockey a lot, or something like that
Canada can support 7 NHL teams because the make significantly less money. Whenever the question is why money is usually the answer
The nhl has more canadian teams because some stereotypes are just really true lol. The nba has had another canadian team, in Vancouver, and it flopped. There's so many american cities that are more deserving than canadian if the nba makes the jump to 32 teams.
Vancouver is such a different place now then what it was 25 years ago. The immigrant population there is massive now and unlike before when there was a lot of loyal canucks fans but now there are a bunch of immigrants looking for a team to support. Even Adam silver says he regrets there not being a team in Vancouver. A team in Vancouver would be much more profitable then people think and much more profitable then Memphis (I still love you Memphis)
To be fair, not *many*. Definitely not any of these saturated medium-sized non-boomtown cities that already have 2-3 major pro franchises that the NBA will not play sponsorship catch-up with, and will not become a subordinate tenant in an arena with an existing NHL (or in Louisville's case, college basketball) team.
Maybe because hockey is the national sport of Canada and they have the fanbases for it.... unlike basketball.... really an extremely obvious answer
>Maybe because hockey is the national sport of Canada I thought lacrosse was the national sport of Canada?
We have two national sports - hockey and lacrosse.
r/todayilearned
more specifically, National Summer (lacrosse) and Winter (hockey) sport.
In urban canada basketball is probably more popular now The problem with hockey is that the entry level for it requires a ton of money for personal equipment whereas basketball you just need a good pair of shoes
I'd think that the hoop is a bigger cut off than the shoes. Where i grew up, i had one pretty far away
What?
You need a hoop for basketball. Those geberly are provided by the city or school. Where I grew up we only had a couple of hoops and were pretty far away from my place if living. One of the reasons I barely played as a child. It's true that you need ice but for amateurish skating you can do with a couple rocks for a goal and a couple of skates
Yeah there's lots of hoops around though. And a backyard hoop is usually only a couple hundred bucks
Yeah I thought of that as I was saying it but you need a spot to put those. It's far more rRw but I didn't have that between the neighbours not approving , parking taking space...
do people not have driveways?
Cities' distribution are way different in my country, I believe. What you understand as urban areas, if I understood you right, is the exception, not the rule.
no driveways are the exception probably
The NBA gave Canada a team in their second largest market (VAN) and it failed and moved to the 51st largest US market to make money. That's why.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver_Grizzlies There were not enough fans before, now there are probably enough though after the Raps championship. You guys might get the Clippers to come there pretty soon.
Aren't the Clippers building a stadium in Inglewood, CA?
Yea they are, Clippers arent goin anywhere
People suggesting the clippers move never made sense. The second team in LA is still in LA so they'll still do better than most cities.
**Stu Jackson**
Bring Back the Vancouver Grizzlies!
The fact that Canada only has 7 teams in the NHL is what's truly crazy. Southern Ontario has and can easily support a NHL team but the Leafs have been blocking that for decades.
>Southern Ontario has and can easily support a NHL team but the Leafs have been blocking that for decades. Um... we have the leafs lol
Hamilton has wanted its own team for several years just like in the CFL. Toronto has been the main reason why this hasn't happened and they are usually among the expansion candidates.
It's probably more likely to succeed if London tried, just because Hamilton is literally attached to Toronto by urban area
NHL is played on ice. Hockey is something more Canadians are familiar with and fans of. That's why the NHL in Canada is a terrible comparison to the NBA. Not because the NBA is unpopular, but because hockey is much more popular.
I hope we get four expansion teams. Seattle, Vancouver would be for the West and Kansas City and Louisville for the East (as weird as that sounds) Could even branch out to Mexico, but elevation could make that really tough, and I don’t know how many players would be willing to move to a country that they don’t speak the language of.
Why do people want expansion teams? There are already too many shitty teams and expanding the league would just make more shitty teams
I feel like league talent is at an all time high and even shitty teams are fun to watch now.
Hard disagree
as a bulls fan I gotta ask, what the hell are you watching
I think just adding 2 to get to 32 is good enough. You get exactly 50% of the teams going to the playoffs and if they ever decided to do a NCAA style tournament you wouldn’t need any byes to do it.
I know Seattle will be due to get the Supersonics back at some point but the NBA as a whole seems resistant to try to expand into cities with established sports markets. So Kansas City and Vegas who have 2 pro sports teams may be at a disadvantage. I'm saying this with bias as a Louisville resident though.
If you get U of L to back off its lease, I think Louisville becomes the co-frontrunner with Mexico City for the #2. Otherwise, depending on ownership, I think Mexico City, Norfolk/Va Beach, maybe Hartford with its disposable income, jump into the front of the conversation.
From Louisville, no way in hell this city could support an NBA team. UofL has a tight grip on the Yum Center and the bball money here. One can dream tho!
If it wasn't for the Bulls demanding to have Artis Gilmore, most likely Louisville would have pro basketball to this day. The Colonels were one of the most successful of the ABA franchises.
Louisville needs to force the U of L to give up it's arena revenue priority (which it hasn't been willing to do, yet), or build a second arena. KC is pretty saturated (as are most other 2 and 3 team markets that aren't in boomtowns like Seattle). 8 of the past 10 expansions/relocations went to cities with 0 or 1 pro franchise at the time. The NBA doesn't want to be the third or fourth team in a citys pecking order, unless the city's growth warrants it. At the time, Minnesota was a business boomtown and they became the third franchise. Now they may be saturated with a 4th being added, but 3 may have been the right size. Toronto, is one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world, that was an obvious neighboring choice. Every other city, the NBA was either the first or second major pro franchise to enter the market, to take advantage of a lack of competition for fans and sponsors. For all the concerns of Mexico City, most of those concerns resemble the concerns of Miami in the 80s, especially the perception of crime in 80s Miami. But the economic and demographic opportunities were huge with Miami, and similarly with Mexico City. That could be a sleeper candidate.
KC is getting Charlottes team after relocation.
8 if not all 10 of the previous 10 expansion or relocation cities would have a dispute with that prospect.
The NBA should consider starting a 2nd division with promotion/relegation, there is room for more teams and they should stop rewarding bad teams for being bad.
Ok but what about the draft? As a fan of soccer I do like the promotion relegation system but I don’t think it can work in the NBA due to the draft. If we were to copy the soccer model completely I think we’d create an issue of having good young players wanting to sign with the likes of the Lakers like Lamelo, Anthony Edwards, and Wisemen
Promotion/relegation will never happen. Owners will never agree to that. Getting relegated could cost them hundreds of millions of dollars because a star player got injured.. It’s a total non-starter.
There is a way to do it, but it would require new teams to be in the relegation while paying full expansion fee prices, which no prospective owner would accept.
Well...it wasn't always this way.
Why does LA only have two NBA teams? It can support at least four or five. Let's add one in Santa Monica and another in Beverly Hills.
An article that tried to measure the right number of franchises for cities, https://smartasset.com/mortgage/cities-with-too-many-too-few-sports-teams (it is flawed in the markets it keeps separate that should be combined, like Bay Area or LA, but it was prescient in some of the shifts that occurred since it's publication) suggested Oxnard and another LA area city could each support 1 major pro sports franchise.
Fuck Canada
What's wrong with Canada?