In the past few days, there’s been a lot of talk about the New Orleans Hornets of the NBA possibly relocating to Vancouver. However, quite a few naysayers are saying that the poor attendance figures of the past Vancouver professional basketball team, the Grizzlies, is a sign that basketball just isn’t very popular here. However, one of the reasons the Grizzlies never put butts in their seats is because they were quite frankly, terrible. The best record the team ever had was 23-59. Furthermore, a reason the Grizzlies could never put together a good marketing campaign to attract fans was the fact that they almost completely ignored a huge target segment of the population: the Asian community.
Buoyed by immigration from Hong Kong, Mainland China, Taiwan, India, Korea, Vietnam, and the Philippines, particularly during the last decade, the city’s Asian population base is among the largest in North America.
Indeed, the Asian connection played a pivotal role in the city landing the franchise back in 1994. At the time, NBA commissioner David Stern wasn’t shy in expressing his hopes for Vancouver — that it would become the NBA’s eventual gateway to Asia.
The team’s home stadium, GM Place, was located adjacent to the city’s bustling Chinatown. And the team’s birth coincided with the rising financial and political clout of the city’s Asian population.
But the team never took off with Asian fans from either side of the Pacific Ocean.
One reason was that the Grizzlies never had a bona fide Asian star. It passed up Wang Zhi Zhi, a 7-foot behemoth who played professional basketball for the Beijing Army basketball team before being passed over in the NBA draft by the Grizzlies, only to be snapped up by the Dallas Mavericks.
By the time celebrated Chinese superstar Yao Ming was available in the draft, the Grizzlies franchise was on its last legs and Yao refused to even report to the Grizzlies if he was drafted. The Grizzlies moved the following year, having lost $46 million the previous season, a number which would have been considerably smaller if they had focused on targeting the Asian market in Vancouver.