Are the Denver Nuggets in Danger of a Relocation?

After living in Colorado for 3 years now, there’s one thing I’ve learned from being surrounded by Colorado sports fans: nobody cares about the Denver Nuggets.  Of course, there are some fans of the franchise, and just basketball fans in general, but the average Coloradan could care less about the Nuggets.  To be fair, they have good reason to.  The key players that helped Denver win games and sell tickets in their successful late 2000s seasons (2006-2010) have now all left Denver to move on to bigger and better things.  Allen Iverson, Carmelo Anthony, Chauncey Billups, J.R. Smith, Marcus Camby, and Nene have all either moved on to more successful organizations around the league, or have retired from professional basketball completely.  Because of this, there is a huge lack of talent in Denver that could potentially bring in fans.  In fact, sitting at a solid 11th place out of 15 in the Western Conference, the Nuggets haven’t seen anything close to a team that could earn a playoff birth since the 2012-2013 season, where they lost in the first round to the Golden State Warriors.  In fact, even during the Denver “Thuggets” era, the Colorado team only made it past the first round of the playoffs once, which was during the 2008-2009 season where they would eventually go on to lose to the Kobe Bryant led Lakers in the Western Conference Finals.  So with a championship-less franchise that can barely win playoff games, even when they are loaded with all stars, I can understand why Colorado sports fans could not be bothered to watch a Nuggets game.

On the other hand, having a terrible team is not the best excuse for why a team can’t sell tickets.  Take the Phoenix Suns and the Utah Jazz for example.  These two teams have dealt with problems similar to the Nuggets.  The Suns and the Jazz play in smaller market cities, they have had terrible regular season records, sometimes even worse than the Nuggets especially when looking at the Suns’ last few seasons, they each have talent lacking rosters consisting of mostly unmarketable players that fail to draw the attention of their fans, and they have had bad luck with trying to draft the new face of their respective franchise.  Personally, I haven’t been able to name the entire starting five for either team in years, however they still do significantly better in ticket sales than the Nuggets.  Denver has led the league in lowest ticket sales since the 2013-2014 season, selling as little as 577,898 tickets in the 2015-2016 season and averaging slightly above 14,000 ticket sales per game.  In fact, this season Denver is once again the trailblazer of the league in absolutely terrible attendance with an average of 13,510 tickets sold per game and only 243,173 tickets sold in total.  To put things into perspective, the Denver Nuggets are selling over 8,000 less tickets per game than the league leading Chicago Bulls, and they’re selling 4,000 and 6,000 less tickets per game then the Suns and Jazz respectively, who face the same struggles that the Nuggets face on the court.  This is something you can’t blame on the players.  If a team in the NBA still can’t sell $5 tickets every night, regardless of how good or how bad the team’s play is, the blame has to be shifted towards the organization’s marketing and the fans they are trying to bring in.  Especially for a city that’s growing at one of the fastest rates in the nation, it’s hard to believe, and above all concerning, that the Denver Nuggets still can’t find ways to bring in fans to their home games.  I understand there might be other things in the state that might draw a Colorado sports fan away from Nuggets’ games, but when a broke 21 year-old college student can afford to buy season tickets to a nearly empty Pepsi Center, you have a serious problem on your hands.

Now the NBA does not plan on expanding or relocating teams anytime soon, but with cities in high demand for their own professional basketball team, and with the NHL, who often shares arenas with NBA teams, currently expanding their league, it can be hard to assume that the Nuggets will be in Colorado for decades to come.  There are 5 cities that could easily cause Nuggets owner, Stan Kroenke, who moved the NFL Rams from St. Louis to Los Angeles just last year, to move the Denver basketball team to a more deserving city.  For starters, Seattle is without a doubt the best option for an NBA expansion or relocated team.  After losing their Supersonics in 2008, Seattle has been in desperate need of a basketball team, and I honestly believe they will get one again in the next 7 years.  Growing at a rapid pace similar to that of Denver, Seattle has an even better basketball fan base and the potential to land an NHL team that could share the arena with the NBA franchise, serving as a natural rival to the already existing Vancouver Canucks.  Seattle isn’t the only city that could force a Denver relocation however.  Vancouver, and now Las Vegas, both have NHL teams with arenas that could support an NBA franchise.  With the sudden expansion into the Southern Nevada sports market, and the fact that Canada is obsessed with the Toronto Raptors and Vancouver used to have their own team with the Grizzlies, both Vancouver and Las Vegas could definitely be the new location of the current Nuggets organization.  Additionally Pittsburgh, and even Chicago, who consistently sets league records with highest attendance in the NBA as mentioned earlier, could be a good fit for the Nuggets to move to.  A second team in Chicago could have more potential than Denver to grow into its own, successful market.  Like the Clippers relocation from San Diego to Los Angeles, a city that already hosted the Los Angeles Lakers, one of the most successful franchises in the NBA with a die hard fan base, a second Chicago team could find themselves becoming not only more successful than the current Nuggets organization, but could also see their franchise have more successful and relevant seasons than the Bulls.  

Honestly, as long as the Broncos are in Colorado, I highly doubt the state’s sports fans would even be phased if the Denver Nuggets left for a more deserving city.  Denver has already lost a professional sports team, with the hockey team, the Colorado Rockies, leaving the state in 1982 to become the New Jersey Devils, and losing the Nuggets could actually help the remaining organizations.  Having the Colorado Avalanche become the sole residents of the Pepsi Center in Denver could increase the focus on their organization, which has a better fan base than the Nuggets.  In fact, without a professional basketball team, the University of Colorado Buffaloes, who have seen multiple March Madness tournament appearances in the last few years, could see an increase in ticket sales that could result in a better collegiate program in an already competitive conference of champions.  Regardless, if Coloradans want their NBA team to stay in Denver, some serious attendance problems need to be fixed before it’s too late.  

Written by Erik Clark