How do you separate them and whats their purposed for existence? Is there a specific demographic or geographic area that supports the Clippers/Lakers? (Like in NY where Long Islanders support the Mets, and the rest go for the Yankees?) Or are Clippers fans just people from LA who hate the Lakers?
Complete overlap in terms of geographic area, but there are probably 10 times as many Lakers fans as Clippers fans (and that might be understating things).
There used to be a mini Clipper-hub in Orange County because they would play games in Anaheim, but I doubt that’s more than a touch above their normal popularity.
I used to be a Clipper fan for basically the exact reason you stated.
That being that you disliked the Lakers while living in LA? I thought the Anaheim might like them but I wasn’t sure if the Clippers were the designated Anaheim team of Los Angeles, like the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim…
Both Lakers and Clippers currently play their home games at the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles so there really isn’t a LA v. Anaheim/Orange County split. Previously the Lakers played at the Forum in suburban Inglewood while the Clippers played at the arena down by Southern Cal.
Rumor has it that the Sacramento Kings are considering moving their franchise to Anaheim though.
I grew up in Long Beach and Orange County, long before either team played a game in OC. The Lakers played at the Forum, and the Clippers at the Sports Arena. I remember watching the Lakers’ parades with disgust. I don’t know why, really. They seemed so… artificial. All those movie stars pretending to be sports fans, and whatnot. That led me to be a Clipper fan.
That’s not really accurate. I don’t think there’s any one factor separating Yankee and Mets fans but issues like family rooting history, location, class, and stuff all get involved.
The Clippers are in LA because Donald Sterling bought the team, and he’s from LA and thought they would make more money there than in San Diego. It’s true there must be some kind of market opportunity because not everyone is a Lakers fan, some people find the Lakers obnoxious, and sometimes your favorite college player or a guy from your alma mater winds up on the CLipps. I don’t think they’ve ever really tried to compete with the Lakers. Sterling’s strategy is basically to spend as little on the team as he can and make money off the people who’ll pay to see them even if they suck. It’s possible the team will win in spite of him in the next few years, but we’ll see. The team has finished over .500 twice (and at .500 once) in 29 or 30 years of Sterling’s ownership.
It will be really interesting to see how that strategy will hold up if (and, most likely, when) the Kings move to Anaheim. One reason for the Kings’ move is that the NBA has wanted to put a franchise in the Orange County market for years but Sterling is such a stubbornly parochial close-minded tightwad that he would never consider moving his team 30 miles down I-5 where they wouldn’t be so much in the Lakers’ shadow. Thus, the NBA had the choice of waiting for the 78-year old Sterling to shuffle off his mortal coil and hope whoever inherited the team would do the seemingly smart thing and start playing in Anaheim or enticing a struggling small-market team with an aging inadequate facility (e.g., Sacramento) to move. Since it appears the latter option will be taken, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if the Clippers, in terms of popularity and attention, will become the *third *NBA team in the LA Basin despite having tenure over the Kings.
I apologize for the hijack but it is crazy to think that an arena only 23 years old is “inadequate”.[URL=“ARCO Arena - Wikipedia”]
From what I read, the special box suites that modern arenas have are a big draw. I saw a figure quoted in the news that Anaheim’s Honda Arena has something like 84 such suites whereas Arco Arena has about 50 less. How much do these suites bring anyways?
With the Clippers, I heard that another thing that keeps them in LA is because they share the Staples Center and share the bills, so they are getting all the benefits of having a big modern arena but only have to pay like half what they would normally do. I guess that was a deal he struck with the owners of the arena when it was built.
I can’t disagree with you there but that seems to be the conventional wisdom I’ve heard on sports talk shows and read in articles about the Kings’ likely move to Orange County. Besides, it’s not like the NBA’s done something like this before. They abandoned Seattle (a much bigger and richer market than Sacramento’s) for the same reason even though the Key Arena had only been extensively renovated 12 years before.
Also, keep in mind that “aging inadequate facility” basically means “not enough luxury boxes for super-rich corporate backers.” The Sacramento area was badly hurt by the collapse of the housing market and subsequent recession. That’s why the voters there don’t have the money to pony up for a new publicly-financed arena. In contrast, there are still a lot of very rich people in the OC with a lot of money to spend on luxury boxes in which to have tax-deductable business meetings during NBA games.
Yup. That’s the boondoggle-tastic, taxpayer-funded orgy of greed that is professional sports ownership.
I agree 100%. These billion dollar owners should pay for their own damn arenas
Miami Arena was built in 1988 primarily for the Miami Heat. The Miami Heat moved down the road to the new (and more adequate) American Airlines Arena in 1999. The 20 year old stadium, which was built for $52 million, was demolished in 2008.
The newer Charlotte coliseum was built right before the boom in skyboxes so it was considered outdated after a few years. It was built in 1988 and torn down in 2007, the Hornets left in 2002. They built a new place downtown with skyboxes in 2005 for the Bobcats.
This Forbes article is from 2003 but it describes Sterling strategy as buy depressed properties in rich neighborhoods, watch them grow steadily and spend as little as possible. Just be prepared to lose a lot of games.
The most recent Forbes NBA evaluation has them making $11 million a year, tenth best in the league. They pay little in rent, draw 16,000 a game from fans who prefer lower ticket prices than the Lakers, and have a decent enough cable deal. Forbes estimates them to be worth $305 million for a property Sterling bought for $13 million in 1981.
I can’t stand these corporate deals but I blame those of us who elect them. I saw in New York on how Bloomberg got deals for the Mets and Yankees to build new stadia with higher prices and many obstructed views (a restaurant in center field of Yankee Stadium so fans out there can only see half the field?). The voters re elected this nanny who never mentioned the deals in the TV ads that he put on TV.
I only got that statistic as the major demographics of people who support the Mets are from Long Island and the five boroughs, I think, I’m not sure about the boroughs. But yeah, there are more than just one factor in supporting teams for any team in any league.
For example, I live in New Zealand, in the biggest city, Auckland. But in rugby, I always root for Waikato, a neighbouring franchise, because my dad grew up there and supports them. Technically I should support North Harbour rather than Auckland, but I don’t because of my dad’s supporting for his team. 