Not sure if I phrased the question right, but what makes me ask is the Utah Jazz basketball team. I know they used to be in New Orleans (I’m almost sure) where having a team called Jazz made more sense, but now they are based in Utah, which I only associate with Mormons abs MLMs. Couldn’t someone in Utah have just made up a new team instead of buying an existing one? Same with the Giants.
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Most likely, the Utah ownership moved the team to a market that supported basketball better than NO did, at the time they made the move. Not sure why they kept the name, though.
They are essentially like companies or legal entities, so someone buys the “Company” and any owner can opt to move the company to a different training and home field location available.
In some countries like Australia, they’re more specialised entities and a transfer of ownership or location can’t happen quite as easily but in the U.S. and some other places the law simply views them as a company.
Possibly. Adding a new team to a league is much more complex than moving a team, which is already difficult.
Adding a new team to the league requires a vote by the existing owners to expand the league. Since there is revenue sharing across the league, for some another team to bring it money would be a winning proposition. For others, it could dilute their market share.
Once the league approves the expansion there is the issue of finding someone to buy into the league with a new team and the time required to build everything out from front office to the field level. It’s not a quick process. The Seattle Kraken for example just started playing this year. The team was approved to be added in 2018.
On the other hand, moving a team will get approval from the league and can occur in a matter of a year. It can be done by the current ownership without a sale so it can be effect like any other business moving their home office from one city to another.
Anyone can make a basketball team but not every basketball team can compete in the NBA. The NBA restricts teams competing in it to those who have purchased a franchise license from the league.
In theory, you could start a new team if you could convince the NBA to sell you a new franchise license. In practice, its really rare that they offer new franchises – there have only been 8 new teams added since 1976 and all of those involved a long competitive bidding process.
So the reality is that if your city doesn’t have an NBA team and wants one, the easiest way to get one is to buy an existing franchise from somewhere else and relocate it to where ever you are.
There’s nothing stopping the new owner of the team from changing the name, but NBA teams make most of their money from merchandise sales. A substantial percentage of those sales come from brand recognition, so changing the name results in some period of decreased sales while the new brand name is built up.
Teams operate as franchises within leagues. The league (meaning a vote of existing owners) has to approve any new teams being added, as well as sales, relocations, etc. One cannot unilaterally decide to start a team and force their way into a professional league like the NBA. They would either need to acquire an existing team for a price agreed to by the current owner (and meet league guidelines for assets/liquidity to keep team running), or would have to petition the league for an expansion franchise and pay a franchise fee to the league.
The league has a set number of teams. In order to expand the league, all of the existing teams need to agree.
In order to move a team, the league needs to agree as well.
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