Recent Developments
With the Thunder now giving Oklahoma a permanent team, the latest addition is Connecticut, after the NHL's Hartford Whalers moved to North Carolina in 1997. Though fan support for a return to Hartford is big, issues have risen over arena quality, cash, and lack of interest from potential team owners. The Connecticut Sun WNBA team play in the state, but the WNBA is not considered a major sports league.
The latest addition to this list had previously been Oklahoma, since the New Orleans Hornets of the NBA ended their temporary stay in Oklahoma City brought on by the Hurricane Katrina disaster. The Hornets played 36 of 41 home games in Oklahoma City during the 2005-06 NBA season, and played 35 home games in both Oklahoma City and nearby Norman in the 2006-07 season. The franchise returned to New Orleans permanently for the 2007-08 season, leaving Oklahoma without a major team. However, Oklahoma was removed from the list once again when for the 2008-09 season, the Seattle SuperSonics received approval for their proposed relocation to Oklahoma City and became the Oklahoma City Thunder.
As of 2011, three states have only one major league sports team. All of these teams are in the NBA, which led the other leagues in expansion to fast-growing Western U.S. markets such as Phoenix. The states are Oregon (the Portland Trail Blazers), Oklahoma (Oklahoma City Thunder), and Utah (the Utah Jazz). Each team is healthy enough to remain in its current location, and Utah was viable enough to support the creation of the Real Salt Lake franchise of Major League Soccer. Portland joined MLS in 2011 with the Portland Timbers, the fourth different team in that city to use the Timbers name.
In place of major league teams, college, minor league, and high school teams enjoy quite a lot of attention, such as high school football teams throughout Alabama, the Auburn and Alabama football and basketball teams, Kentucky's college basketball team, and so on.
Of course, many states without professional team sports still boast celebrated sports institutions (e.g. the Kentucky Derby in Kentucky, the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in Alaska, the Ironman Triathlon in Hawaii). This list also does not take into account NASCAR — the second-most watched spectator sport in the US, behind NFL football. As of the 2011 season, eight states without major sports teams host Sprint Cup races, namely Alabama, Delaware, Kansas, Kentucky, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Virginia. Of the aforementioned states, four host two annual Sprint Cup races (Alabama, Delaware, Kansas, New Hampshire), and Virginia hosts four races.
Read more about this topic: U.S. States Without Major Sports Teams
Famous quotes containing the word developments:
“I don’t wanna live in a city where the only cultural advantage is that you can make a right turn on a red light.
Freedom from labor itself is not new; it once belonged among the most firmly established privileges of the few. In this instance, it seems as though scientific progress and technical developments had been only taken advantage of to achieve something about which all former ages dreamed but which none had been able to realize.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
“The developments in the North were those loosely embraced in the term modernization and included urbanization, industrialization, and mechanization. While those changes went forward apace, the antebellum South changed comparatively little, clinging to its rural, agricultural, labor-intensive economy and its traditional folk culture.”
—C. Vann Woodward (b. 1908)