[h1]Louisville, Kentucky Wants Our Kings[/h1][h2]Grassroots effort to woo Sacramento's Team[/h2]
SACRAMENTO, California —
They've created buzz. They've even created a logo. But worst of all, they created a brand spanking new arena- the KFC Center. And it's state of the art.
Louisville, Kentucky wants our Kings, Sacramento. And they're playing hard ball. Within a day of creating a fan page on Facebook, entreating the Kings to defect, hundreds of Kentuckians... (Kentuck-ites? the Kentuck-!%%?) have signed on.
"We are nowhere near this thing happening," said Nick Evans, a blogger at Straitpinkie.com and part of the early PR push. "But just getting it out there, and letting people know. Getting people excited about it, getting the friends on Facebook, and getting the people to comment on our website... it's really the first step."
And Evans isn't afraid to name drop: DeMarcus Cousins. Francisco Garcia. The former stand-outs for the University of Kentucky and the University of Louisville respectively could make the fit appear even more ideal.
But appearances aren't everything. Louisville is a college basketball town, no doubt. One of the best. But college basketball ain't NBA basketball.
Would fans be willing to divide their love between the students and pros?
And it's more than just love the teams would be sharing. KFC Center has right now, as its primary tenant, the University of Louisville. How willing would they be to share the hardwood with the highly-paid pros?
"With the success that Kentucky had with 5 guys going to the draft last year, I think the buzz with the NBA is at an all-time high," Evans said.
They've tried it before. At different times Louisville has made moves for the Rockets, the Hornets, and the Grizzlies. All to no avail. But with the City of Sacramento headed back to the drawing board yet again for a new Arena plan, and with that drawing board so coated with the chalk-dust of past failures, it's hard too see how all of this will turn-out.
