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Friday, March 16, 2001
New owner would be group's best hope
Associated Press
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NEW YORK – The NBA is making it clear to those who want to
keep the Grizzlies in Vancouver: show us your new owner or you will
lose your team.
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New Orleans
expects answer soon
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A group vying to make New Orleans the new
home of the NBA's Vancouver Grizzlies expected to hear from team
owner Michael Heisley or his associates early next week.
The group's official offer was sent Thursday by overnight
delivery to Heisley's business office in Chicago. A woman who
answered the phone there Friday she knew nothing about whether it
had been received. No one else was available to comment, she said.
-- Associated Press
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"We're a long way from a solution and the clock is ticking,"
deputy commissioner Russell Granik said Friday after a two-hour
meeting with representatives of "Save Our Grizzlies," the group
trying to keep the seven-year-old franchise in the Canadian city.
The meeting came as Michael Heisley, the Chicago businessman who
bought the Grizzlies last year, continued his tour of the United
States seeking a city for a team he claims will lose more than $40
million this year.
Anaheim, Louisville, Memphis and New Orleans are the leading
contenders, but an outsider stepped in Friday when the Chicago
suburb of Dixmoor said it was talking with Heisley about moving the
team there. Heisley has until March 26 to find a site, an extension
from the original March 1 deadline.
Vancouver's best hope appears to be finding an owner or a group
to buy the team from Heisley. Peter Ufford, a spokesman for "Save
Our Grizzlies," said a potential buyer would meet with Heisley and
his associates in Chicago this weekend.
But Granik said that Ufford had not given the NBA the names of
any prospective buyers.
Ufford said representatives of four separate Vancouver groups
were meeting in an effort to determine who will be the front man
for any offer.
"They all like each other. But they don't know each other very
well," Ufford said. "It's largely a matter of wanting to know
something about their partners."
But he acknowledged: "A change in ownership alone will not
solve the problem."
The team almost moved a year ago, but the league scuttled an
attempt by Bill Laurie, owner of hockey's St. Louis Blues, to buy
the Grizzlies and move them to St. Louis.
But in the face of continuing losses -- both financially and on
the court -- commissioner David Stern gave Heisley permission in
February to explore U.S. markets. At that time, Stern put the
deadline at March 1, then extended it to give the Vancouver group
time to seek a way to keep the team.
Ufford said that his group was slow getting started.
"For the first three weeks we were in shock," he said. "In
the last two weeks, we got to work."
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ALSO SEE
St. Louis out of running in Grizzlies sweepstakes
Louisville makes its pitch for Grizzlies
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