Please Advise! Is There a Curse on Vancouver Sports Teams?

[Editor’s note: Steve Burgess is an accredited spin doctor with a PhD in Centrifugal Rhetoric from the University of SASE, situated on the lovely campus of PO Box 7650, Cayman Islands. In this space he dispenses PR advice to politicians, the rich and famous, the troubled and well-heeled, the wealthy and gullible.]

Dear Dr. Steve,

Politics and sports are intersecting in Vancouver. Mayor Ken Sim wants to bring a major league baseball expansion team to Vancouver. The municipal TEAM party says that’s unrealistic and counter-proposes a WNBA franchise.

Meanwhile the Vancouver Whitecaps are in danger of relocating, with an offer to move to Las Vegas.

What is the likelihood of new franchises in Vancouver, Dr. Steve?

Signed,

Fran

Dear Fran,

If Dr. Steve had the funds, he would sooner put a team in the bustling metropolis of South Latrine Trench than Vancouver. When it comes to sports, it’s Bizarro World here. The dominant franchise in town is the worst team in the NHL; our most successful competitive team is likely to move to Vegas; our sole contribution to the world of basketball has been to defy all the laws of nature by putting Grizzlies in Memphis.

So Sim wants major league baseball in Vancouver? Would the team actually take to the field before being moved to Orlando? Where would they play — weddings, birthday parties, bar mitzvahs? By major league standards, the beautiful Nat Bailey Stadium, home to the Vancouver Canadians, might as well be a lunch box. When there’s no game on, the team cat probably likes to sit in there. Yankee Stadium cost $2.3 billion and that was back in 2009. Who’s going to cough up that kind of cash around here? Jimmy Pattison foolishly blew all his money on hospitals.

Baseball teams play a lot of games. A lot. It’s almost every damn day for weeks at a time. People will gladly come out to your birthday party on a Saturday afternoon, but after 80 games of Pin the Tail On the Donkey, the crowd has probably dwindled.

The Canadians do alright in their lovely 6,500-seat park. It has been suggested that many people come out for the sushi races, where sushi-themed mascots, including Chef Wasabi and a bottle of soy sauce named after Japanese baseball legend Sadaharu Oh, run around the field. It seems to be one of the few events you can’t find on Polymarket (check back next week). But there is no doubt that over the years gallons of beer have been won and lost on the Vancouver equivalent of the Kentucky Derby.

It seems to Dr. Steve that one of the other municipal parties ought to seize on this idea. No to Major League Baseball; no to the WNBA; yes to the PSRC, the Professional Sushi-Racing Circuit. Slogan: It’s all fun and games until the knives come out.

TEAM counter-proposes a WNBA franchise. There are several advantages to having a women’s professional basketball team in Vancouver: It would be cheaper, it would not require an expensive new stadium and, since Memphis doesn’t have a WNBA team yet, the Vancouver franchise would have a place to relocate.

TEAM’s WNBA plan does not seem to have arisen from any groundswell of popular demand. But we know somebody wants it. Last year, 35 WNBA players were polled about which cities they would favour for an expansion team. Eleven options were suggested, with Miami being the clear favourite. But one anonymous WNBA player chose Vancouver. That’s a start. We could probably find four more on the Kits Beach courts this summer.

It does not bode well that Vancouver has a very successful MLS team and all signs indicate it may not be with us long. To the list of incongruous relocated-franchise names, like the Utah Jazz (moved from New Orleans, where by contrast music is legal) and the Calgary Flames (now summoning the odd image of Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara fleeing through burning Cowtown), we may soon be adding the Las Vegas Whitecaps. Surf that sagebrush, dude.

Dr. Steve envisions a future where every sports franchise of every type is located in Las Vegas and sports betting is mandatory. Losing the Whitecaps will be hard no matter where they go, but to Vegas? It will be like losing your boyfriend to Kristi Noem. Glitzy, soulless, predatory Las Vegas, the apotheosis of a professional sports world dominated by betting sites that run ads urging people to cash in by betting against their own team. They’ve turned pro sports into Wall Street with uniforms and overpriced hot dogs.

Vancouver is clearly not a sports hotbed. Look at the Canucks. While other fans spend the spring cheering for Lord Stanley’s Cup, we sit in Lord Stanley Park and await Tuesday’s NHL Draft Lottery to see if the team’s dismal record will be rewarded with the first pick. Our true professional sport is bingo, and we even suck at that. Never mind getting a new centre — the Canucks need to hire Penn & Teller. And if they can’t magically produce that number-one ping pong ball, then what? They can’t even fire the general manager. Did that already. There had better be somebody down at Canucks HQ who knows how to sacrifice a goat to Baal.

Personally, Dr. Steve would rather see the rebirth of the Montreal Expos than a Vancouver baseball team. And continued Whitecap sightings on False Creek.

Anybody want to pony up a billion or so for Vancouver soccer? There may be a FIFA Peace Prize in it for you.