Why Columbus Deserves a Professional Basketball Team?

As a resident of the Central Ohio area since 2004, my entire life has been consumed by one team; The Ohio State football program. 10 Big Ten Championships, 10 major bowl game wins, and one national championship (the first winner of the CFP Championship) seems like only half of the glory that I was blessed to witness in almost 20 years. The other local sports teams that the people of Columbus have been offered (or maybe even forced) to support, aren’t even giving us a tenth of the thrill that OSU provides.

The emphasis of Columbus needing an opportunity to potentially love a more successful professional sports team, is not to mockery out of the Blue Jackets, a professional hockey team that is almost perfectly fitting to represent a cold, Midwestern metropolitan area. Yet, the overwhelmingly successful college football team in town has given us a deep list of expectations.

Not to keep the story short, but Columbus’ minor league baseball team, professional soccer team, and local D-1 college football program have seven combined league championships, and the Blue Jackets only have 6 Stanley Cup playoff appearances in 22 years.

Our Minor League Baseball Team, the Columbus Clippers is a completely different story, and it might sound biased because baseball is deemed as America’s pastime and the fluctuation of players in Major League depth charts is so rapid, it makes sense to fit a 10,000 seat baseball park in the middle of the city for  a Cleveland Indians (now Guardians) farm team. The Clippers actually conquered their class championship by winning the International League and Triple A championships back to back years in 2010 and 2011.

I won’t dismiss the fact the Columbus Crew SC have two MLS Championships and won the Campeones Cup in 2021; as a matter of fact, they are on the uprise as a franchise with the new stadium and their increase of average attendance. I just know for a fact that regardless of it being soccer, they will never reach any bit further than our own suburban soccer families.

These are the franchise arcs of other NHL franchises, used to be compared to CBJ’s franchise timeline.

The Nashville Predators were introduced in an earlier NHL expansion in 1998, and they have 15 playoff appearances. 

The Chicago Blackhawks managed to win three Stanley Cups from 2009-2015. The Red Wings struck gold in 2002 and 2008 (after already wiping the floor with everyone else years prior).

The St. Louis Blues hadn’t missed the playoffs for over 20 years until 2006, got back on track, missed playoffs completely in 2018 and won the Stanley Cup in 2019.

The Washington Capitals share a similar story, because they never really missed the playoffs a whole lot but couldn’t get a hold of the trophy until 2018.

The New York Rangers were at least able to make the playoffs 13 times and appear in the Finals with the Jackets in existence.

The New York Islanders have an ancient legend behind them (winning four Stanley Cups in a row between 1980-1983), but they have a legitimate loyal fan base (due to the Island itself) and manage to appear in the playoffs more than the Jackets have in 20 years.

The Philadelphia Flyers pretty much looked past the Jackets and collided with the Penguins (Giroux-Crosby rivalry) for the 15 years. They are also a franchise with history (back to back Stanley Cups in 1974-75) in a bigger East Coast city with a hotter fire in their pants for sports.

The New Jersey Devils aren’t really the hottest team in the dumpster, they had their 15 years of fame with Martin Brodeur and the three Stanley Cup championships they held between 1995-2003.

It’s a clearly lopsided table of franchises who are winners, franchises who have caught on to the trend of winning, and franchises that we will never be able to compare ourselves to. After applying some other younger franchises to the conversation, the Jackets stand out even more.

Since the Carolina Hurricanes moved to Charlotte in 1997, they appeared in a Stanley Cup final and won the Stanley Cup in 2006.

The Florida Panthers have a finals appearance and the same amount of playoff appearances as the Jackets since 2000.

Since 1992, the Tampa Bay Lightning, went on a series of playoff droughts, won the Stanley Cup in 2004, battled through two other series of playoff droughts only to make two more appearances and then win back to back Stanley Cups in 2020, 2021, and currently playing in the Eastern Conference Championships against the New York Rangers (who are capitalizing on a former Blue Jacket, Artemi Panarin).

The Ottawa Senators have made the playoffs 16 out of 29 seasons, the Colorado Avalanche have won two Stanley Cups since moving to Denver in 1995.

The Minnesota Wild have appeared in 12 playoffs out of 21 seasons, the Dallas Stars have four more playoff appearances than the Jackets since 2000.

The Winnipeg Jets have had almost as many playoff appearances (5) since being moved from Atlanta and re-instated in 2011 as the Jackets do (Blue Jackets founded in 2000).

The Arizona Coyotes have the same amount of playoff appearances since 2000 and even have a similar playoff pattern as the Jackets, but still managed to get further in the tournament four different seasons.

The San Jose Sharks were founded in 1991 and don’t have a Stanley Cup, but they’ve made the playoffs 21 out of 30 seasons.

The Anaheim Ducks have had one Stanley Cup championship and 12 playoff appearances since the Jackets foundation.

The Los Angeles Kings went on a horrible drought prior to their Stanley Cup glory in 2012 and 2014.

The Vegas Knights have even managed to make it to the finals and attempt to defend it thrice afterwards since their inception in 2017.

The team’s partnership with OhioHealth helped build multiple indoor and outdoor hockey facilities, like the Chiller North, East, and in Dublin. They support the Columbus Chill Youth Hockey League and even have a youth league of their own, the Ohio AAA Blue Jackets. It will ultimately be up to us to love them enough to keep them around or realize that we were living in a fever dream for 30 years. Personally, I can say that I’m sick of it.

Columbus can be a  bigger basketball town than what it is. We love our Buckeye basketball after the hosts the last football game, which is probably New Years’ Eve. And since I’ve been a kid living in Ohio, the entire world has been consumed by King James.

For an entire decade, he made the Cavaliers franchise shine brighter than before, and without obtaining a ring. He takes his talents to South Beach and the people of Cleveland fell out of love with LeBron James. Of course, they would never fall out of love with their beloved Cavs, but the youth and my peers did. I was a part of the middle schoolers who had the blessing to watch the Miami Heat trash the Cavaliers in his return Quicken Loans Arena. I was a part of the generation of that cared about duos and trios that led to successful outcomes for different franchises, and the Cavaliers made countless mistakes in efforts towards improving their roster, staff, and upper management. The Cavaliers’ tumultuous run before James’ return in 2014 forced many of my peers to resort to finding interest in other teams whose fanbases hadn’t gone viral for burning the jerseys of their most talented player to ever step on their court.

This is when most of us became Heat, Celtics, or Thunder fans. Ever since “The King” left for  Los Angeles, I feel that the same feeling has come back to town. No one in Columbus is a Cavaliers fan, we just watch LeBron and enjoy the story he continues to write; and the people he continues to inspire. This petition is actually inspired by LeBron’s interest in starting a team in Las Vegas. With the Eastern half of the U.S. being cluttered and pretty much packed in every major market, I figured that before Pittsburgh, Baltimore, or Buffalo draw a ticket for their empty markets, I want to make sure that Columbus is spoken up for.