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An interesting thing has happened on the way to construction of the ‘House that Victor Wembanyama' built. The San Antonio Spurs' pursuit of Project Marvel, a proposal for a sports entertainment district that would include a new Spurs arena downtown, could hit a snag.
The Alamo City's recently elected mayor, Gina Ortiz-Jones, isn't mincing words in opposition to the fast-tracking of a new Spurs home. Asked if it concerned her that Project Marvel not coming to fruition may cause the Spurs to leave, Ortiz-Jones didn't hold back.
“That is a decision for the Spurs to make.”
The mayor, who was elected in early June in a runoff election, is ramping her opinion that the city's fellow politicians shouldn't rush to serve as a rubber stamp for a project that would require hundreds of millions of dollars from both the city and the county.
Ortiz-Jones consistently cites that the numbers off of which officials are operating regarding the costs come courtesy of the Spurs. She is pushing for an independent study and more analysis.
The reality of the Spurs in San Antonio
Always lingering in the background, even as they've enjoyed success uncommon in professional sports over the last half decade, the realities of a small-market NBA team have never left the Spurs.
It's commonly noted that had they not lucked into David Robinson in the 1987 NBA Draft, the franchise – then in the rare midst of six consecutive losing seasons – would've left San Antonio.
Despite decades' worth of long playoff runs and five championships, the Spurs still found themselves as passing mentions in certain conversations whenever the topic of the NBA's desired markets surfaced.
Upon Tim Duncan's retirement and Kawhi Leonard's departure, the organization has found itself in a rebuilding era. Ownership has since partnered up with businesses in Austin, and the team will play two regular-season games in Texas's capital city for a fourth straight season this year. Talk of a permanent move up I-35 dominated local chatter for a while there.
Then came the right to pick Wembanyama in the summer of 2023. It's no coincidence that talk of a new arena came to light shortly after the Spurs drafted the player many see as the next face of the NBA.
Housed at the Frost Bank Center since 2002, a new arena would mark the Spurs' fourth home in the Alamo City going back to Hemisfair Arena, then the Alamodome.
Spurs and the new mayor
It's important to note that Gina Ortiz-Jones is not publicly advocating for the Spurs to leave.
“We are so far from that. Nobody wants that, but we don’t need to operate from a place of fear,” she answered when asked about a potential Spurs move.
Given her other related response (above), is she throwing down a dare?
Probably not. More likely, she's attempting to negotiate. Time will tell whether her strategy works.
What time – and lots of it – has already told us is how important the Spurs are to the fabric of San Antonio. The new mayor isn't immune to that reality. Those factors will determine the city's reality going forward.
