1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - Could Nebraska Host a Major Professional Sports Team?:June 28th, 9:00am

Episode Date: June 28, 2025

Could Nebraska Host a Major Professional Sports Team?Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

It's time to go one-on-one with D.P. Coming at you live from the heart of Lincoln America, a 93-7-a-ticket and the ticketfm.com. Here is your host, Derek Pearson, brought you by Canopy Street Market. Boom. In your face, in your face, kindsters, and ladies all. appreciate you hanging out with me on a Saturday morning. Appreciate you lots to cover in the course of the hour. And then hour two.

And then we'll hand it over to tank and Jim, Sandman will get you through and then Todd Euler for a little, a little walk on talk. There's a lot of conversation in the space. The Sartre-Haman text line is available to you. 402, 464, 568, If you want to be a part of the show, hit me up. And let us know what you're doing with your Saturday and Sunday.

What did you do last night? What's going on in Lincoln? Lincoln is bustling and active this morning. I'm assuming it's the farmer's market, but correct me if I'm wrong, certainly towards the folks down at Canopy Street Market. Canopy Street and the Haymarket seem to be busy. Parking lots are full. but the foot traffic along the way.

So greatly appreciate the look. And the weather is not horrific. It's 76 degrees currently should hit that mid-9, that 90 range today if you're going to be out and about. Take care yourself, hydrate. It says it will hit 92 in that window between four between three and seven. So it's going to be a little roasty, toasty, and Lincoln, but you're all built for it. You can follow on all the video streams, Facebook, YouTube, Allo, Channel 961, Amazon Prime. If you want to get cute with it, you can. If you'd also do us the favor, do us two favors on a Saturday morning. If you would make sure that you have downloaded the ticket app onto your phone and device. so that you have it and it goes wherever you go.

We will be able to go with you. We would appreciate that. And then for you to follow us on all of the social media platform so that you get notification of what's going on around the way. Yesterday was the seasonal debut of BP with DP, and it was everything that you could want. You probably saw some feeds, some shares on social media about that. And, you know, we'll do another one.

The next one will be July 18th. It'll be a Friday at 3 o'clock at Haymarket Park. And you can go through the process and let me know that that's a thing that you'd like to. And make sure that you're medically able. I do not want anybody going out there and getting injured. You have the option of taking. So the general rule is you'll go down and take, you know, two or three rounds of batting practice,

depending on what your body can take and how you feel about it. And then you have the opportunity that if you so choose, you can go out and shack fly balls. And there are people that in the past who wanted to take infield, you know, see if they still have it. But just remember that minor league baseball players hit the ball a little bit harder than the people you last played with. And so it becomes its own thing.

But hitting, you know, shacking fly balls, etc. If you want to do that, you can absolutely do that. July 18th, we'll probably take, five or six people down people who reach out and say this is what they want to do you know we'll figure out a way to make it happen shout out to Kevin Meyer from Meyer Corkin Bottle Jeremiah Tripp Pete Ferguson

went down and got some hacks intern Rudy went down there and hit some hit some lasers Nick Sainert of course came through and and swim swim I would think he was impressed with himself today. Put some back to ball.

Line drivers all over the place, sprayed to roll Farley. The black shirt went down and actually took BP. And it's, it's, you know, it's just fun because when we all become kids and get to go through.

So it was a great day. That's something you're interested in. You let me know. In the next segment, we'll be joined by Everick Gray. And Everick is a friend and fan of the show. The former UNLV running

rebel, he played on those great UNLV running rebel teams with Larry Johnson and Stacey Ogman and Greg Anthony, you know, those epic battles with Duke, then had cups of coffee in various ports across the NBA and certainly

played a full European and international pro career before becoming a coach and athletic director in Utah. And so it was appropriate to ask him to come on and talk a little bit. I mean, with the NBA drafting the story of Ace Bailey being drafted by the Utah Jazz and, you know, making it known that he did not want that to happen. And explaining from the Utah side, and of course, you know, I have history with Utah Jazz. Everick has history with Utah Jazz. So we'll

be able to go into that a little bit and kind of explain some of the the assumptions and misgivings about the Utah market, and it will be very similar. It made me ponder this as well, because I've said a hundred times that I think Lincoln, Nebraska and Salt Lake City share some personality traits, kind of in their pace and the space that Salt Lake City is a big international city, right? There's tons of international travel, skiing, folks flying in a Salt Lake City to go to Park City. You've got Sundance Film Festival, which brings international celebrity, et cetera. But there are times in places where I'm in Lincoln and or Salt Lake and people would not

not be clear in the difference between them, the perceptions of them. Somebody says Nebraska and Utah, their mind kind of goes into a certain space about what they think is there. if they have not been there to experience it or understand it, they go to a certain space. And we've had a conversation after conversation of athletes who, and being recruited to Nebraska had to have some, a moment of clarity about what Lincoln, Nebraska,

what state of Nebraska and what Lincoln, Nebraska is the town, actually were, not what they were perceived to be, but what they actually were. And there's always the sort of, jaw-drop moment when recruits will tell the story of, hey, my first time to Nebraska, my first time here, my first time in Lincoln. And I can tell you that, you know, those who come in and they go to Omaha, they see one side of it and then coming to Lincoln.

But if you get into the corners of the state, that it provides a little bit different advantage of perspective. And the same thing falls for Utah, that the belief of what Utah is versus the reality of what Utah is. And then specifically the differences between Salt Lake, Omaha, Provo, and Lincoln, right? The college towns tend to land differently with folks. if you compared Lincoln as a college town versus some of the outlier towns, you know, some of the distant towns, there's a difference. There's a difference.

There's a difference in how people live. The same can be said for Omaha and the rest of the state of Nebraska, that there are differences. And having an understanding of those differences certainly makes it easier to identify what each one is. So we'll have that discussion as well. and it's been pretty interesting as well to just replace yourself and figure out that, my goodness gracious, most of what the NBA would deal with.

And we've had this discussion about whether Nebraska could host pro sports towns. And I'm always fascinated by that because the number of people in the state and then the number of people in the two towns that people think about who would be able or capable or even considered to hold professional sports teams in Nebraska. Well, the same thing applies in Utah. If you went through and said, geez, you know, there are parts of Utah. No, people wouldn't put pro sports there.

And when pro sports first start coming to Utah, they went through that discussion. So the perception of Nebraska and the perception of Lake Nebraska matters. Now, a big deal is done because the college world series. series is here in Omaha and people get to see and experience Nebraska in that life. And it's funny because I don't know what percentage of the population for the state of Nebraska is in Lincoln and Omaha compared to the rest of the state. So I'm going to pull back into this conversation because I need local information. I need local perspective on that.

Because if Nebraska were to get a pro team, now it has professional women's volleyball. It's had arena league football. But those are different kind of sports. So then if we said major sport, would Nebraska ever want or qualify or be considered for pro sports. Because the big part of it is what Utah is going through

in trying to convince free agents and professionals that Nebraska is where they want to live. And that it would have all the things in place that a pro athlete would want and need. And I'm not sure, like, you know, the question I mean, Salt Lake City has its own questions about it's trying to get a professional, a major league baseball team. It has a AAA baseball team. It has the course of Utah Jazz.

It went and got an NHL franchise. And then the question becomes, you know, football. But football is a Sunday sport on the NFL level. And, oh, if you're doing business in Utah on a Sunday, you've got to consider this thing called the Mormon Church. And there are folks that don't, they aren't active on Sunday. So Bach, let me ask you, cancer, in the conversation, the fact that the,

that Omaha once partnered in an NBA franchise, you as a, as a native, would you think that that would work in 2025? Well, it's kind of strange how it worked back in the day, right? Because it was the Kansas City, Omaha Kings to begin with.

So it was shared. He'd play a handful of games in Omaha. I think it would be fascinating, depending on the sport, because if we're talking about football, obviously that would take away attention from Nebraska, the college. And so I just, I think that that would be a hard, a hard thing to do, obviously, and then the size of the city and all that stuff to make an NFL team,

you know, you're kind of in a different discussion there, unless you're Green Bay, unless your grandfathered in, right? So it's, I don't know. But another sport, I think that Omaha, almost any other sport. I think Omaha could probably hold a professional team. But again, it comes down to would it be, you'd almost have to have the heart of Omaha and mine.

Like you'd have to want to want to do it because there are other cities out there that might be first in line. Yeah, I mean, the numbers, and on the text line, it is an interesting thing that we, I say outside, we need to recalibrate our vision. and how we see sports, college sports towns. And Drew says this,

because I didn't realize that Lincoln is bigger than all of the old big 12 teams except Austin, Texas. The perception versus the reality and that when you start talking about doing business, that if you said that there are 700,000 people in Lincoln and Omaha, that pro sports, unless you are from Omaha, you're not going to bypass the data that says that there's only a half million people in Omaha.

And that Omaha is 25% of the state's population. Like that is a crazy thing to go, wait a minute, let me wrap my brain around that. And that Lincoln being, you know, half that. But you're talking about two cities in the state that are 700,750,000 of the two million people who live in the state of Nebraska. And then you're asking, and it shows the phenom that is Nebraska football. The fact that you can draw 90,000 plus every Saturday, football Saturday, since 1961 to Memorial Stadium. and then the number of people who would still congregate in the city, that is a phenomenal number because generally that number outside of the arena

doubles because people just want to come and be in the environment. So if you said that, you know, and I'm sure we can find the study that tells you how many people are in Lincoln on a college football game day. But that's fantastic. Now, the thing about baseball and basketball and hockey is that they require X number of people for 80 plus home games, right? That's a lot.

You're going to fill a basketball arena for 41 home nights. And can you fill it? Now, if we said pay attention to what happens at Nebraska and Creighton at basketball games, would that also, would those Husker basketball fans be NBA basketball fans? And the answer is probably no. right? If there's no Nebraska or Creighton connection, but Omaha Supernova's Love Volleyball

would whisper that, hmm, maybe. Because while there was a University of Nebraska connection, Creighton only had one person on the Supernova's in year one, I believe. And I want to say there were three or four Huskers. And a part of their management's decision-making process was, do we need to have more Husker volleyball players on this thing to keep guaranteeing that we're going to draw 10,000 people to CHI health set?

And then the question becomes, because next year, we know that Love Volleyball wants to move its home games around the state. So there'll be some home games in Lincoln next year for Love Volleyball. There'll be some home games in Omaha. There'll be some home games, I believe, in California. party. So as they move that around, then the numbers matter. And some of that falls into, could you handle it, perspective?

Do you know, and I know we have listeners who actually went to Omaha King's games, right? They actually went to the games. And I've heard people talk about the Omaha Beef Arena League football. I think their numbers, their attendance was crazy. Even back in the day, it was crazy. I'm not sure what this version is, but, I mean, They're still playing championship football. So, you know, it's there.

But Bach, what's the line between there being a pro sports team in basketball, baseball, right? Because storm chasers do their thing, salt dogs do their thing. But is there space for a higher level of baseball? And again, storm chasers do what they do. But can you imagine? there being a pro baseball team in Omaha, a major league baseball team. Yeah, it's,

for the Nebraska side of things, it's almost like, and we've seen this with obviously volleyball, but, you know, in football, obviously, it's held true for decades, even without winning. But generally,

if you have a winning team, Nebraskaans like to come and watch for it. And so that's where I would kind of be interested if they did get a professional team. And that's with any place, right? is the winning draws tickets and ticket sales. But I'd be interested to see what the difference would be between a bottom of the league team,

a middle of the league team and top tier. Because I think if you're winning, I think people will come. But again, that's the case in almost every major city. Does it have to be Nebraska's, right? Like, well, that is the thing. Does it have to fit the mindset and culture of Nebraska? whatever that is depending on the sport, right?

That football, if you had said to me, if you said to me 20 years ago that, okay, Nebraska still selling out $90,000 in the sea of red, if I had football on Sunday, I'd be curious about the market. It has, it would have a built-in connection with Kansas City and Denver, in Chicago, right?

It's easily get, you know, of course, the airport thing falls in the line, right, that it would probably have to be Omaha again, right? And the whole metro conversation to Texas, Omaha has, you know, a million people in the Omaha metro. Yeah, but that metro compared to, that means that half the population is in the metro, the state population. That's not a lot.

That because you're talking about, compare it to Raleigh-Durham Metro or Dallas-Fort Worth or Minneapolis-St. Paul. You're talking about the metro, D.C. Metro, New York City Metro, those areas are more complete with population and business opportunity. So it would be interesting. But in having the conversation with Eric, it was, it's, it's, it's. It'll try to get to why places like this exist in the space that the perception of them versus the reality of them. Because the first thing that, I mean, having traveled with the supernova's last year, the big thing for them was, oh, my goodness, I didn't know Nebraska was so nice. Whether it be in the people and the number of people, the enough of nothing's going on. but on the next level and the difference between women's pro volleyball and men's NBA basketball.

I mean, I think you could possibly have the discussion about the WMBA in Omaha or Lincoln, right? I think that would be a different conversation. But that NBA players would not choose a town because it doesn't meet, you play basketball, it's why you're there. but it's not necessarily who you are. And NBA towns are renowned for, hey man, I better have something else to do or I'm not going to want to be there. Drafting, the Utah Jazz have had a huge history

of drafting their talent and then trying to keep them there and not often having success in it. Here we go again, right? Right, right? Like, oh my goodness, right? And this is it, that urban players don't always have the understanding of the place that they're talking about. right? Why would I choose that over? And then this is what happens with Nebraska athletics.

Imagine that you're recruiting kids from Atlanta, Georgia, from Miami, Florida, from Los Angeles, California, from Dallas, Texas. And immediately, they're familiar with other big city programs. They're not familiar with Lincoln, Nebraska. And so a part of the cell is having to invent them and having a perfect elevator. pitch for hey man i got 30 seconds to tell you how cool link of Nebraska is right and i better be able to show you and i probably should have people who are constantly telling the story that hey man this is a place you want to be and then oh there's the the motto that well link it's not Nebraska it's not for everybody like you do we have Bach has that did the people who said that really at all consider Nebraska athletics.

You know, they paid millions of dollars for that slogan. But who did you pay for? I don't know. Who did you pay? I could have that. I could have. I would bet you paid people from Texas. Right.

Yeah. Like, you literally sent your money to Texas to tell them to tell you who you are. And then you bought, it's not for, we're not for everybody. Fuck. There has not been an athlete. that I've talked to you because the process is to try to explain to them

who and what Lincoln, Nebraska is. Why would I want to come there? And you go through the, you know, again, the elevator pitch, you know, there's no place like it. You know, could have ran with that. Could have ran with that. Nebraska nice.

You could have ran with that. You could have ran with, you know, no place like Nebraska. But then you better be able to tell me why. And if you tell me that in the, athletic program and in the university that here are the things that somebody from somewhere else, it's one thing to sell your own people, right? It's one thing to sell your sons and daughters. And they're not really nailing that. It's one thing to sell your sons and daughters on coming to

your mom and dad's alma mom. That's not a huge pitch. That you better nail it, especially when there's only 2 million people. Your recruiting pool is smaller in Nebraska. It just is. So you better have a pitch for how this thing's going to work. And then to say, here's why you need to be here. And I think people miss the boat on a regular basis in understanding who they are and then how they're going to communicate to people

why they should be a part of it. Now, you can say to me, hey man, if you don't want to be here, don't come here. That's not recruiting. That's, you know what happens when you say that? People go somewhere else. So it's interesting. And so we'll use the Ace Bailey, Utah Jazz situation, air quotes, to have the conversation with Everett Gray.

And again, he as an athletic director, high school athletic director, and an AU coach, and a high school, a state champion basketball coach and a guy who's been around the league around it, get some understanding of what the process and what the thinking is, because he can tell you how athletes are processed in this stuff, how they're going through the recruiting process. And then what it all means? What does it mean that Bach, if he's slotted for four years, $40 million and can still say out loud, I'm not sure I'm going to be there, that is a different conversation we're about to have. Because for $40 million, Brock, you and I,

we would play naked in Lambo in December. I'm pretty sure. We'll throw it to break. Every grade joins us on one-on-one when we come back.