VeSo no basketball, huh? That's interesting. What about the Toronto Raptors? Although maybe the now-defunct Vancouver Grizzlies tell the tail.
The Grizzlies being in Memphis with the assumption basketball didn't work in Vancouver doesn't really tell any sort of tale. Having lived through the Vancouver Grizzlies era in Vancouver, I can tell you that the lack of a franchise in Canada outside of Toronto is not solely the fault of a lack of support from the city.
The change in ownership intent on moving the team was a huge problem. When it became a public spectacle and constant threat, and Vancouver fans saw little to no action taken by management and ownership to improve the team, both led to the decline of the NBA in this market.
I would say attendance was still fairly strong throughout, especially in comparison to other small-medium market teams with similarly bad teams (I'd compare our market to Denver, who had an equally bad team at the time and lower overall attendance.) The trouble was, there was only so much 15-67 year in year out basketball fans could handle, especially with no intent to change. Guys like Dennis Scott weren't the answer, and Shareef-Abdur Rahim could only carry the team for so long once the standouts excelled and signed elsewhere.
It didn't help that many players seemed to treat Vancouver like being exiled to Siberia, despite the fact that their home country was only a 30 minute drive away. The stories are legendary. Silly things like product based complaints (the Count Chocula complaint someone had) and the inability to find American products in Canada...and serious things like Doug West's apparent regression into alcoholism when he found out he was traded. I can only really think of Anthony Peeler as the only guy who was happy to be traded here, and even he only lasted a season before he was traded for the infamous Mr. West.
There were too many factors against the Grizzlies franchise that weren't fan related that led to the demise of the team here, and soured the NBA in many peoples' eyes. The day I stopped following the NBA was the day the Grizzlies left, and the day I stopped caring about the NBA altogether was the day the Sonics left. Outside of the odd video game, I have no intent of supporting their brand ever again.
