You can add Louisville to the list of cities seeking an NBA team, as the city hired an attorney to approach teams and potential investors about playing in Freedom Hall or KFC Yum! Center, the city’s new downtown arena.
Give Louisville some credit: they snuck $60,000 into the Kentucky State Fair Board budget and then called it a national marketing budget for Freedom Hall. Instead, the money went to attorney J. Bruce Miller, who spent the summer on the task.
He identified one majority investor and several minority investors willing to further explore a franchise sale. As a result, the city is debating whether to devote another $22,000 to the task.
So far the focus has been luring an NBA team to Freedom Hall, vacated as the home of the University of Louisville Cardinals. But there’s also talk an NBA could play in the new downtown arena.
Bringing in pro basketball has been a constant activity for Louisville officials. The city once hosted the Kentucky Colonels, a highly successful American Basketball Association team. But when the ABA merged with the NBA, the Colonels were left in the cold.
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