HAMPTON ROADS, VA.
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Income profile (annual):
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■ Household median: $60,093
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■ Household, 60th percentile: $72,310
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■ Household, 80th percentile: $109,482
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■ Median, family of four: $81,764
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■ Discretionary, family of four (rank): $6,131 (55th)
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■ MSA population (rank): 1.72 million (37th)
■ Since 2010: +3 percent
■ Major pro teams: None
■ Nearest teams: NHL: Carolina Hurricanes (185 miles); Others: In Washington, D.C. (195 miles)
■ TV teams: Washington Nationals, Wizards and Capitals; Baltimore Orioles
■ TV households (rank): 706,270 (42nd)
■ Metro GDP (rank): $95.7 billion (38th)
■ Fortune 1000 HQs (rank): 1 (53rd)
■ Employment profile: The MSA has a 62 percent higher concentration of engineering and architecture jobs than found nationally, as well as a 25 percent higher concentration of jobs in construction and extraction.
■ Places to play: None suitable. Arena backers in the region have been working proposals for two decades. The latest, a deal for an 18,000-seat building in Virginia Beach, fell one vote shy of approval in October. A stadium in the pipeline for MLS’s D.C. United, which has nearby Richmond as its USL Pro affiliate, doesn’t help arguments for a soccer project.
— Bill King
Appraisal
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No region has been spinning the “Major League City” wheel longer, with less satisfying results, than Hampton Roads, the amalgam of Norfolk, Newport News and Virginia Beach, which traces its obsession with both expansion and relocation all the way back to a $100,000 feasibility study commissioned in 1994.
Passed over for expansion by the NHL in 1997. Beaten to the Charlotte Hornets by New Orleans in 2001. Failed runs at the Montreal Expos in 2004 and the Florida Marlins in 2006. An unclaimed offer to put up $340 million toward an arena and pay relocation fees for the Sacramento Kings in 2013. Other than persistence, what does Hampton Roads have that keeps flirty team owners coming back?
To start, it’s the nation’s third-largest vacant market, behind only Las Vegas and Austin, a bit larger than Milwaukee, Jacksonville, Oklahoma City and Memphis. Its GDP is well above the median for a locale with one team.
After that, it gets dicey. The TV market ranks
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42nd. Discretionary family income is particularly troubling, at $6,131 a year.
Were you to bet on Hampton Roads, your hope would be that it could anchor a team with a fan base that extended to Richmond, about 90 miles to the northwest, similarly to the way that Buffalo has survived as home to not one but two teams thanks to the support of fans in Rochester, 75 miles to the east.
Or, you could bet on Richmond. Taken together as a TV market, the two would be a bit larger than the Buffalo/Rochester combo. While Hampton Roads has only one Fortune 1000 headquarters, Richmond has 11, the most of any teamless market and more than all but one single-team market.
Considering the economic metrics — including family discretionary income that ranks 17th — we’d probably be talking about Richmond here were it not for its proximity to the five teams in D.C. Unless Richmond were to lure one of those franchises rather than competing with it for fans, that would be a long shadow to overcome.
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