It’s been twenty-one years since the Vancouver Grizzlies played their final NBA game, a 95-81 victory over the Golden State Warriors.

Spring 2001. A very different time for the city of Vancouver.  The Canucks had just made the playoffs for the first time since 1996, city bus drivers went on strike, the final freight train rolled down the Arbutus Corridor, and the Vancouver Grizzlies left for Memphis.  The idea around the NBA was that Vancouver simply wouldn’t support the franchise, but lets analyze a few things with that statement.

The Grizzlies played six seasons at General Motors Place, posting an all-time record of 101-359, and never qualifying for the NBA playoffs.  The team also managed to go through five coaches in six years.  Players were in and out nonstop.  Basically, the only one there for the inaugural game and the final home game was In-Arena announcer Al Murdoch.  As Vancouver sports fans know, it’s easy to support a winning franchise, it’s hard to support a losing one.  Why would fans want to pay $50 for a ticket, just to see a team they don’t have an attachment to get destroyed?

Secondly, and more importantly, the late 1990s and early 2000s were arguably the worst periods in recorded history for the Canadian dollar, trading well under it’s US counterpart.  Because of this, fans weren’t willing to part with their hard earned dollars to go to games.  This wasn’t solely a Grizzlies issue either, as the Canucks were also having attendance problems of their own at GM Place around the same time.

So what has changed in Vancouver?  There’s a much larger population in Metro Vancouver, growing from 1,199,000 in 2001 to 2,632,000 in 2022, according to metrotrends.net.  There’s also two more rapid transit train lines which can carry fans from as far as Richmond and Coquitlam, down to Rogers Arena.  Vancouver has also shown it’s willingness to come out and support NBA basketball, as exhibition games in the city have always drawn well, the latest in 2019 was a sellout of 17,204.  Grizzlies paraphernalia is sold more now, more than twenty years after the team left.

If Vancouver were to get another franchise, they would need an owner and an arena, but the owner of the only suitable barn in town, Francesco Aquilini, didn’t seem to keen on the idea when he was last asked about it in 2019.