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The fastest-growing city in Texas was abuzz with energy this week as it prepared to welcome its latest arrival: a seven-foot, four-inch teenager from Paris.
Victor Wembanyama, the most hotly anticipated basketball prospect in a generation, was selected by the San Antonio Spurs at Thursday night’s US National Basketball Association talent draft, capping almost a year of strategising by executives throughout the league hoping to land a player known simply as Wemby.
“I am very excited,” said Gregg Popovich, the longtime Spurs president and head coach under whom the team has won five NBA titles but in more recent years fallen out of contention for the playoffs, the post-season tournament that determines the league champion.
Dismissing pundits’ comparisons of the 19-year-old Wembanyama with other superstars, he added: “He’s not LeBron [James] or Tim [Duncan] or Kobe [Bryant] or anybody else. He’s Victor, and that’s who we want him to be”.
The French sensation’s arrival in Texas reflects a long-running story of US basketball extending its international reach. Roughly a quarter of the NBA’s players now hail from outside the US, including the recipients of the last five most valuable player awards.
Even before lacing up for a game, Spurs officials say Wembanyama has driven a surge in ticket deposits and sponsor interest.
Frank Miceli, Spurs chief revenue officer, told the Financial Times that the number of seats claimed for season ticket sales was expected to rise 30 to 35 per cent for the forthcoming year. On the night last month when the Spurs won the league lottery for the first selection in the player draft — all but guaranteeing they would add Wembanyama to the roster — the team accepted roughly 3,000 ticket deposits alone.
Miceli gave a champagne toast to the sales staff that night, saying “no matter what you end up doing in your career, how many years removed, you will always remember this night being together and celebrating”.
Individual NBA teams do not disclose financial results but recent performances in San Antonio have not been a boon to revenues. The team has failed to make the playoffs for four straight seasons, while several top stars including Kawhi Leonard have been traded away, causing the season ticket base to drop about 60 per cent, according to Miceli.
Over the same period, only one Spurs game was deemed important enough to air on national television — the league determines which matches are televised based on a mix of star power, rivalry match-ups and other factors — a disappointment for team sponsors.
But Wembanyama’s arrival in San Antonio has been enough to boost interest in the Spurs’ talks for a new stadium sponsor, with its contract with AT&T expiring this year. Recent stadium naming rights contracts, such as that for Los Angeles’s Crypto.com Arena, have been worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Despite the team’s recent downturn in competitiveness, the Spurs have long had an eye towards marketing themselves overseas. Some of the franchise’s top players, including Tony Parker, Manu Ginóbili and Tim Duncan, came from outside the US. One of the fastest-growing cities in the US, its location 250km from Mexico has enabled the front office to take on two Mexican sponsors, and intra-US migration to south Texas has made it a region ripe for investment.
“The Spurs historically have been looked upon as a mid-market team,” said Alan Waxman, chief executive of investment firm Sixth Street Partners, which took a 20 per cent stake in the team in 2021 that valued the franchise at $1.8bn. “If you had to pick one place in the United States to basically buy into a trend, it’s the central Texas corridor without question,” he said.
While growth in the San Antonio-Austin region has prompted questions of whether the Spurs might relocate to the Texas state capital, Waxman said: “I can’t see a scenario where the team is ever headquartered outside or based outside of San Antonio.”
That should be some comfort to residents of the city, where homages to Wembanyama’s were popping up even before his official selection by the Spurs. Rudy’s Seafood, a fish fry in the Southtown neighbourhood, adorned its front entrance with a larger-than-life portrait of the teenage star in a Spurs kit in March, two months before the team earned the rights to the first draft pick.
As Colton Valentine, a local muralist, rushed to finish a second Wembanyama portrait next to the bar and grill Southtown 101 on Tuesday, he received frequent honks and cheers from passing cars.
“San Antonio feels like a small town, it’s a real community,” he said.
Wembanyama arrives in Texas after being named most valuable player of the French top division LNB Pro A, where he led the league in points scored, shots blocked and total rebounds this season.
Basketball analysts say he has the height and defensive skills of an elite centre with the speed and skill typical of top guards, making him a unique threat in the NBA where versatility is a top roster asset.
Speaking through tears after his official selection on Thursday night, Wembanyama was sanguine about the task ahead of him.
“It’s tough to win in this league,” he said of the NBA. “My goal is I am trying to learn as quickly as possible. Because I want to win.”
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