Pelicans Will Bring NBA Affiliate Team to Birmingham
The City of Birmingham announced Wednesday it’s getting a pro basketball team. No, the NBA isn’t coming here. But instead, the New Orleans Pelicans will launch a minor-league affiliate team, called a G League.
The move could bring an economic boost to the downtown area — eventually. The Pelicans development league should start playing at the BJCC’s Legacy Arena around 2022. By then the arena’s $125 million renovation is expected to be complete. Sports economist Todd McFall of Wake Forest University says that’ll give people time to absorb the concept of a G League.
“I see potential upsides,” he says, “but I think this is going to take a little bit of time, just because the idea of whatever the G League is isn’t really clear in people’s minds.”
Think of a G league as an NBA training ground for athletes, coaches and other staff — much like the Birmingham Barons are a minor-league baseball affiliate of the Chicago White Sox.
McFall says the G League draws excellent players, but it doesn’t have the caché of the NBA and it’s not as well-known as college basketball. Still, he says a team in Birmingham should do well. So will restaurants downtown, which could see more business. That’s not the case everywhere G League teams go. Take the Greensboro Swarm, for instance. McFall says that North Carolina G League has struggled because of the abundance of quality college basketball nearby. He says that level of competition doesn’t exist in Alabama collegiate basketball.
Dennis Lauscha, president of the New Orleans Pelicans and the New Orleans Saints, says one reason they chose Birmingham over other cities in the running such as Mobile, Shreveport, Louisiana, and Pensacola, was to expand the team’s reach. New Orleans doesn’t have the television market or the population Birmingham does. “What we do have though is we have a number of very avid fans that live in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and the Panhandle of Florida,” he says.
But perhaps Lauscha’s biggest challenge is to get people in Alabama just as excited about basketball as they are about football. No small feat.
The team doesn’t have a name yet. Ticket prices haven’t been set either, but Lauscha says they’ll be affordable. Nevertheless, McFall says it probably won’t be G League ticket sales that offset the cost of the BJCC renovations. But a state-of-the-art arena can draw other events to the city. “You could have bigger concerts. So in a nicer venue you’d have bigger names,” he says.
And if people don’t yet know what a G League is, they will over the next several months, Lauscha says. “Perhaps that’s the good thing about not moving in on day one,” he says. The team will play in Erie, Pennsylvania for the next few years as the Erie BayHawks until Birmingham’s arena renovations are complete. “We have some time to educate the fans. And to be quote honest with you, I think there are probably folks in New Orleans who don’t completely understand what the G League is.”
Postal traffic to US drops more than 80% after trade exemption rule ends, UN agency says
The de minimis rule that allowed small packages worth less than $800 to be exempt from tariffs ended on Friday, Aug. 29, 2025.
Colombia’s lone Amazon port faces drying river and rising tensions with Peru
Colombia's only Amazon port town could soon be cut off from the river that keeps it alive. As drought and a shifting river spark a tense border dispute with Peru, locals are scrambling to adapt—and politicians are raising flags, literally.
Sunday Puzzle: Common denominator
NPR's Ayesha Rascoe plays the puzzle with Weekend Edition puzzlemaster Will Shortz along with listener Cynthia Rose of Littleton, Colorado.
South Korea says it has reached a deal with the US for the release of workers in a Georgia plant
More than 300 South Korean workers were detained in an immigration raid on Thursday. Presidential chief of staff Kang Hoon-sik said South Korea plans to send a charter plane to bring the workers home.
Hitch a ride to the moon in a rusty old car and ‘The Couch in the Yard’
As the sun sets in a small town, a family loads up their rusty old car with the spare couch in their yard. When it breaks down in the mountains, what else is there to do but fly it to the moon?
The silent killer increases your risk of stroke and dementia. Here’s how to control it
New recommendations for early treatment for hypertension to prevent strokes, heart attacks and dementia come as an experimental medication is shown to lower blood pressure in hard to treat patients.
