By Jason Pike
St. John’s, NL – I think the answer to the question is St John’s is a basketball town or not is a resounding yes! Well if that is the case why can’t the Newfoundland Rogues replicate the massive success of the St John’s Edge? Well that’s a loaded question to say the least.
Everyone was skeptical when it was announced that professional basketball was coming to St John’s. A lot of hockey Folk were adamant that this was a hockey town and that basketball would not work here, but boy were they ever wrong! On their opening game there wasn’t standing room in mile one Center. The atmosphere was nothing less than Electric and this sell out crowd welcomed the Carl English led St John’s Edge to their opening game and from that day forward the audience would come out in full force for the most part. Weekdays games were lower in attendance than weekend games but never was the venue ever considered empty. People had Edge fever. Further confirming that yes this is the basketball town.
They were everywhere. The Edge players were at schools, public events, and everywhere and anywhere they could possibly be, they were a community team and it may not have been the NBA but St John’s and Newfoundland embraced the sport and the culture with open arms as their own little slice of pro basketball right here at home.
Two very successful playoff runs and one that brought them straight to a League final but plagued by injury and player recalls they fell to the London Lightning. But that did not deter the fans, they still loved this team. They were anywhere and everywhere they could be, until they couldn’t.
So what went wrong
The same thing that always goes wrong with pro sports here in the city and that is hands down St John’s Sports and Entertainment. An old boys club as they say, too many old heads in too much of a powerful position and not enough know-how. It boils down to greed and control. At the end of the day it’s the reason we lost the St John’s Maple Leafs and just about every other sports team that followed. So you can understand anybody’s hesitation in wanting to partake in bringing any type of pro sports franchise to this city because you are forced to deal with the only venue large enough to house professional sports and as in classic Newfoundland behavior.
We’ve allowed ourselves to fall into the trap of only having one facility, only one option to turn to, because there’s not another facility that could handle such ventures. But yes, St John’s Sports and Entertainment were the culprit and things quietly behind the scenes started to deteriorate before the St John’s Edge even knew it. Back room deals and whispers led to the ousting of the St John’s Edge, who then no longer had a venue to play. St John’s Sports and Entertainment announced that they had another tenant in line with another pro basketball team ready to fill the basketball void at the Mile One, now Mary Brown’s Center.
On paper you would think, okay these thousands of Edge fans will naturally migrate to this new team for their basketball fix, right? Wrong! Everything went south right from the start! And you have to ask yourself why? How does that happen. Well from my experience, it looked as if it came down to ego!
The Rogues
Talking to former staff members at the venue the new Newfoundland Rogues basketball franchise owned by Tony Kenny, and multiple other business partners, was often heard Walking The halls of the arena saying that he doesn’t need anyone else’s help, that he’s going to do this himself.
Some may call it an egotistical attitude, others may call an admirable, but whatever you call it, it was a failure. They failed to embrace their target market the way the St John’s Edge had, they all but eliminated local involvement from local clubs and players. That has since changed but from this writers perspective its too little, too late. The damage is already done. Even the team name, Rogues, was felt to be a negative portrayal of Newfoundland and its culture, to the point that it caught the ire of some fairly prominent local traditional musicians who publicly aired their grievance on Twitter (now X) about how they felt negatively about it. That tweet has now since been deleted but when public figures that the local community look up to speak out against something when they never speak negatively about anything, not publicly anyway, it’s almost like a dagger through the heart at that point.
Embrace the community
It created a snowball effect, combined with the failure to embrace local fans. If they truly want this franchise to succeed what they should have done is hired a bus service, invited all school age kids and with their parents for free and fill the buses with them to bring them to the arena and back. Put off a great interactive experience and bite the bullet on the cost for the sake of potential return business. Could it be any worse than what it has been? I can’t imagine what the numbers must be for an all but empty venue almost every game, paying players, paying for flights, paying for the rental fees at Mile One must be crazy because I know for a fact what the numbers are for use of Mary Brown Center.
Even now I guess they are starting to try to cut costs because they’re looking for volunteers to create a production team for the Newfoundland Rogues. It doesn’t really project a great image for a supposed pro sports franchise.
Heading into the 2024-2025 season one has to ask how far into a financial hole do you want to dig yourself before you admit defeat?. In reality the Rogues would be better off in a significantly smaller venue either Holy Heart gymnasium or the Powerplex which would be more suited for the type of crowd they are drawing. Yes they are not as classy or high end of a venue as the Mary Brown Center. I seen multiple High School tournaments with solo gymnasiums with bigger crowds than a professional sports team this past winter! At some point you have to admit that there’s a problem here but is pride worth going bankrupt? That is the greater question?
It’s sad really, because I myself have watched many games and the quality of basketball is decent but the likelihood of it being seen by the majority of basketball fans locally is looking less and less every year.
I predict that after this season we’ll sadly no longer see pro basketball in our province.
