If things don’t start looking up soon, sports fans in Tennessee may soon find themselves without a club to root for. A little more than a decade ago, Devils owner John McMullen went looking for a better deal than what he had in New Jersey. He seemed to find what he was seeking in Nashville, but soon became convinced that the Volunteer State could not in the long run support a National Hockey League franchise. Aided by Commissioner Gary Bettman and Governor Whitman (who assigned her husband, John, a prominent investor to broker a deal), McMullen was eventually persuaded to stay in New Jersey.

He walked away from the deal that Wisconsin businessman and owner of the Nashville Predators, Craig Leipold, jumped on. By 1997, the NHL had awarded an expansion franchise to the city.

The current negotiations between Pittsburgh Penguins owner, Mario Lemieux, and his partners, to build a new arena for their hockey club also recall the talks between McMullen and the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority in 1995. Just as McMullen and other sports owners were drawn to Tennessee by the promise of financial opportunity in the 1990s, Lemieux and his partners, including California billionaire Ron Burkle, have had an eye toward Kansas City and Houston. But the pair would be wise to consider what has transpired in Tennessee since business and government leaders convinced owners to relocate to the southern locale.

Nashville investors first jumped into the stadium game in the mid-1980s when Major League Baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth was looking at potential expansion locations. Nothing came of the Ueberroth plan and Nashville dropped off the professional sports radar for a while. In the early 1990s, when the National Football League decided to expand, Tennessee (specifically Memphis) got back in the game again. The NFL decided on Charlotte and Jacksonville as expansion cities in 1993 and passed on St. Louis, Baltimore, and Memphis.

But the no-vote in Memphis didn’t deter Nashville officials. Nashville also joined the stadiumbuilding craze that soon struck cities of all sizes, spending more than a half a billion dollars for a football facility and arena. Nashville was in search of a national identity.

In November 1995, Nashville Mayor Bredesen — with a limited cable television market and scant corporate support — got businessman Bud Adams to sign an agreement to move the Houston Oilers, his NFL franchise, to the city. And shortly thereafter, Bredesen landed NHL expansion team, the Nashville Predators, to play in the new arena.

But that was the easy part.

The difficulty has been ensuring the hockey team can stay in smallmarket Nashville.

Adams and Leipold are discovering what McMullen sensed in 1995 about the financial prospects for sports franchises in Nashville. Now, Adams could be looking for additional revenue sharing opportunities from his fellow NFL owners, and Leipold may be in financial trouble.

Last spring, Adams signed a 10-year deal with the Louisiana-Pacific Corporation for the naming rights to the Titans’ football stadium — a privilege for which the building materials supplier is paying just $30 million. (In New York, Mets owner Fred Wilpon will receive $400 million over 20 years from Citibank for naming rights to the club’s new ballpark. Bruce Ratner may get that much from Barclays Bank for his Brooklyn arena, and Devils owner Jeffrey Vanderbeek will get more than $100 million from Prudential for naming rights to his team’s new Newark facility.)

Under certain conditions, Leipold’s Predators can get out of their lease in 2008, just 10 years after starting play in the new building.

But Leipold is hoping to sell a stake in the Predators to a Nashville buyer who can drum up corporate support for the franchise. Leipold’s problem is not a dearth of fans — Nashville has a large fan base that regularly purchases game-day seats. Rather, the Predators need a larger share of customers who can afford to buy pricey luxury boxes and club seats. Leipold has so far been unsuccessful in rallying the city’s corporate leaders behind the local team. If that doesn’t change in the next 12 months, Leipold could look to move again.

Meanwhile, in Memphis, officials decided that if Nashville could become a major sports city, then it could go after a franchise of its own, striking deals with National Basketball League owners. On March 26, 2001, Memphis became home to both George Shinn’s Charlotte Hornets and Michael Heisley’s Vancouver Grizzlies.

In Federal Express and Auto Zone, Memphis had two powerful businesses that pushed to land an NBA franchise, assuring local officials that the city would reap the financial benefit. But Heisley later realized that he had exchanged one money-losing situation for another. By 2006, Heisley was ready to sell the majority interest in a franchise he bought for $160 million just six years earlier.

It’s unclear whether Heisley got into the NBA because he liked basketball or was simply looking to turn a profit on an investment. But his six-year tenure as an NBA owner is notable because he never considered a sports team a public trust. There are three reasons why someone would purchase a sports franchise, Heisley explained, and chief among those is ego.

“Some companies, you invest in them, invest in them, and invest in them — and they lose money, they lose money, and they lose money,” Heisley said just after he assumed control of the Vancouver Grizzlies.

Heisley vowed at the time to make Vancouver a successful NBA city.

Yet in February 2001, Heisley was granted permission by Commissioner David Stern to shop his team around until he found the city willing to give him the best deal, including an arena and the guarantee that revenue sources from that building would go to maintaining the team.

Heisley eventually turned to Memphis. By fall 2004, the Grizzlies owner was ensconced in a new arena and had locked up the lion’s share of arena-generated revenue in a contract that granted him funds gained from naming rights. But that apparently was not enough of a financial cushion for Heisley who lost a reported $40 million in 2005–06.

The Grizzlies had the lowest home attendance in the league among teams with winning records last year, amounting to significant losses in parking fees, concessions sales, and arena restaurant revenue — three major moneymakers for an owner and key in a small market with limited resources such as Memphis. And it’s only gotten worse: Memphis ranks next to last in the NBA in average attendance, drawing an average of 14,878 fans a game in 26 home contests this year. (Philadelphia ranks just below the Grizzlies in the 30-team league.)

The political and business leadership of Nashville and Memphis wanted to join the ranks of major sports cites. Now both cities are faced with clubs that are struggling to stay afloat.