The San Antonio Spurs aren’t going anywhere.
Though plans to play a few games in Austin next season raised plenty of concerns that the team was preparing to relocate 90 minutes north permanently, Spurs owner Peter J. Holt shut those rumors down on Tuesday morning.
He’s not moving the team.
“I was raised in San Antonio and this city has helped define the foundation of the Spurs,” he said in a statement, in part. “The Spurs are as much a part of San Antonio as San Antonio is a part of the Spurs… My family became involved in the Spurs in the 90s because there was a real threat that the team would be moved. We would not let that happen then and we will not let that happen now.
“There is no other team in the NBA like the Spurs and no other home like San Antonio.”
The Spurs have been in San Antonio for all 55 seasons of its existence, outside of six seasons it spent as the Dallas Chaparrals in the ABA in the 1960s and 1970s.
The Holt family first joined the Spurs’ ownership group in 1996, and Peter was named the team’s chairman after both his mother and father stepped down within the last decade.
According to Forbes, the Spurs are valued at just shy of $2 billion — which makes them the 15th most valuable team in the league.
The Spurs currently play at the AT&T Center, and the franchise has a non-relocation agreement that runs through the 2031-32 season. Their lease at the arena, which is owned by the county, doesn’t let them play more than two home games outside of Bexar County each season — something they asked for earlier this month while playing at least two games elsewhere in Texas and two games internationally.
The team wants to play a pair of games at the Moody Center in Austin, the new arena at the University of Texas.
While Austin could undoubtedly support the Spurs or any other NBA team full time, the Holt family just isn’t open to moving anytime soon.