Victor Wembanyama Buzz has businesses in San Antonio excited to make money

Mark Burnett can’t get Victor Wembanyama out of his head. You could, but it would be like taking a knife to the “Mona Lisa.”

Burnett, a San Antonio Spurs superfan, had Joe Barajas, a well-known local barber, cut Wembanyama’s effigy into the side of his head just over a week ago. He, like almost everyone else in the basketball world, had expected the Spurs to pick Wembanyama as No. 1 in the NBA draft on Thursday.

“I wanted to show Victor something special, that the city of San Antonio already loves him,” Burnett said at a draft night party at the Spurs’ home arena just before San Antonio did indeed select Wembanyama, who had shared a photo of Burnett on his Instagram account.

Fanatic? Maybe. But also eminently reasonable, and not only because of the immense promise of Wembanyama, a 19-year-old French basketball star. As San Antonio’s only major professional sports franchise, the Spurs are the beating heart of the seventh largest city in the United States.

“I want to do my best in every aspect of the job,” Wembanyama said at his opening press conference Saturday in San Antonio. “The fans were the best at their job. I can only hope to be at their level.”

However, that magic has recently disappeared in the River City. The Spurs have not made the playoffs in the past four seasons; they had made it every year since 1997, winning five championships. A miserable 2022-23 campaign where they had the worst record in the Western Conference provided a silver lining: a tie for best chances to get the No. 1 pick in the draft. Now they have Wembanyama.

“It will be a huge uptick for the economy,” said Aaron Peña, who owns two bars in San Antonio and plans to open another in two weeks. “We are already planning to host not just opening night parties, but every Spurs game. It will be a party.”

For some entrepreneurs, the party has already started. Chip Ingram owns Roo Pub, an Australian-themed bar inspired by Patty Mills, a former Spurs guard from Australia. Ingram drew a large crowd at his pub on 16 May after announcing that if the Spurs won the lottery that night, he would foot the bill. That night might have cost him a pretty penny as the Spurs won, but Ingram said the spotlight was more than worth it.

Ingram has brightened up his menu with a “Wemby Burger” with foie gras and French onion strings. After a $1 promotional deal on draft night, the burger now costs $21.50 — a nod to Spurs legends Tim Duncan, who wore No. 21, and David Robinson, who wore No. 50. They too were #1 choices.

Economic research casts some doubt on the potential strength of the Wembanyama effect in San Antonio. a 2017 paper Daniel Shoag of Harvard University and Stan Veuger of the American Enterprise Institute found that LeBron James’ return to Cleveland in 2014 increased the number of restaurants and other food and beverage outlets near the Cavaliers arena. But that wasn’t the case in Miami when James joined the Heat in 2010, though he had a significant effect on employment close to the arenas in both cities. economists have long discussed those professional sports franchises and their stadiums not doing much to help local economies.

“I think people will be in the Spurs anyway, but this just gives more attention to San Antonio,” said Julián Castro, the former mayor of San Antonio, who was also the secretary of housing and urban development under President Barack. Obama. “It boosts the city in terms of how much it’s in the national spotlight. It raises the profile and visibility of the city among people, which is always good for business.”

Shea Serrano, a San Antonio-based author and television writer, never misses an opportunity to talk about his beloved Spurs. He said he “lost my mind” when the Spurs won the lottery.

“It felt in the city at that moment like we had won another championship,” he said.

Spurs chief operating officer Brandon Gayle said the team had seen a surge in demand for season tickets – and from a younger, more diverse demographic than usual. San Antonio’s population is approximately 66 percent Hispanic or Latino of any race and 23 percent White only, with less than 10 percent of residents identifying as Asian or Black/African American, according to the US Census Bureau. Gayle said the Spurs wanted to further expand their reach to Mexico and Austin, Texas, where the team has played several games in recent seasons.

From the opening of the Spurs arena, the AT&T Center, before the 2002-2003 season to the 2018-19 season, the last time the team made the playoffs, San Antonio has always been in the top half of the NBA presence. They have been in the last five for the past two seasons

Carly Tovar represents the second generation of a three-generation Spurs family. She attended the draft night party with her young son, Mario Calderon, and her father, Ralph Tovar, who began rooting for the Spurs when the team moved from Dallas in the 1970s. The Spurs won their first title in 1999, when Carly was in high school. Despite her father’s protestations, she went downtown to join in the celebration, where fans lined the highway, honked their cars and were drenched in victory over the Knicks.

“I came up with David Robinson, Avery Johnson, and I could appreciate the next generation with Duncan and Robinson,” Carly said. “So now we’re seeing that happen for the third time.” She gestured to her son.

Ralph agreed. “It’s good for our city,” he said. “It has what we call la lumbre, the fire.”

The renewed energy around the Spurs has visibly changed San Antonio, in the form of eye-catching Wembanyama tributes from local artists. Oscar Alvarado, a tile mosaic artist who traces his family’s San Antonio roots back nearly 300 years, built an 60-foot-tall Wembanyama cutout from steel and plywood. Colton Valentine created a larger-than-life mural of Wembanyama palming two basketballs on the outside of a bar in the artsy Southtown neighborhood, earning a visit from Spurs coach Gregg Popovich. And Nik Soupe was perhaps the boldest of them all, completing a mural of Wembanyama while wearing a Spurs jersey almost two months before the lottery.

Several fans said Wembanyama’s ability to generate a palpable buzz was decidedly “un-Spurs-like”. Duncan was remarkably quiet and rarely did interviews or commercials, much like Kawhi Leonard, who helped the Spurs win their most recent championship, in 2014.

But so far, Wembanyama is in the spotlight. He beamed in a video posted to Instagram as a horde of fans greeted him after he landed in San Antonio on Friday.

“He should expect legions of old ladies in Catholic churches praying for the Spurs to win,” Castro said, “and his success being celebrated by people as if he were a member of their family. That’s the level of enthusiasm and how personal many people take it there.