Last week, ESPN’s 30 for 30 documentary This Magic Moment brought a well spring of nostalgia and memories. The story was not only one about the team and how it rose up and eventually fell. Nor was it a story only about two superstars growing and fighting their own egos — losing in the end, perhaps.
This was also a story about Orlando.
Among the many layers within the documentary was the story of a city becoming a major league pro town again. Pat Williams asks, in that famous clip, “Has it dawned on you yet that Orlando is a major sports town?”
The story of the Magic is very much about how the city has grown up. In the late 1980s, the city was the place Disney happened to be with not much of an industry or identity to speak of. The Magic were something new and something that brought the city to forefront of national attention.
Now, the city is much more mature in so many ways. It has an industry — a thriving tech start up industry and medical research labs and biotechnology companies — outside of tourism and it has now multiple sports teams and a thriving sports culture.
This blog exists to capture a lot of that!
This Magic Moment though also showed some of Orlando’s naiveté and youth. There was a rush of excitement and support those first years as the team rose to a championship level. But when it came down to paying Shaquille O’Neal, not only was the franchise unprepared for the realities of a big-time sports team but so was the city.
The story of the infamous Orlando Sentinel poll asking fans whether Shaquille O’Neal was worth $100 million is etched into the Magic’s and Orlando fans’ psyche. It was a sign of their youth and ignorance over how special O’Neal was and what the cost of doing business in the NBA was.
Magic fans have grown up a lot since then. The passion is there as the fans wait for a winner to come back around, but it is not the same. Skepticism remains about the next superstar to leave and there is a demand for excellence.
Orlando is getting a second chance to experience an expansion franchise again. Something that was home grown and built up from scratch much like the Magic.
Orlando City’s move from USL Pro to MLS has seen many of the same grassroots growth and the same quick success. The team won five trophies in four years at USL Pro — three regular season championships and two playoff titles. They had a similarly charismatic figure who brought the team in and believed in the city in Phil Rawlins (similar to Pat Williams with the Magic).
The move to MLS brought with it continued excitement and a much bigger stage.
But for the first time in Orlando City’s history, the team missed the Playoffs. The team failed to reach its goals. The excitement has not waned in the early parts of the second season. And the Lions have shown a commitment to spending and fielding a winner. Their situation is different from the Magic’s.
But as all franchises do, there is time for growth, time for decline and time for rebuilding. Orlando City has never experienced anything other than growth, the exciting rise to a championship. There has not been a major setback.
That will inevitably come and the question is how will fans respond.
With the Magic, fans went dormant. Their cynicism picked up and they were slow to come back. No one quite knows how Orlando City fans will react.
In watching This Magic Moment, there was a fear that seemed to be growing among Orlando City supporters — the hardcore fans — that somehow Orlando is going to ruin this special thing that has been built.
Gavin Ewbank of The Mane Land writes:
Listen, that documentary was pretty eye-opening for me. I liked seeing the Magic be great for a point, I loved seeing how the city embraced the team, but I also got one very killer vibe from the doc: you guys are going to ruin everything we’d come together to build here in Orlando with Orlando City.
[. . . ]
I do not want to be sitting here in six months reading about how a reader poll in the Orlando Sentinel suggest City fans aren’t happy with how Kaka is playing given how much money he’s making, so he decides Orlando isn’t that great after all, and bolts to Tampa Bay.
Things will never get that bad. They cannot.
Orlando has learned its lesson. It has grown up. The city will never push a player away like it did with Shaquille O’Neal. It understands the business of sports and its realities in many ways.
Then again, fans still react negatively to Dwight Howard — a player Magic fans showered love on only to see him force his way out in a trade not realizing their team had lost the one advantage it always had: A clear path to winning. For big players, winning is ultimately what matters.
This Magic Moment made the Orlando Magic and fans in the City of Orlando primary causes for O’Neal’s departure. It touched on, but largely glossed over, the ego battle between O’Neal and Hardaway.
Regardless of the cause, the way the city acted with its shiny new toy helped give O’Neal an excuse. There is always growth that comes with experience. This was a traumatic effect in the Orlando sports fan’s mind.
Orlando City fans are likely feeling that fear as they watch this documentary and what Orlando used to be.
There will be fallow periods for the franchise, it is inevitable. The initial expansion franchise excitement will wear out eventually. Nothing lasts forever.
The fears that fan passion will go away or the city will make some sort of terrible mistake like the Shaq poll again should go away. This city and this fan base has grown up tremendously.
Magic games may not be the same as they were in the early and mid 1990s, but there is still a passionate fan base ready to cheer the team on — especially when it is winning.
Watching This Magic Moment and being reminded of where the city was back then only reaffirms how much the city has grown in so many ways for the better.
