ABA Basketball not covered by local newspapers

Guys came to town pushing a minor league basketball team in our town. Had tryouts at a converted roller rink. Charged guys $50 bucks to tryout and never formed a team.

 

I remember at one stop we had an indoor arena football team of some sort that billed itself as "professional", and it turned out that not only did the players not get paid, but they had to pool their money together to play. They had sponsorships, but it didn't cover all the facility, league and insurance costs. So in effect, it was not much different than a supersized park-rec sports team, where every player has to pay a registration fee.

We kept an open mind and wrote a feature on a local player to advance their first game. We went to cover the first game, and found out not only had the opponent changed that day, but the team switched leagues that day, too. That was the last game of theirs we covered, and other than the mothers of a couple of the local players calling, we never heard a complaint about not covering them.

 

Sounds like a good career move. Minor league GM who does nothing but hold tryouts at $50 a pop.

 

Dr. J can't either.

 

D-League has the business model down pat as some owners charge $100 to try out.

 

This is a league with no set schedule, no minimum requirements for games to be played, no standings and no established championship format. Therefore, it is not a league; it is a collection of suckers with minimal name recognition, no business experience and questionable character.

 

I grew up in a small city that only had a minor league baseball team, a CBA basketball team and a community college, so the CBA team actually got a good amount of coverage and attendance. Now days, I really don't understand how there are all these "semi-pro" football and basketball teams floating around. ABA? IBL? NABL? And the teams are constantly switching leagues, they cease operations for a year and then come back, or just vanish into thin air without warning.

I'm now in a big city with pro and Division I sports, so I just had to shake my head when our previous editor read a release from one of the "semi-pro" basketball teams in the region, decided for whatever reason that they deserved coverage and wanted their game summaries typed up for the paper. Of course, this team could only keep it up for a few games before they stopped sending us their box scores all together.

Even worse was when some behind-the-scenes guy for a "semi-pro" football team kept pestering us with calls and faxes for more coverage (more meaning any). Eventually one of the editors gave in and told us to run their schedule, and had them call in after their games with a summary and highlights. They couldn't even get their score by quarter to add up right and we were supposed to run it?!?!? This lasted one year before enough was finally enough.

 

Son of a gun. I checked the ABA website and found out we have a team in our area. Of course, the website hasn't been updated since August and the Twitter feed hasn't had a tweet since September. No roster, no nothing ... oh, there is a picture of the dance team.

And the alleged set of standings on the ABA's website has the team with a 0-0 record.

 

There seems to be a wide divergence on coverage of things like this, semipro sports, wood-bat baseball leagues, junior colleges, etc.

I've seen some places give them LOTS of attention on the grounds that they're local and a notch up from the high schools. Player features, centerpiece gamers, etc. Other places pretty well tend to ignore them or treat them as a nusance, maybe run a few paragraphs and some agate, often not even league standings.

I suppose it depends on the community, how long the team has been around, how well they draw and what else there is to cover.

 

The CBA used to be fairly respectable. The AHL and ECHL are pretty decent. They play in smaller markets without much pro or major college competition, so that helps. And tickets are affordable.

I think the explosion of televised pro and major college sports has hurt the minor leagues. No matter where one lives now, there are a glut of games on almost every night. It wasn't that way in the 70s or most of the 80s. Choices were often to go watch the local team in person or maybe listen to pro game on radio.

 

As for coverage, about the worst thing an owner/manager of a minor league/semipro team can do is try to stiff arm the local media with an attitude. If you are new in town, set up a meeting with the sports editor or TV guys well in advance and have a really good sales pitch as to why the team deserves a niche in the local sports scene.

If you go in with a "you owe it to us to cover us" attitude, you'll always be fighting a losing battle.

 

The new ABA is the single biggest sack of shit I have ever encountered. Shit lit on fire. I've had two teams in two different states working at two different papers. One of them played almost a whole season in multiple high school gyms before folding. The other didn't even get to creating a roster before folding.

We at least gave it the benefit of poking around and seeing what it was all about both times. I'd advise no one to do the same.