mark, a major achievement in independent basketball.
ABA CEO Joe Newman, the Red, White and Blue Mad Hatter, has managed to turn his boundless enthusiasm and viral franchising of basketball into a league of epic proportion. Currently fifty-two teams are slated to take to the court on opening day.
Watchers of the ABA and sea turtles know what they have in common. It is unlikely that all of baby basketball franchises added to the league this year, with little operational or market savvy, will grow to full adulthood as long-term ABA clubs.
Whether it will survive at its current behemoth size, or explode like the fat guy in Monty Python’s “Meaning of Life,” may be the question of the 2006-2007 basketball year.
If it survives, it goes into another round of basketball Jenga®, piling up what are currently sixteen more franchise hopefuls waiting in the wings.
The ABA now covers North America from sea to shining sea, from Mexicali, Mexico in the south, to Quebec, Canada in the north.
The ABA’s fans call it a low franchise fee league that offers opportunities to small communities and minority owners to participate in professional basketball.
Mikal Dulio, Commissioner of the International Basketball League, states the case for the ABA’s detractors common laments: “With regard to the ABA, what they are doing is hurting the integrity of minor league basketball in a humongous way. They are leaving debts everywhere, they are over-promising and under-delivering in huge ways,” he told MLN. “The ABA is running around and literally giving away franchises based on a four minute conversation.”
While that may or may not be true, what is certain is that ABA is the most popular port of entry for owners with enough money to get the ball bouncing amongst the Class-A indy leagues.
Ever the optimist, Newman believes: “There are no bad markets. Just bad owners.” The ABA has gone back into markets where it has failed, and sometimes failed again, because Newman believes that community basketball can work as long as the owners make the outreach to the local market and invest the time and money to grow their business.
Critics note that Newman’s screening process for new ownership groups is lax, and that startups are given league status too quickly before proving that they have both the right people on the court and in the front office to make a club a success.
A larger problem with the ABA's viral marketing model is that some of the virus mutates and spins away from the league. The ABA may be the petrie dish from which new CBA clubs rise, much as the CBA seems to be the fertile ground for the D-League’s expansion acquisitions.
A public spat with Demetrius Ford and Tim Hardaway, owners of the Florida Pit Bulls, over scheduling in the post-season was the front of the movement of clubs that left the ABA for the CBA. Right or wrong, such public feuding trivializes the league, and makes the other owners appear inexperienced and amateurish.
The ABA is also subject to club poaching from below.
“The new [Universal Basketball League (UBL)] Commissioner has been soliciting all ABA teams rather than finding his own teams,” complains Newman. It's like Burger King standing in the McDonalds parking lots and recruiting their owners. It isn't done.”
When asked, though, if there are too many leagues, Joe tips his red, white, and blue hat in favor of hoop democracy.
“I believe in competition,” says Newman. “It forces quality products, quality service, good values. It works for the hamburger business, the retail business, the airlines and it should work for basketball leagues.”
Clubs, Clubs Everywhere
The rest of the crowded basketball marketplace is filled with hoops hustlers and opportunists in leagues great and small.
The club acquisitions by both the D-League and the CBA this season telegraph to prospective owners that any avenue to starting up a franchise
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