Mountain States Pro. Basketball League?

[SignGuyDino]

http://www.usbasket.com/cba/basketball.asp

(From Eurobasket: )

League officials have announced the formation of the new Mountain States Professional Basketball League and have named the first four franchises [read more]
League officials have announced the formation of the new Mountain States Professional Basketball League and have named the first four franchises.

It is the belief of the team owners that regional basketball is more viable than a larger national league in this economy and that with troubles within the Continental Basketball Association, the United States Basketball Association, the American Basketball Association and other leagues that solidly financed and managed franchises need to band together, cut the costs of travel and league fees and become transparent in their business and player movement areas. It is for these reasons that the M League has come into existence.

The Georgia Gwizzlies of Atlanta and the American Basketball Association will join the Tyrone Tornadoes of the WBA Exposure League, the West Virginia Wild-formerly of the International Basketball League and playing out of Clarksburg, West Virginia and the Madison Miners from Madison, West Virginia for the inaugural 2009-2010 basketball season. These organizations are already up-and-running and will be joined by up to four other franchises to be named shortly from Kentucky, South Carolina and Ohio.

The league will publish a full directory within a month and announce player signings and coaching positions. The league will play a 20-game inaugural season beginning this fall.

[runninref]

A bus league? Have you ever driven from Memphis to West Virginia and then to Macon (or now Atlanta) in a weekend?:confused:

[kahunakats]

They won't be playing on weekends.
They'll be playing in the Spring (2010) rather than in Winter (IBL will be their competition for players). They are taking ten months to organize professionally.
It's an 8 hour drive between Atlanta and West Virginia.
There will be teams in clusters in Kentucky and West Virginia along with the two Georgia teams.
Three of the first 4 teams already have GM's in place. Two more teams will be announced within the next several weeks.

[SignGuyDino]

First of all, the name of the league is way too freaking long. Second, it's confusing. "Mountain States" could mean the west part of the U.S. for crying out loud.

"Appalachain Basketball League" would make more sense.

[kahunakats]

I agree with both your points. Unfortunately, the developers of the league have their minds set on the name and as a compormise now refer to the league as "The M League"-a take-off of the D League monicker.

[minorleagfan09]

first I approve of anything that is regionally based. For instance if the IBL just focused on the northwest and cut league fees way down so owners would pay their players and staff then they'd be a legit league.

The WBA already exists and they didnt even play a full season last year before they shut er down. They are back at it again but are far from successful on the business side. They do well developing talent though.

The WBA already has low league fees and bus travel in clusters going on and they are struggling to survive. Unless you have several markets where you know you can draw at least 300 to 500 fans per game and sell some sponsorships then why bother? Either the WBA does a terrible job marketing their brand or their locations are terrible if this new league makes it.

Why not call up the WBA at this point and come up with one strong league?

I'm 100% for clusters though. I just wish everyone would get together and come up with something legit. Start play in late April or May and end in July. Eventually it would be nice for one big sponsor to come on and support the best couple of teams from each league to play a short tournament/playoff in July.

You'd have the EBA, WBA, UBL, IBL, WCBL etc all get together and duke it out. But heck I'm kidding myself as exposure league basketball isn't getting the basics taken care of anymore.

[bluecatsguy]

Why not call up the WBA at this point and come up with one strong league?

You'd have the EBA, WBA, UBL, IBL, WCBL etc all get together and duke it out. But heck I'm kidding myself as exposure league basketball isn't getting the basics taken care of anymore.

The problem is that there are to many chiefs and not enough indians. TO may people think that they have the "best model" and they want to have control over everything. That is why you see so many minor league basketball leagues, because everybody thinks that they can do it "a little bit" different and be successful. If everyone got together and WORKED together, there is a much better chance that everyone is be successful. You will still have stronger franchises and weaker franchises, but those will eventually be weeded out and the strongest will survive.

THe problem that we see now is that there are 2-3 strong franchises in each league and the rest are filler.

[minorleagfan09]

^^^ I agree with all that. My point is that these leagues aren't really doing anything differently. I think its much worse than that. I think its the same **** that ****ed up the economy. Im going to charge you 10k to get in my league... or 25k or whatever. Take your check cash it and then do basically nothing but sit on my butt when things fall apart. What'd the IBL commish do for any of those teams in the midwest? He always has the championship game in the northwest. He didn't offer to cut the league fee for them or cut the travel. He just took the checks from those stupid enough to pay them.