ABARedWhiteBlue
04-20-2005, 12:24 AM
Keeler: Heat hope austerity is path to prosperity
By SEAN KEELER
REGISTER COLUMNIST
April 15, 2005
For some reason, minor-league basketball teams fresh from the womb feel the need to rush over, grab the lapels of your jacket and scream in your face. The first 1,500 fans in the door get to meet The Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders! Watch Clay Aiken sing our National Anthem! And when he leaves, watch Oliver Miller and Richard Dumas attempt to "play defense." Blecch.
One ABA team, so the story goes, installed stripper poles behind each basket for their home opener and infiltrated its scantily-clad dance team with, um, professionals. That experiment only lasted a couple of nights. Which was longer than some of the teams did.
The Des Moines Heat, by contrast, are tippy-toeing onto the metro scene. They're thinking small. The home opener tonight is at Drake's Knapp Center. After that, all games will be at Hoover. (Smaller venue. Smaller rent.) Even the halftime shows will be low-key: Instead of Barney the Dinosaur, it's the Isiserettes or the Ankeny girls basketball team.
"I don't think (gimmicks) are for your avid basketball fans," says Terry Woods, the former Iowa State basketball standout who's running the team with another former Cyclone, Paul Doerrfeld. "We're going to have a more realistic approach.
"I only need 850 season tickets sold to break even this year. A city the size of Des Moines, with 500,000 people (in the metro), I think that maybe I could do that."
Wish him luck.
The Heat is one of two Iowa teams - Waterloo is the other - in the new International Basketball League. The IBL is the brainchild of commissioner Mikal Duilio, an Oregon-based sports marketer who went to college at Iowa State. The rules seem inspired by Johnny Orr's teams of the mid 1980s: There's a 22-second shot clock, only one timeout per quarter, and an emphasis on getting the ball up the court in a hurry. The average score of the first eight league contests was 129-110.
"Can we get rich off this? No," says Doerrfeld, 37, who coaches the Heat. "Our plan is to make this work and do what everybody says can't be done."
You could fill a bus with the basketball teams that crashed and burned trying to make bush-league hoops fly in central Iowa. Dragons. Cornets. Whatever happened to that Xtreme Basketball Association team up in Marshalltown, anyway?
"A lot of (businesses) have been receptive but some have been skeptical," says Doerrfeld, who played five years overseas and in the Continental Basketball Association before his knees gave out. "(They say), 'In Year 2, then I'll talk to you.' "
The Heat's no-frills business formula makes Southwest Airlines look like the Hilton Sisters. Programs are printed in black and white. Tickets are cheap: $8 for adults, $4 for fans 17 and younger. Season tickets: $35 for the kids, $70 for everybody else.
"We're having," Woods says, "a humble beginning."
And humble rosters. The top salary is $100 per game. Some players will be raking in $40 or $50 a night. In the IBL, which plays most of its spring schedule on the weekends, you really do need to keep your day job. Or find one.
"Obviously, it's not the same as a triple-A baseball team," says Heat guard David Newman, a Drake alum whose secret identity is a mild-mannered partner in a local investment firm.
"Those guys, it's 100 percent of their lives, 24 hours a day. Our team is different in the fact that guys like myself have already moved on to Chapter 2." The Heat, meanwhile, will try to avoid moving on to Chapter 11.
By SEAN KEELER
REGISTER COLUMNIST
April 15, 2005
For some reason, minor-league basketball teams fresh from the womb feel the need to rush over, grab the lapels of your jacket and scream in your face. The first 1,500 fans in the door get to meet The Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders! Watch Clay Aiken sing our National Anthem! And when he leaves, watch Oliver Miller and Richard Dumas attempt to "play defense." Blecch.
One ABA team, so the story goes, installed stripper poles behind each basket for their home opener and infiltrated its scantily-clad dance team with, um, professionals. That experiment only lasted a couple of nights. Which was longer than some of the teams did.
The Des Moines Heat, by contrast, are tippy-toeing onto the metro scene. They're thinking small. The home opener tonight is at Drake's Knapp Center. After that, all games will be at Hoover. (Smaller venue. Smaller rent.) Even the halftime shows will be low-key: Instead of Barney the Dinosaur, it's the Isiserettes or the Ankeny girls basketball team.
"I don't think (gimmicks) are for your avid basketball fans," says Terry Woods, the former Iowa State basketball standout who's running the team with another former Cyclone, Paul Doerrfeld. "We're going to have a more realistic approach.
"I only need 850 season tickets sold to break even this year. A city the size of Des Moines, with 500,000 people (in the metro), I think that maybe I could do that."
Wish him luck.
The Heat is one of two Iowa teams - Waterloo is the other - in the new International Basketball League. The IBL is the brainchild of commissioner Mikal Duilio, an Oregon-based sports marketer who went to college at Iowa State. The rules seem inspired by Johnny Orr's teams of the mid 1980s: There's a 22-second shot clock, only one timeout per quarter, and an emphasis on getting the ball up the court in a hurry. The average score of the first eight league contests was 129-110.
"Can we get rich off this? No," says Doerrfeld, 37, who coaches the Heat. "Our plan is to make this work and do what everybody says can't be done."
You could fill a bus with the basketball teams that crashed and burned trying to make bush-league hoops fly in central Iowa. Dragons. Cornets. Whatever happened to that Xtreme Basketball Association team up in Marshalltown, anyway?
"A lot of (businesses) have been receptive but some have been skeptical," says Doerrfeld, who played five years overseas and in the Continental Basketball Association before his knees gave out. "(They say), 'In Year 2, then I'll talk to you.' "
The Heat's no-frills business formula makes Southwest Airlines look like the Hilton Sisters. Programs are printed in black and white. Tickets are cheap: $8 for adults, $4 for fans 17 and younger. Season tickets: $35 for the kids, $70 for everybody else.
"We're having," Woods says, "a humble beginning."
And humble rosters. The top salary is $100 per game. Some players will be raking in $40 or $50 a night. In the IBL, which plays most of its spring schedule on the weekends, you really do need to keep your day job. Or find one.
"Obviously, it's not the same as a triple-A baseball team," says Heat guard David Newman, a Drake alum whose secret identity is a mild-mannered partner in a local investment firm.
"Those guys, it's 100 percent of their lives, 24 hours a day. Our team is different in the fact that guys like myself have already moved on to Chapter 2." The Heat, meanwhile, will try to avoid moving on to Chapter 11.