2007 Season will be USBL's last according to report

[BreakersFan]

http://www.saljournal.com/Sports/Story/cagerz061207

[Ken, Steelheads fan]

http://www.saljournal.com/Sports/Story/cagerz061207

I've always said that the individual teams needed to take greater roles in running the league:
The USBL, as it exists today, is a league in name only. Franchises are paying referees before each game, the money coming from dues previously paid or owed to the league.
Problem Solving 101. The teams were going to give the money to the league anyway...so pay the referees...so where's the problem here?

Negotiations have been ongoing since April concerning the creation of a new 25-team spring league with headquarters in Atlanta. The unnamed league would have four divisions -- seven franchises located in the Ohio Valley, six in the Midwest, six in the south and six in the east. Long said the six Midwest franchises would be based in Salina, Wichita, Dodge City, Enid, Okla., Kearney, Neb., and St. Louis.
Huh? A bird in the hand vs. two (actually, twenty-five) in the bush. Someone might want to consider fixing the USBL (bird in the hand) first. I find it hard to believe that the USBL "doesn't care" about working with the franchises to save its own league.

Regardless, Gary will likely follow Rockford or Rockford will likely follow Gary (if Rockford finds investors). It should be the USBL, but it may also be the IBL if the Midwestern teams can't get it together.

Albany? Well, it was a bad idea from day one for them to waste financial resources by playing in two leagues.

[bectond]

I hate to say I told you so but, well, I did.

The USBL really died in 06 and boy has it been a slow death. Two years in the making.

I hope the start-up league gets an affiliation with the NBA and actually starts some day.

But I doubt it, the Midwestern teams may have to play a half season schedule in the CBA instead.

The IBL is not the answer, it is the offical ABA II and it is beginning to look like the Steelheads journey has taken them from an established league to a once good league on it's last gasp and finally to the ABA of the spring.:eek:

I guess this offically ends draft parties in Gary, it was nice blogging with you, be since I don't have the time to enter the IBL Board and discuss the happenings of such a class G bush league - so long buddy.

[Ken, Steelheads fan]

All of minor league hoops is struggling. That's why I think it is better to fix what you already have. Another start-up league is not the answer...the CBA is not the answer either.

Gary will party on. It may not be called a draft party, but there's going to be a party.

[nksports]

I think the answer for Dodge City, Kansas and Oklahoma would be to band together and start a new league. Winter basketball in those cities just won't work. That precludes the CBA, D-League or Uncle Joe's Joke of an ABA.
All they need to start is three other cities in the region. Candidates that come to mind include Hays, the Kearney-Grand Island, Neb., area and Hutchinson. All have good buildings, similar sized markets and strong basketball roots.
Use the league the same way baseball uses the Arizona Fall League, as a developmental league for players with four years of pro experience or less who still have a shot at a meaningful career.
With some stability, attendance would go back up. Dodge City is getting a new arena soon, and that will help the Legend.
If things look good from there, expand to eight, then 10 cities, but no more than 12 in a three- to five-year span. Keep them tight in the Kansas-Oklahoma-Nebraska-Colorado region (maybe as far east as Missouri).
This would be my 2008 plan:
Kansas
Oklahoma
Dodge City
Hays
Grand Island-Kearney
Hutchinson
2009 or 2010:
North Division
Grand Island-Kearney
Hays
Kansas
Hutchinson
South Division
Oklahoma
Ponca City
Dodge City
Pueblo

Poll the fans. If the name USBL is too toxic, jettison for a new name (how about Central Basketball League or Central Plains Basketball League). If the brand still works, buy the USBL name and keep it for the new league.
Keep your operating and travel costs as low as practical. Keep the ticket prices low. Promote like the dickens and roll the dice.

[one way]

Gary will join the CBA. Also, please footnote Ken's response when he states that it will never happen. We can feed him crow for weeks. Let me repeat, Gary will join the CBA

[Ken, Steelheads fan]

Gary will join the CBA. Also, please footnote Ken's response when he states that it will never happen. We can feed him crow for weeks. Let me repeat, Gary will join the CBA

Geez-o-Pete! When have I ever been wrong about Northwest Indiana sports in my zillion and thirty-five posts? There's a reason for that. Who knows though? I don't keep up with the Steelheads 24/7 because I have my own issues. I do keep up with them though.

Sorry, I won't be eating crow because I'm a vegetarian.

[flasah]

More on the proposed spring league:

http://www.kansas.com/sports/story/94873.html

[HAC]

I
Poll the fans. If the name USBL is too toxic, jettison for a new name (how about Central Basketball League or Central Plains Basketball League). If the brand still works, buy the USBL name and keep it for the new league.
Keep your operating and travel costs as low as practical. Keep the ticket prices low. Promote like the dickens and roll the dice.

I've heard from more than one person that the Meisenheimers are looking for -- and I kid you not -- $3 million to buy the USBL brand.

Personally, I can't get a grasp on my own opinions on a new league. The talk of 25 to 28 teams sounds a bit ABAish to me. I've watched too many flop in a matter of weeks the past few years in the USBL. As a fan, this year was draining and I'm tired of watching KS-OK and KS-DC. I think they should have just shortened the season and wrapped things up early.

[Chris Stevens]

That USBL brand is going to be worth nothing soon. Or worse, will have huge debts and will end up in bankruptcy court. Time to swallow your pride and cut your ties to SAVE the brand. Or else you can buy it cheap in bankruptcy court.

[nksports]

I've heard from more than one person that the Meisenheimers are looking for -- and I kid you not -- $3 million to buy the USBL brand.

Personally, I can't get a grasp on my own opinions on a new league. The talk of 25 to 28 teams sounds a bit ABAish to me. I've watched too many flop in a matter of weeks the past few years in the USBL. As a fan, this year was draining and I'm tired of watching KS-OK and KS-DC. I think they should have just shortened the season and wrapped things up early.

From what I saw in the Eagle, it sounds like a brand new flavor of Kool Aid. Stay small, stay tight and stay regional.

[Paul S]

I think the Meisenheimers are shooting for the stars asking 3 million.

There problem is they have stockholders. If you have stockholders you can't suddenly say, I quit and disolve the company, because you aren't the true owner. I mean you can try but there will be lawsuits.

The league is a publically traded for-profit company, that means they they have to keep plugging along or dissolve the company legally which means PAYING money to the shareholders. The only other way is bankruptcy court which as this league has no tangible assets may be the best way.

[TEN]

Just to let you know...Oklahoma and Dodge City are reading about this new 25 team league based in Atlanta for the first time...I had been told about it the day before the story came out in the Salina paper....needless to say....saying that Oklahoma and Dodge City is on board is very premature...

[Ken, Steelheads fan]

Just to let you know...Oklahoma and Dodge City are reading about this new 25 team league based in Atlanta for the first time...I had been told about it the day before the story came out in the Salina paper....needless to say....saying that Oklahoma and Dodge City is on board is very premature...

Yeah, I found it interesting and strange that the Cagerz organization took it upon themselves to speak for the entire league. It was also somewhat insulting that the Cagerz didn't see a need for Gary in their future.

[panchess]

..they came out and said that the Albany Patroons were leaving the league at the end of the season to concentrate on the CBA.

While that may be true, why say it now (especially when the Patroons organization hasn't said anything publicly about it) before the season is even over. It can certainly wait until after the tournament.

It's been a tough season, but Albany is a member of the league in good standing, and hasn't stiffed anybody during the various problems. The Patroons are the only team to beat every other team in the USBL in 2007.

In theory, the Patroons' regular season is over, but the USBL web site has them playing Oklahoma on the 25th before the tournament. Any confirmation?

[HAC]

Yeah, I found it interesting and strange that the Cagerz organization took it upon themselves to speak for the entire league. It was also somewhat insulting that the Cagerz didn't see a need for Gary in their future.

This whole season has been interesting, strange AND insulting.

And it sounds like the other teams need to take Long behind the wood shed for a spanking.

[mammal]

Could the remaining USBL teams join the United Basketball League? This league is based mainly in the Midwest. I still think the IBL would be a good option as well.

[TEN]

There was also a big story in the Wichita paper about this that I told Dale Osbourne in Dodge about....Nobody out there knew anything about it and the Wichita paper is delivered in Dodge....That could lead to some questions from the Legend fans...

[Ken, Steelheads fan]

Could the remaining USBL teams join the United Basketball League? This league is based mainly in the Midwest. I still think the IBL would be a good option as well.

...and why can't the remaining USBL teams just stay put and fix the problems they are currently facing? Call me slow to understand things, but I can't understand how joining an unproven start-up league solves any problems.

[HAC]

...and why can't the remaining USBL teams just stay put and fix the problems they are currently facing? Call me slow to understand things, but I can't understand how joining an unproven start-up league solves any problems.

I'm guessing because many of the problems are because of an inadequate USBL front office.

Rather than do all their work for the USBL office simply to keep the name "USBL" label maybe the owners would rather move on and have more say in the way things should be done.

Many have felt that the USBL office has been East Coast biased over the years, which may be another reason the other teams aren't going to go out of their way to help the USBL keep tossing out half-baked East Coast teams.

Ed Krinsky is reportedly gone and I don't know what, if any, work the Meisenheimers do for the league. I've been to a number of post-season tournaments and I don't think they've ever attended one.

They might have been at the first one when Salina held the tournament in the Cagerz first season, but I'm pretty sure they've never been to another one.

TEN or somebody might recall if they've been to one.

I'm not sure if moving to a new league will hurt or help the Cagerz.

I think this season -- by the time it's over and the fans have seen the same teams over and over --they might be ready for more than a league change, they might just be ready to stop watching the Cagerz period.

And the Cagerz crappy record isn't helping either.

[HAC]

http://blogs.cjonline.com/index.php?entry=3643

[straycat]

That USBL brand is going to be worth nothing soon. Or worse, will have huge debts and will end up in bankruptcy court. Time to swallow your pride and cut your ties to SAVE the brand. Or else you can buy it cheap in bankruptcy court.

Its really a shame considering I have seen some very good basketball In both GlensFalls and Albany.

[Dan K]

Could the 28-team league be the United Basketball League [ublhoops.com]? The UBL has at least 10-12 teams listed for its April 2008 start. Maybe they can pick up some of the USBL markets in the Midwest. The UBL's Northern Division has some proposed markets that include the Missouri cities of Springfield, Joplin, Jefferson City and Independence. Oklahoma and Kansas would not be a stretch. The league is also in Texas and Louisiana and could try Arkansas. When the league first started as the Regional Basketball League, Oklahoma was one of its targeted states.

[logoguru]

Could the 28-team league be the United Basketball League [ublhoops.com]? The UBL has at least 10-12 teams listed for its April 2008 start. Maybe they can pick up some of the USBL markets in the Midwest. The UBL's Northern Division has some proposed markets that include the Missouri cities of Springfield, Joplin, Jefferson City and Independence. Oklahoma and Kansas would not be a stretch. The league is also in Texas and Louisiana and could try Arkansas. When the league first started as the Regional Basketball League, Oklahoma was one of its targeted states.

no. The article said the new one is located in Atlanta, the UBL is located in Dallas.
________
Cheap bongs (http://glassgallery.tumblr.com)

[Chuck the Writer]

The New Haven Register has an article about the USBL:

http://www.nhregister.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=18485895&BRD=1281&PAG=461&dept_id=7592&rfi=6

Sounds like USBL owner Dan Weisenheimer must have taken his operations lessons from Joe Newman, according to this article.

[HAC]

no. The article said the new one is located in Atlanta, the UBL is located in Dallas.

Isn't the WBA based out of Atlanta?

[HAC]

The New Haven Register has an article about the USBL:

http://www.nhregister.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=18485895&BRD=1281&PAG=461&dept_id=7592&rfi=6

Sounds like USBL owner Dan Weisenheimer must have taken his operations lessons from Joe Newman, according to this article.

Interesting story. I wonder which are the two slightly profitable franchises?

[Ken, Steelheads fan]

From the abovementioned article:
Games were lost. Kansas played Dodge City eight times. Waken asked if you wanted to see the same faces every third game. Coyne said this also could have been avoided if there was an owners meeting at the beginning of the year with a contingency plan in place.

Like other good ideas, this never happened.


DANG!?! The owners didn't meet at the beginning of the year? No wonder everybody is going off in different directions like chickens with their heads cut-off.

[panchess]

..they have the biggest crowds..

[TEN]

My educated guess is that two profitable franchises is a stretch this season....Dodge City has been profitable in the past...

[nksports]

From the New Haven article:
"Richmond grew up in Philadelphia, played professionally and was an assistant to Daryl Dawkins for the Pennsylvania ValleyDawgs, another forgotten USBL franchise. (Dawkins is one of many notables whose presence was thought to resuscitate the league. The NFL’s Randy Moss, boxer Roy Jones Jr., and Cedric the Entertainer, followed suit. None lasted.)"

They forgot all about Master P and Kareem, not to mention drafting Jackie Stiles.

My guess is the profitable franchises are Oklahoma and Dodge City, since Kansas has always said they've been break-even in the good years with slight losses in the other years.

I don't hate you Albany and Brooklyn fans, but a small, compact midwest league is looking better and better.

[HAC]

..they have the biggest crowds..

Cagerz have been quoted as saying they're losing money.

It's hard to imagine that anybody is making money, especially this season.

If the Randy Moss had done some road games, that would have helped. And didn't T.O. play some hoops for somebody?

Kareem's the only one I recall who definitely led to more fans in the stands. Dawkins and Jones had a smaller impact and usually just the first time through a town.

Oh, and what about Jamie Blythe? Now there was a celebrity.

[MJHankel]

that the Gary Tribune has stated exactly what Ken has been saying all season.

The last scheduled home game of the USBL season for Gary was played even though Long Island cancelled. The Steelheads held the game anyway because, as Ken has said, a good owner/team does what they can to please their fans. Maybe other teams are screwed up but as the owner in your city, you have a responsibility to please your fans, or else they won't care.

Thus, the Steelheads -- who finished the regular season 16-11 and will try for a league title at the postseason tournament June 28-30 in Oklahoma -- were stuck on Fan Appreciation Night.

So, they made the best of it -- going on with the show in a heated scrimmage for the estimated 2,000 fans onhand. Ironically, it was one of the biggest crowds of the season.

The head of the ownership group in Gary had this to say:


http://www.post-trib.com/sports/430682,Steel.article
"We could have just put a sign on the door that said, 'No game tonight,' and not worried about it," said Jewell Harris Jr., one of seven owners in Showtime Sports and Entertainment, which owns the Steelheads. "Other (USBL) teams would have folded up shop, but we decided that we weren't going to do that. We were going to make our fans happy and just make it a big party."

And that's just what they did, even staging a dunk contest at halftime with four of the team's best dunkers and having players stay for autographs after the game was over.

Basically, this article sums up how the Steelheads have viewed their operation, and it is the very deffinition of how Ken has said teams should be running things.

Well either way, looks like the CBA will be back in Gary, (as has already been stated in the CBA forum)

[HAC]

But those teams that folded up shop couldn't have drawn 2000 fans combined for the entire season.

Gary has a fan base, those (alleged) franchises that went kaput did not have a fan base, never had a fan base and weren't going to have a fan base.

I still think of the Jackson owner (based in Texas) talking about the 1000s of fans his team would draw and how he was going to pay big $$$ for a new basketball floor. How the league did not see through this guy from the get-go is amazing.

[Ken, Steelheads fan]

It was Friday Fireworks Night at the ballpark a few blocks away, so I was not at the Steelheads season finale. My sister-in-law pretended to be Ken and Deb Steelheads fans for the evening though. Black team vs. White team like the pre-season scrimmage I attended. The Steelheads have increased their number of white players, but the white team was still crushed.

...ahhhhhhh! I guess that joke never gets too old for me. :D

She DID tell me that the newer players were kicking the crap out of the veterans. The same thing happened during the pre-season scrimmage. Those guys must be hungier.

The switch would not have mattered to me though because the Long Island Primetime was a fake team anyway. When I attend a game, I'm there for the atmosphere (and the suds, of course). Besides, the Steelheads' bench personnel are probably more talented than any group the fake team could scrape together.

From the Red Flag Raising Department:
Here is another quote from the beforementioned Post-Tribune article:
"They contacted us and said, 'We like your Web site and we hear you're the best team in the USBL,' " Harris Jr. said of the potential ownership partners, who already own stake in two other minor-league franchises. "They want us to be in the CBA for this season coming up, and the goal is to get a deal done by July 1."

Trinity's criteria is that they liked the website and heard the team was the best in the USBL?!? First, most of the links on the Steelheads website don't work. Second, I'm pretty sure Dodge City is currently the best in the USBL. What has Trinity actually accomplished? I mean, other than folding a team in Miami and jumping the gun on announcements?

Run Gary run. Keep running away from Trinity until you catch-up to the Rockford Lightning and whatever Spring/Summer league they are going to. Another quote from that Post-Tribune article:
From every other standpoint, the league was an unmitigated disaster. It was poorly run, poorly organized and Northwest Indiana really didn't seem to be into the whole spring/summer pro basketball thing.

Gary probably averaged 1,000 people per home game at most.

"You don't have to tell us twice," Harris Jr. said. "If you want to be outside in the spring, then be outside in the spring and come inside to watch us in the fall and winter."


Doesn't it take at least three seasons to determine if something works or not in minor league sports?

Hmmmmmm. What was I talking about at the beginning of this post? Oh yeah, Spring baseball trumps Spring basketball. Since fans are at the baseball games, then have sponsors give away MP3 players or something of near equal quality to Steelheads fans who also can produce Railcats tickets. Okay--it's better under the stars, but fans are willing to sweat it out (literally) indoors if the promotional items are cool enough (and if the Hawaiian Fire Dancers are never booked again ;)).

[B Waken]

I am disappointed in Mr. Orzechowski’s story concerning the USBL. My interview with Mr. Orzechowski was in good faith, from my viewpoint, not to be a league bashing story. The USBL is finishing the season next week at the USBL Tournament with six teams. Although we are all disappointed that the League did not finish with all the original teams, we are finishing the season with six quality clubs and the League still intact. Completion of the season fulfills our obligation to the fans and sponsors.

Hopefully, future stories will be published that more accurately describe the USBL, the ball clubs, and people associated with the League.

Please support your teams.

Brad Waken
Oklahoma Storm Basketball
Enid, Oklahoma

[HAC]

I am disappointed in Mr. Orzechowski’s story concerning the USBL. My interview with Mr. Orzechowski was in good faith, from my viewpoint, not to be a league bashing story. The USBL is finishing the season next week at the USBL Tournament with six teams. Although we are all disappointed that the League did not finish with all the original teams, we are finishing the season with six quality clubs and the League still intact. Completion of the season fulfills our obligation to the fans and sponsors.

Hopefully, future stories will be published that more accurately describe the USBL, the ball clubs, and people associated with the League.

Please support your teams.

Brad Waken
Oklahoma Storm Basketball
Enid, Oklahoma

I didn't think it was a league bashing story, but it would be hard to write a story on the league without a chunk of negativity, especially considering the simple facts of what's happened in 2007.

I found it interesting and informative. The Meisenheimers are the ones that come off poorly. (My, gosh, how much of their consulting services did the league really use?)

And as you know, there's more to fulfilling an obligation to fans and sponsors by a simple "completion of the season."

As a Cagerz season ticket-holder since year one I expect more than a bunch of KS vs. OK and/or DC matchups for my money.

I doubt the majority of Midwest fans and sponsors would have ponied up money for a six-team league where three teams pretty much played round-robin for half a season.

[Pounder]

BTW, a solid six? Whither Albany?

http://www.oursportscentral.com/boards/showthread.php?t=6855

A league acting from desperation is likely to commit the mistakes that the USBL already committed this year. The thought in my mind is "cut your losses" if you have the misfortune of being involved.

[HAC]

And I'm not sure Brooklyn would be considered solid. Didn't they cancel a couple road games because they couldn't afford to make the trips?