GLBA

[statman77]

http://www.eteamz.com/glbahoops/ what is the difference of sei-pro basketball and professional basketball?

[South Atlantic]

Pro players are paid and semi-pro players usually are not paid.

Pro players are paid consistently and on time, semi-pro players are not.

I guess you could make a case that the OPBA, USBL, CBL, ABA, and WBA are just semi-pro at best. Claim to be professional but all had teams suspend operations or go belly up because they didnt realize the business aspect to this.

The OPBA franchises are all owned by the men in charge. They had several, and I mean several try-out camps all over the place, but now they dont seem to have the money to pay the players, facilities, or staff. If you take full ownership of all the teams, please plan on investing 100,000 per team or at least invest the minimal amount to pay these people. That doesnt bode well for corporate sponsors who will refuse to give away play money to guys who took others and ran.

The USBL team from Adirondack wasnt paid earlier this season and forfeited a game. In all of the paperwork the USBL gives you, they put it in black and white, you will need at least 200,000 per season. This will help pay the staff, players, arena rental, advertising, etc. Trying to make it week to week doesnt get it done and doing the business for three months doesnt get the job done. Any successful GM will tell you the off season for the players is the busiest and the season is all damage control and make sure you deliver on promises. Not that it has been beaten enough but the act that St. Louis coach pulled puts that organization into semi-pro categories. In these situations, I am not blaming the USBL officials, except that they only suspended coach Irons for a week.

The Carolina Baskeball League folded this season, hopefully for good. It wasnt well run, well thought out, or organized worth a bean. Every time you heard from the owner, they had 8 teams, then 6, back to 7, and then only 3!?! The season before, they lost teams mid-season and had the first place and last place team in the finals because they were the only two teams left! Please, I just hope that when someone gets their hands on a new league it hasnt been too tarnished to survive.

The ABA.

The WBA had their first team belly up this past week. My concern is this. Why would you grant a team with less than a month or so to prepare? If the owner cant show you he has $75,000 in cash to run the team, then why are we giving them one? I understand that we want to increase minority leadership positions in sports, but you cant do it at the expense of others. Allowing these 'businessmen' to come in for a few weeks, run up a tab of debt to darn near everybody, and then you pass it off saying that you would want them back is ludicrous. And the owner pulling God on the situation by saying, "if God wants us back, we will be back." Please keep God away from bad business decisions, its not his fault.