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ABA continues losing teams

by Paul Reeths
November 27, 2007 - American Basketball Association (ABA)


The 2007-08 American Basketball Association season began on November 2 with 36 teams spread out across the United States and Canada. OurSports Central has confirmed that nine teams are no longer playing, either pulling out of the league or shutting down operations entirely. That's 25 percent of the league gone not even a month into the season.

To make matters worse, questions surround several other ABA squads. The South Chi-Land (Chicago) Infernos have no known website, logo, venue or players, and there has been no mention of them anywhere, including the ABA website, except on the ABA schedule. The St. Louis Stunners have cancelled their last eight games and will not play their next scheduled home game or travel until the league provides a plan to play the season.

Since the league's seventh campaign began, the Detroit Panthers, Peoria (Il.) Kings, Minnesota Ripknees, Rochester (Minn.) Fire, Anderson (Ind.) Champions and Cicero (Il.) Cometas have all been dropped from the ABA's Central Division, leaving just St. Louis, South Chi-Land and the Chicago Throwbacks on the ABA schedule. With no one else willing to travel, Chicago has resorted to playing an amateur team to fill its arena dates.

Four other teams - the Westchester (N.Y.) Phantoms, Syracuse (N.Y.) Raging Bullz, Orlando (Fla.) Aces and First State (Dover, Del.) Fusion - have cancelled home games. At the most, there are 27 active ABA teams, and, subtracting St. Louis and South Chi-Land, there are likely no more than 25. That's less than half the 53 teams the league started with last season.

The remaining four ABA squads in the West have banded together to play a heavily-revised schedule after three California teams called it quits in the last few weeks. Several other league-promised expansion teams never materialized.

In the South, Orlando has already cancelled a home game and a road trip, and a Miami-based team has yet to play a game. Their closest competition is a pair of Georgia squads, one of which has not yet played, either. Should any of them falter, the ABA hosts three Texas squads which would be the next closest competition.

Even the relatively stable Northeast has been hit with recent cancellations in Syracuse, First State and Westchester. The rest of the teams in the area, the bulk of those left playing in the league, are fortunate in that there are more than enough other squads in the area to help fill in each other's schedules if one or more teams fail.

Last year nearly half of ABA teams folded or withdrew from the league before the end of the season, including several that quit during the playoffs. The league has had more than seven-dozen franchises fail or leave the league and dozens more announced that have never taken the court.

Note: OurSports Central no longer actively covers the American Basketball Association (ABA) as a professional league due in part to its inability to publish and play a schedule and the transitory nature of many of its teams. For information on professional minor leagues, please see OSC's basketball section.



American Basketball Association Stories from November 27, 2007


The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer(s), and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opinions of OurSports Central or its staff.


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