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Tuesday, April 27, 2010 Seattle Part of New Professional Basketball League? By ANNIE COLLINGSWORTH and JOHN PORTER LOWE
BELLEVUE, Wa - Just as Seattle basketball fans are grieving the loss of an exciting young team giving the LA Lakers fits in the NBA playoffs this year, rumors are swirling that the Seattle financial community may not be taking this sitting down. Word is spreading that a series of behind-the-scenes meetings of former NBA players and investment hungry brokers have been taking place since late last year 2009, with discussion centering on a potential partnership and framework of what could be the world’s first fan-owned professional sports league. Initially referred to as the GBCL (Global Basketball Community League), the latest prevailing idea has a majority of stock options owned by a base of local fans similar to the Green Bay Packers model in the NFL. Each team would be formed with an unspecified stock option, with the initial investment group holding 100% of team stock upon formation. Once the teams are established with signed long-term leases in each city, each individual team would revert back to a 60% fan-owned sold stock system from an IPO-like conversion, with 40% remaining in the hands of initial investor. Profits would stream from the initial IPO, and because fans in each community would own their own teams, stadium blackmail from team owners would come to an end and local governments would be less reluctant to upgrade facilities. Add the potential tax revenues gained from existing facilities that have been long-abandoned, and everyone from city mayors to select team coaching officials are on-board with this idea. In Seattle and Vancouver BC, the timing could not be better after the departure of their teams with less-than appreciative community leaders and team historians. Nor is the economy necessarily a hindrance with investors chased from other business ventures seeking new opportunities from never-before attempted structures. The preliminary idea suggests a 20-team league with divisions formed on geographical lines similar to the NBA, with a Western Conference vs Eastern Conference format. In the west would be Vancouver BC, Seattle, Oakland, Anaheim, San Diego, Las Vegas, St Louis, Kansas City, Kentucky and Louisville. In the east teams would be established in Buffalo, Pittsburg, Cincinnati, New Haven, Tampa Bay, Jacksonville, Montreal, New Jersey, Long Beach NY and Baltimore. Other geographical regions across the planet could gradually join the overall format after following a similar start-up plan in each country & region. Teams would be independent clubs, similar to professional soccer leagues in Europe, free to withdraw and join competing leagues if the situation made that feasible. The idea being that an unprofitable team would not necessarily bring the rest of the league down with it and could be replaced by other independent clubs. There also has been discussion of league qualification, with Division II minor league teams earning the right to play in a Division I major league concept, made necessary as the league expands global-wide to 160 or more teams. “Look,” an unnamed source familiar with the planning told me on condition of remaining anonymous, “Howard Schultz, David Stern and Clay Bennett did us a tremendous favor. We’ve been discussing this idea on and off for three decades now, but these guys gave us momentum that we could have never achieved on our own. The NBA established and then foolishly abandoned Seattle and many other major markets across the country. Surely they couldn’t assume that at some point in time, those markets would not respond with a competing organization. The NBA is very control-oriented and fans see owners as callous “Good Old Boys” ready to extort millions from unsuspecting communities whenever it suits them. Yet many of their reams are failing, in major sports-hungry cities, from out-of-control player salaries and angered politicians. You’re telling me that we couldn’t attract front-line players for 1/10th what the NBA is shelling out? Sooner or later someone was going to take advantage of their mistakes and reckless ways! The NBA has demonstrated that smaller communities can and will support basketball teams, and they’ve done that by burning their bridges in major population centers with little regard to what their actions are doing to them long-term. The timing is thus absolutely perfect as more & more good college players find themselves unable to find a job after they graduate, with the player talent pool expanding in countries across the planet. You in Seattle have been bitter towards David Stern and Clay Bennett, but for us, we’d like to buy them both a dinner. Look at the opportunity they’ve handed us!”
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