Is two a crowd?
The American Basketball Association’s Buffalo Sharks and the Premier Basketball League’s Buffalo Dragons will be competing for fan support, but it remains to be seen if this town is big enough for the both of them
History has not always been kind to minor-league sports, especially the ones with basketball as their focus. But every now and then, history yields progress. Two philosophically divergent organizations are gambling that the time has arrived for professional basketball to succeed in Western New York.
The American Basketball Association’s Buffalo Sharks, owned by concert promoter Vincent Lesh, will be tipping off in the fall at the Koessler Athletic Center, while the Premier Basketball League’s Buffalo Dragons, owned by Todd Wier, will begin their season in January at the Burt Flickinger Center with an emphasis on broadcasting games to China.
The timing of the season will be irrelevant if the concept isn’t right. So let us ponder the question: Can two minor-league basketball franchises survive in Buffalo?
Evidence says no, and neither Lesh nor Wier will argue that fact.
“I think it’s completely foolish that two teams are going to compete over the fan base of the second poorest city in the country,” Wier said.
Said Lesh: “The market is too small for both of us to survive.”
Both have mentioned they would like to work together and they could some day if their differing philosophies somehow work their way on to the same page. But for now, they are two vastly different owners, working in two vastly different leagues with one common goal: making minor-league basketball work in Western New York.
Under a brief spell
Lesh and Wier wonder if either can recapture some of the magic of Nov. 3, 2005, when pro basketball returned to Buffalo for the first time since the NBA’s Buffalo Braves left for San Diego in 1978 and became the Clippers. A standing room only crowd of 3,200 piled into the Flickinger Center for the debut of the ABA’s Buffalo Rapids. There were Buffalo Bills at courtside, including hoop junkies Eric Moulds and London Fletcher. Joe Mesi was milling around. University at Buffalo coach Reggie Witherspoon was on hand. So was Mayor Tony Masiello.
But even on opening night, there were bad omens, including a 40-minute delay because fans had to pass through metal detectors set up by ECC. That procedure offended some of the predominantly African-American fans. The Rapids played one more game at ECC before it cut ties with team owner Gary Nice because of his failure to make payments required in their contract.
Just weeks later, players complained that Nice’s checks were bouncing. After an overtime loss on Nov. 29, 2005, Rapids player Brad Buddenborg angrily told Nice, “If I don’t get my check, I’m walking.” Instead Nice walked back to Arizona, leaving a trail of deception, empty promises and unpaid bills. That’s when Wier stepped in and saved the franchise.
During a break from the ABA owners’ meeting last summer in Indianapolis, Wier expressed frustration over the direction of the league under Commissioner Joe Newman to Paul Riley, who was the league’s vice president of business development. That frustration, and losses of $700,000 in two seasons as owner, led Weir to decide shortly thereafter to cut his losses and sell the team to Lesh for $15,000.
“Give the ABA credit, no one in history has ever built a league at the size they did with the speed they did,” Wier said. “But at the end of the day, when the owners are the ones putting on the show, the owners’ input has to be heard.”
Wier didn’t stay out of the minor league basketball business for long. He and Riley exchanged business cards and a few months later Riley followed up with a plan and rattled off numbers about China. During a Silverbacks playoff game in Los Angeles against the Beijing Olympians ABA team, Wier was surprised to hear that tickets had been distributed for free. Then the Chinese team’s general manager told him his goal was to fill the seats to maximize the television broadcast back to China.
Wier and Riley formed NexxNow, a sports media and marketing company, and in January it signed an agreement to produce Continental Basketball Association games and CBA-related television programming exclusively for distribution to mainland China. Riley, who has connections with the China Basketball Association, hopes to land a similar deal for the Buffalo Dragons.
Also last January, the NBA announced the formation of NBA China, an entity that will conduct businesses in Greater China. The NBA and five partners, including ESPN, are investing $253 million in the project.
Last November, when the Houston Rockets’ Yao Ming played against the Milwaukee Bucks and Yi Jianlian for the first time, an estimated 200 million to 250 million people watched the broadcast in China. By comparison, 97.5 million viewers watched the New York Giants upset the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLII, the most ever.
“The more research we did, the more compelling it became,” Wier said. “They have 100 million more basketball fans than we have people in our country.”
Wier and Riley also decided to field a team in the two-year-old, 14- team PBL, a league that has implemented strong financial safeguards. They include a $5,000 application fee, $50,000 market fee and the stipulation that groups have $1 million in liquid assets to operate the business. Teams have a $125,000 salary cap.
“The PBL was put together by frustrated owners who used to exist in other leagues, other leagues that left them scrambling to replace games two minutes before tip-off,” said Riley, who is the president and CEO of NexxNow. “Other leagues that didn’t quite deliver what was promised. The PBL came together based on those frustrations, frustrations of guys who put in a lot of money.”
Eventually, based on its investment, the NBA will overtake the market in China with its games, which will be infinitely better than anything Wier and the PBL has to offer. Wier believes there’s enough to go around and that the TV money can make his franchise profitable regardless of the number of tickets it sells.
“I hope they leave us out as much as McDonald’s left Burger King out of the market,” Wier said. “To capture 20 million, you’re only looking at 5 percent penetration. What if you sell a Buffalo Dragons hat, like a Yankees hat, to 2 percent of your viewing audience? That’s 400,000 hats at five bucks a pop. That’s two million bucks.”
Sweet music
Lesh’s business model has a more local flavor.
Back in the 1970s, former Bills tight end Ernie Warlick owned a hamburger stand and had a deal where if you bought a meal you could buy Braves tickets for $3. The hamburgers were good, but Lesh liked the Braves’ tickets better so he struck a deal to buy 10 tickets for $3 each, then turned around and sold them for $4 to his high school buddies. Lesh would take the profits and buy courtside seats at the Aud.
Lesh used to arrive early for warm-ups and once even fetched rebounds for New Orleans Jazz guard Pete Maravich. A basketball junkie was born.
“I was in heaven,” he said.
Lesh was the second person to purchase a Rapids season package — he claims he never received the tickets — and at the height of Nice’s financial woes, Lesh offered to help him promote the team by booking concerts before the games. Lesh said Nice asked him to fax a list of the acts to his wife.
“He calls me back and says, ‘My wife doesn’t know any of these names on the list,’ ” Lesh said. “I told him, ‘That’s fine, your wife doesn’t go to concerts.’ He gets offended and says, ‘Are you saying my wife doesn’t know anything about music?’ So that was my relationship with Gary.”
Lesh has made a living out of booking shows and filling venues. He estimates he’s promoted more than 3,000 concerts and has a shrewd side when it comes to closing deals. He once paid the Goo Goo Dolls with a case of Labatt Blue.
“I put [butts] in buildings,” Lesh said. “I’ve done it for 25 years.”
He plans on doing the same thing with the Sharks in the Koessler Center by booking pregame concerts in hopes fans will stay around long enough to watch the basketball team. Lesh figures he needs to average about 1,000 fans a night to make money.
But the ABA’s biggest problem is the here today, gone tomorrow legacy of its franchises.
A quick glance at the 2007-08 ABA standings shows that teams from Syracuse, Corning, St. Louis and Los Angeles played fewer than 10 games before going belly up. Recently Vermont, the defending league champion, and Manchester bolted for the PBL, leaving the ABA’s long-term stability in question. The league’s Web site lists 47 teams that will compete in 2008-09.
“It does concern me,” Lesh said. “But I look at old ABA footage and I see Dr. J and George Gervin doing some amazing things and no one is in the stands. It takes time. If the ABA does what it says it will, it will be a solid league.”
One of the safeguards is that new teams must have an arena lease and proof of capital to run the franchise. It was Lesh’s idea to place regional directors for each division (there were two conferences and six divisions last season). Sharks coach Rich Jacob, who also coached the Rapids and Silverbacks, serves as the director for the East Division.
Lesh, like Wier, is committed to making it work.
“My kids are sick of hearing about the Braves from me,” Lesh said. “I want my kids to see pro ball in Buffalo just like I did.”
