ABA Basketball not covered by local newspapers

I was assistant sports editor in Jax from 2005 to 2009, so I speak from experience here: The Jacksonville Giants should be happy to have one paragraph and a boxscore in the paper.

The week before I left, we had to lay off our Florida State beat guy. The paper has had many more cuts since. And after the Jacksonville Jam disaster, why would the T-U commit resources it doesn't have to cover a fly-by-night league? They barely can cover UF, high schools and golf as it is.

You want coverage? Sell out the arena. Every night. That's the only way.

 

There apparently is a team in my area too. I work in sports at the newspaper and have never heard of it.

 

You only cover us when we actually play a game!

 

There is no way they are drawing 4,000. Probably 400.

 

I bet ABAjoe is real glad he tried to get some pub.

 

Yeah, I'm guessing he won't be back.

 

Eh, it's a reasonable discussion for a journalism board. It's not just basketball, either. Lots of low-level sports out there fall under this category.

The worst scenarios, in my experience, is when the SE has it on a different priority level than everyone else. Maybe the SE and team owner are golfing buddies, so the SE wants to do his buddy his favor. Team gets horribly mismanaged and stinks and the whole staff knows it is a huge waste of time, but the SE wants it covered, so we get stuck playing it up like anyone else actually gives two shits about it.

 

I've perused the six nearest teams to me and have yet to find one with a working website with basic information like a roster and a schedule.

Oh, and did you know the Gulf Coast now apparently reaches Missouri, or so says the ABA.

 

I agree with that.

 

Same goes for any sport. I just found out that AAU is now into the hockey biz and there is a team in the area and they are 25 games into the season.
I posted my shock that there is a 2nd Jr. A team in town. Local guy I know that has kids that play hockey summed it up for me about the new league:
"It's a gongshow."

 

A few years back there were two ABA teams in a turf war in an adjoining county. The coach of one of the teams called and asked me to come out to a game so we could do a story. I declined, since at the time, we didn't even go outside county limits to cover high schools until the playoffs. Damned if I was gonna waste mileage on a semipro sideshow.

One of the teams set up camp here next season, sponsored by the local Native American casino. Ran a few of their releases and a schedule. Also impressed on them the need to send in results oh, every time we talked. Never got scores and the tribal council closed the piggy bank after two months. The team folded.

 

Showed up to cover an ABA team's home opener. Start of the game was delayed because... no shot-clock operator. While the problem was being debated, I volunteered to do it. Hell, it was the only way to meet deadline.

Afterwards, the on-court officials thanked me for keeping them on their toes. ;D