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ABA Basketball not covered by local newspapers

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by abajoe, Dec 10, 2012.

  1. ColdCat

    ColdCat Well-Known Member

    having covered a struggling team in the dying days of the CBA, it does make you wonder about the priorities of your department when you can go to a high school game down the street and see a packed house, then head over to the professional game and see 100 people at the most. If the high school team draws more fans, it stands to reason more people are going to be interested in that game and thus more people will be drawn to your coverage of that game.
     
  2. HejiraHenry

    HejiraHenry Well-Known Member

    Apples and aardvarks.

    The high school team has a built-in constituency - several, actually - and neighboring rivals and a history and whatnot. The minor league franchise, and in this discussion I would exclude baseball, does not. Never will, at that scale.
     
  3. apeman33

    apeman33 Well-Known Member

    Most minor basketball leagues are pretty sad. The United States Basketball League was half legit, half crap. If the midwestern teams could have found a way to move on without the east-coast teams, it could have made it a few more seasons. But it would have been difficult to have a strong basketball league with eight towns just like Dodge City, Salina and Enid. And because it played in the summer, there was no real competition to worry about. The problem was, all of its expansion teams following the midwest success were jokes (such as Mississippi, which no one knew had folded until one of the east-coast teams showed up to the arena and found nobody there) and the east-coast teams couldn't make it through a season most years.
     
  4. Moderator1

    Moderator1 Moderator Staff Member

    We had an ABA team in Richmond during my brief reign of terror. The Ballerz. Owned by Iverson's mom. I later ended up hiring one of the kids who played for them (and had played a local D3 school). He told me they never got paid.

    Their schedule kept changing. They'd have a home game Tuesday against, say, Wilmington and it would turn out to be on Wednesday. Or AT Wilmington. They'd send in results from road games at 4 a.m. Never mind that it didn't add up, they couldn't figure out why it didn't get in THAT DAY'S paper.

    We tried to cover a couple of home games. Most of the players were from the area. They'd have double-figure attendance. And, well, we'd go out sometimes for a scheduled game and there was no game. "Oh, we moved that to tomorrow."

    Yeah, no thanks.
     
  5. dixiehack

    dixiehack Well-Known Member

    If you had enough fans to start a riot, you'd already be getting coverage.

    Seriously, you can't expect the T-U or a similar outlet to cover this like it is an NFL or State U beat. And in the 21st century, that's not as much of a problem with your own website and social media. No reason you can't be your own beat writer and promote the hell out of it.

    What you can do is politely pitch stories that are genuinely interesting and capable of generating a feature story (preferably one capable of generating interesting pictures as well.) Cutting a check to a literacy program isn't interesting. Johnny Jumpshot reading to kids at the elementary school once a month very well may be.

    Even then there are no guarantees, but if you are polite, professional and persistent; you have a much better shot.
     
  6. BillyT

    BillyT Active Member

    Where does D-League fall in?

    I know it's a bit different, because of the connection to the NBA.

    The paper near my in-laws covers the D-League team at close to the same level it does the AHL team, which in that area is pretty good.
     
  7. HejiraHenry

    HejiraHenry Well-Known Member

    Excellent points.
     
  8. writingump

    writingump Member

    About a decade ago, something called the World Basketball League (I think) had a franchise in Bristol and played at Viking Hall. I covered one game. Attendance might have been 100, the players on Tennessee High's girls basketball team were statisticians (and knew their stuff, as it turned out) and there was no shot clock even though the rules had a 24-second shot clock (which became relevant when the refs let Bristol hold the ball the last 45 seconds for what turned out to be the winning shot).
    Anyway, the guy owning the team started moving home games to nearby Gate City and the team folded sometime in mid-June (it was a spring league). So, yes, I understand the local fishwrap's reluctance to cover something liike that. When you give it relevance by covering it and then it folds, it reflects poorly on your news judgment.
     
  9. Baron Scicluna

    Baron Scicluna Well-Known Member

    Minor league hockey is big in some places.
     
  10. Batman

    Batman Well-Known Member

    At one point, I think the current incarnation of the ABA had close to 100 teams listed on its website (including the Atlanta Crunk Wolverines, who get my vote for greatest team nickname ever).

    I remember the big city near me got an ABA expansion team. The local TV stations were all fired up about it. They did a bunch of pieces during tryouts and training camp, mentioned it every night for about a week before the first game, gave it plenty of air time.
    And then the first scheduled game comes, and no one showed up to the arena. At least not the visiting team. Maybe they didn't get paid, maybe it was a schedule snafu, maybe their Greyhound got a flat. Who knows? IIRC, the crowd wasn't terrible, but it wasn't overflowing either.
    The TV stations barely mentioned the team after getting burned like that, and about a month later the team quietly folded.
     
  11. Big Circus

    Big Circus Well-Known Member

    IIRC, they started out as just the Atlanta Crunk. Evidently someone told them that sounded stupid.
     
  12. apeman33

    apeman33 Well-Known Member

    When compared to minor-league basketball, minor-league hockey is well organized. But that depends on the league. The AHL and ECHL seem to be top-notch, although my experience with them is limited.

    The Central Hockey League seems to succeed despite itself. It's been the victor, so to speak, in two different mergers with other leagues (The WPHL and the -- what was it called at the end, the IHL?) and yet this year it's only got 11 teams? At one point, I think there were 24.
     
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