George Mikan and Dr. J weep

An ABA semifinal game was forfeited last week. Not because one team was sick, or because of a rules infraction or suspensions. No, no. The San Francisco Rumble just decided they couldn't afford to travel to Texas for the game. It would have cost the owners $21,000 to get the team to Port Arthur.
So the Southeast Texas Mavericks advanced to play for the championship of a league that even Gary Bettman thinks has too many teams.

http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/sports/local/88498397.html

 

Yeah, but what's Marvin Barnes think about it?

 

What?

Why didn't the Rumble just hire some stringers from Houston?

 

We should pool our money and start our own SportsJournalists.com ABA team.

We could base it in Tahoe. We'd be 15 minutes from all of our opponents.

 

I once had to run the shot clock at an ABA game. In addition to reporting duties.

 

There was an ABA team in Little Rock, AR for one season that routinely drew in crowds of over 10,000 about five years ago. Brilliant business plan. They just hired all of the early to mid-90s Arkansas Razorbacks that had flamed out of the NBA. Kareem Reid, Oliver Miller, and Scotty Thurman to name a few. IIRC, they won the ABA championship in front of a home crowd of 16-17 thousand people.

They had so many problems propping up other teams in the ABA, the franchise decided to join the NBDL the season after their championship. No longer able to fill the roster with former Razorback flameouts, attendance dropped sharply and the team folded after two seasons in the D-league.

 

The league is a total joke. There's no league-mandated schedule. Regular-season standings are not kept. Games aren't played. Owners include porn producers. (Seriously.)

 

Any news editor who wanted something like that should not have a newspaper job. Walmart greeter seems appropriate for the idiot.

 

If this ABA team is like most of them, it will fold before it plays its fifth game.

Vonnegut: This might be a source of info for you:
http://www.oursportscentral.com/boards/forumdisplay.php?f=77