G-League is not about fans attending. It's like a pro AAU league, players paid monthly, free to leave for another league after each month. NBA builds in incentives for identified replacement players to stick around for two months, such a the E10 bonus.

The model is increasingly like that of the European Soccer Junior teams all the top clubs have. Players bounce up and down from these clubs. If they don't have a spot, they often loan them (sell their services) to other clubs, generally in a different top or 2nd level league. The US model is unlikely to go that far, as the players have more control over their rights.

But the idea is to train with the parent club, or in the same building, to control quality. Degrees of separation are there, but it varies. In general the NBA teams try to build some family sense there.

Fan interest will never be like that of the NCAA where loyalty is to one's Alma Mater. College teams really try to win. In the G-League sure you try to win individual games, but it's more like work on mid-range shot and experiment with this or that, over attempting to win anything. Coaches and trainers are judged by their development of prospects, not wins and losses.

To be honest though Grand Rapids is only two and a quarter hours from the Pistons HQ. That seems to me to be in range. But then again the Santa Cruz Warriors are an hour closer to the parent club, and the Stockton Kings just over 30 minutes from their parent team. That seems to be about as far as anyone wants their franchise to be, yet have a potential fan base (Miami Heat exempted). Of the two teams left without a G-League club, the Portland Trail Blazers were most seriously considering the Nike Center in Beaverton, a suburb of Portland, not Dissimilar to how the Raptors 905, AC Clippers, and Memphis Hustle (actually in Mississippi) are set up. If Denver sets up a team it would also be in a Denver suburb.

The Pelicans are the only ones who "need" their G-League tea to operate without taking funds from the parent club. They are the poorest franchise in the NBA. Only the stubbornness of the Benson family keeps it from being sold to Seattle or Las Vegas interests. Note, a G-League team would do terrible in both cities. The fans there do not consider the cities minor league at all.

Anyway the model of minor league baseball doesn't apply well to the G-League. I do think the European Soccer model does apply, with teams becoming more of a year round structure, doing friendlies overseas in the off season, to train players and to keep them paid and in house..

(04-28-2020 04:36 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  G-League is not about fans attending. It's like a pro AAU league, players paid monthly, free to leave for another league after each month. NBA builds in incentives for identified replacement players to stick around for two months, such a the E10 bonus.

The model is increasingly like that of the European Soccer Junior teams all the top clubs have. Players bounce up and down from these clubs. If they don't have a spot, they often loan them (sell their services) to other clubs, generally in a different top or 2nd level league. The US model is unlikely to go that far, as the players have more control over their rights.

But the idea is to train with the parent club, or in the same building, to control quality. Degrees of separation are there, but it varies. In general the NBA teams try to build some family sense there.

Fan interest will never be like that of the NCAA where loyalty is to one's Alma Mater. College teams really try to win. In the G-League sure you try to win individual games, but it's more like work on mid-range shot and experiment with this or that, over attempting to win anything. Coaches and trainers are judged by their development of prospects, not wins and losses.

To be honest though Grand Rapids is only two and a quarter hours from the Pistons HQ. That seems to me to be in range. But then again the Santa Cruz Warriors are an hour closer to the parent club, and the Stockton Kings just over 30 minutes from their parent team. That seems to be about as far as anyone wants their franchise to be, yet have a potential fan base (Miami Heat exempted). Of the two teams left without a G-League club, the Portland Trail Blazers were most seriously considering the Nike Center in Beaverton, a suburb of Portland, not Dissimilar to how the Raptors 905, AC Clippers, and Memphis Hustle (actually in Mississippi) are set up. If Denver sets up a team it would also be in a Denver suburb.

The Pelicans are the only ones who "need" their G-League tea to operate without taking funds from the parent club. They are the poorest franchise in the NBA. Only the stubbornness of the Benson family keeps it from being sold to Seattle or Las Vegas interests. Note, a G-League team would do terrible in both cities. The fans there do not consider the cities minor league at all.

Anyway the model of minor league baseball doesn't apply well to the G-League. I do think the European Soccer model does apply, with teams becoming more of a year round structure, doing friendlies overseas in the off season, to train players and to keep them paid and in house..

Well said. The structure of the G-League is all over the map. You have NBA teams that own their G-League club and keep them close by (like the South Bay Lakers, who play games at the Lakers practice facility, and the Oklahoma City Blue, who play games in the old OKC arena across the street from where the Thunder play). You have other situations where G-League teams are pure affiliates (like Sioux Falls, a longtime minor league basketball haven, affiliated with Miami, and Rio Grande Valley, locally owned but affiliated with the somewhat nearby Rockets). The purpose of the G-League, though, is to develop players. Making money and building a fan base is secondary.

johnintx,

Actually the ownership model has moved to team owned. Of the 28 teams, 25 are owned by the NBA parent team. Only 3 are "hybrid" affiliates. One of those, the Texas Legends, are owned by Donnie Nelson, the Mavericks GM and President of Basketball Operations, making that team effectively Mavericks owned; Nelson will obviously sell it to Cuban when the time comes for him to move on. So really it's just two who are true affiliates with local ownership:

Grand Rapid Drive (affiliated with Detroit Pistons)
-- owned by SSG group (Steve Jbara).
Rio Grande Vipers (affiliated with Houston Rockets)
-- owned by Jeffrey Kapilivsky

The Drive are a different situation, in conflict with the Pistons. It's just a matter of time before the Pistons announce they will start a new franchise. They want to move the team to a new facility being built by Wayne State.
https://mibiz.com/sections/small-busines...stons-ties

Affiliates are a thing of the past, rapidly vanishing. After the Pistons make their move, only the RGV Vipers will have independent ownership (I have no information on Jeff Kapilivsky relationship with Tilman Fertitta and the Rockets. But there doesn't seem to be any conflicts.

So the ownership model is no longer all over the map. Most teams have either outright bought their affiliated franchise or paid the franchise fee and started an expansion team

Note, Capitanes de Ciudad de México, which is a FIBA team, is supposed to join the G-League next year (2020-21). It will not be filled with players the same way the rest of the NBA G-League is. I have no idea how that will work or if it can work. (And never mind CoVid-19.)

We need a similar semi-pro/developmental football league. Players that want to “make money” can go straight to the developmental league and those that want to go to college with free tuition, boarding, and meals can go to college and be “non-paid” amateur student athletes.

(04-29-2020 08:52 AM)SkullyMaroo Wrote:  We need a similar semi-pro/developmental football league. Players that want to “make money” can go straight to the developmental league and those that want to go to college with free tuition, boarding, and meals can go to college and be “non-paid” amateur student athletes.

How do you propose to do that?

XFL and a dozen other semi-pro leagues failed. NFL has no model for a minor league, and no revenue stream to support it. Unlike Basketball where a $100 million spread over 30 teams (just $3m a team) which handles the small numbers required works for them as a subsidy and a small amount of the $130 million the average team spends on player salaries. But the NBA G-League model does not scale for Football, as the number of players is far larger and the expenses exponentially larger. This requires a large revenue stream. And this is why the NFL has no real choice but to hand that off to the colleges.

(04-29-2020 06:49 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  

(04-29-2020 08:52 AM)SkullyMaroo Wrote:  We need a similar semi-pro/developmental football league. Players that want to “make money” can go straight to the developmental league and those that want to go to college with free tuition, boarding, and meals can go to college and be “non-paid” amateur student athletes.

How do you propose to do that?

XFL and a dozen other semi-pro leagues failed. NFL has no model for a minor league, and no revenue stream to support it. Unlike Basketball where a $100 million spread over 30 teams (just $3m a team) which handles the small numbers required works for them as a subsidy and a small amount of the $130 million the average team spends on player salaries. But the NBA G-League model does not scale for Football, as the number of players is far larger and the expenses exponentially larger. This requires a large revenue stream. And this is why the NFL has no real choice but to hand that off to the colleges.

I don’t have a proposal, I just know we need the NFL to buy into some minor league system that works.

(04-17-2020 07:03 PM)Cyniclone Wrote:  

(04-17-2020 02:13 PM)SouthernBoiNOLA Wrote:  on another note....no one can market the WNBA, cause there really ain't enough people out there that wanna see it.

College women's basketball, at least at the highest level, does well. I don't expect WNBA teams to replicate UConn or Tennessee attendance, but I think there's more of a market for high-grade professional women's basketball.

The WNBA's biggest problem is playing during the summer, after a long NBA season has tapped people's interest in basketball. Plus, indoor sports in the summer is a hard sell. Indoor/arena football had its little spurt of popularity but now it's a patchwork cotillion of minor leagues.

Ideally they'd play alongside the NBA and colleges, but that's a nonstarter unless and until the league can pay well enough to make it worth players turning down European league contracts. So the WNBA struggles along, successful enough to survive but neither reaching the popularity of the top college programs nor the financial viability of the Euros.

The best women's college program lost $3 million.

Quote: UConn men's basketball lost $5 million, while women's basketball lost $3 million. It cost $11 million to operate the men's basketball team and $7.8 million to manage the women's program... https://www.hartfordbusiness.com/article...0m-deficit

Concerning the WNBA.

Quote: The WNBA says it has lost significant money the last 22 years, including $12 million last season.

"On average (we've lost) over $10 million every year we've operated," NBA Commissioner Adam Silver told The Associated Press in October.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/wn.../38809289/

Very interesting listening to Sham Charania short videos on these G-League on twitter @ShamsCharania
Specifically this one:
https://twitter.com/Stadium/status/1250858513682911232

Seems the G-League setup will be a League run team in Los Angeles this year for players they are signing. This will be separate from other G-League teams, sort of an Academy team. Salaries are individualized. Includes free college scholarships. Here is what has committed so far.

[#1-4] Jalen Green (decommit Memphis) > $500,000
-- > $1m total package (Salary, endorsements, education, etc.)
[#15-20] Daishen Nix (decommit UCLA) $300,000 range
[#30-40] Isaiah Todd (decommit Michigan) $200,000 range

That is a good range of the 50 players they reached out to: a high lottery, a 1st rounder, and early 2nd rounder. More will follow in the coming weeks. The size of Green's deal has got to have the other top 5 rethinking things.

I don't think this is a one off. Rather it's the start of a permanent feature. If it were not they certainly would not have a heavy weight like Masai Ujiri negotiating the contracts and handling all the details. My WAG is they plan to have an LA team and then a NYC or Florida (Orlando) team if they get 20+ players signed up. I cannot imagine they would simply stop signing at a dozen players (10 may be active, but you have to figure in rest and injuries). But we'll see the demand.

Note: So far seen Terrence Clarke (Kentucky), Evan Mobley (USC), Ziaire Williams (Stanford - didn't expect him to sign, family is high on education) and Greg Brown (Texas, offered $300K) turn down the G-League path to play college basketball

Still in play like #1 overall Cade Cunningham (OK State), top 10 BJ Boston (Kentucky) and many others. I see rumors of a 4th one about to sign, but I'll hold back naming them, since they might not.

This looks more like another step in the evolution, more chipping away or erosion of the NCAA not the complete replacement. But it's a big step toward controlling the top players, keeping them from going the route of LaMelo Ball, which we weer seeing more of.

BTW, the NBA is looking at Orlando (Disney) as a site for the 2020 season, as the facilities have been offered them. Las Vegas is also in the running, or maybe both, one for the Eastern teams, the other for the Western.

What will end up happening is this...

Someone intelligent will realize the NCAA is costing their program(s) money by allowing a system that incentivizes the best players to go pro.

The new G-League rules will put greater pressure on the major programs, and the NCAA if they want to stay relevant, to come to an agreement on NIL and possibly more.