The National Basketball Development League expects to expand to 10 teams by the 2005-06 season, with the growth to include an increased number of private investors following the league’s first team sale to a Florida group.
The league late last month completed the sale of the Charleston (S.C.) Lowgators to an 11-member ownership group that will move the team to Fort Myers, Fla., for the coming season.
NBDL officials last year announced plans to seek local ownership for the league’s teams starting with the 2004-05 season in hopes of giving the clubs greater local support. The NBA has owned and operated the teams over the NBDL’s first three seasons, during which average attendance has stayed at about 1,600 fans a game.
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“We believe that [private investment in the NBDL] is the wave of the future,” said NBDL President Phil Evans. “As we move into other parts of the country, we will look for well-connected groups and operators with good minor league experience.”
Terms of the Lowgators sale were not disclosed.
The NBDL will field six teams for its 2004-05 season, with at least four teams to be added for 2005-06. The NBDL then plans to expand to 15 teams by the 2006-07 season, Evans said.
Last season was the first year in which NBDL teams were given their own logos rather than sharing the main NBDL logo, reflecting the movement from the NBA’s initial unified brand strategy. That effort will continue next season. Each team will have its individual logo emblazoned on its home court.
“It was important to engage in universal branding in our first few years, but now we want to have market identity, and we will be layering that in,” Evans said.
The NBDL plans to hold a “showcase weekend” in January to bring each of the six teams together to play games in Columbus, Ga., in order to help NBA scouts more easily evaluate players for call-ups to NBA teams. NBA teams are allowed to sign players to 10-day contracts after Jan 6.
The relationship of NBDL players and NBA teams is expected to be discussed as part of the NBA’s coming collective-bargaining negotiations. Earlier this year, NBA Commissioner David Stern said he’d like to pursue an effort to affiliate NBDL teams directly with NBA clubs in a structure similar to that of MLB and Minor League Baseball.
“That’s an issue that David Stern and the NBA are continuing to discuss, and I imagine it will continue,” Evans said.
The 48-game NBDL season begins Nov. 19, a week earlier than last season to let play begin before Thanksgiving weekend, Evans said. Joining the relocated Lowgators for next season are teams in Huntsville, Ala.; Roanoke, Va.; Fayetteville, Ark.; Columbus, Ga.; and Asheville, N.C.
