XBA Preparing for Success

We are just at two months out from the tipoff of the Midwest version of our Xtreme Basketball Association. I wanted to take this opportunity to share with the US Basket and Eurobasket readers where we are at and perhaps more importantly where we are going. I am happy to say that our progress is very good at this point. We have most of our coaches and GM's in place, we have signed a few players and have a growing pool to choose from and most importantly we already have some money in the bank. We are still working on our final schedule which has been completed but just not released yet and we hope to get the team names completed within the next week to ten days. We have a college exhibiton team that will be leaving out this Thursday to play several of the schools in our region. The team will be coached by Wilmington Wave Rocker Head Coach, Derek Howard who will be assisted by former Missouri standout and Quinn Snyder assistant, Jason Sutherland. We expect to plan several press conferences over the course of the next couple of weeks to officially name coaches at several locations. This Monday and Tuesday there will be a General Managers training seminar in Sioux Falls SD where we will be working with our new GM's as well as our guys who have already been in the trenches on where it is we need to go from here. We have actually had to turn away some cities in the Midwest who came to us in the waning hours for this season but hope to add them for next year. Our West X could be announced as early as next week but we have set November 15th as the absolute cutoff point for West Coast teams.
What these actions are intended to do is prepare our league and teams for the success we feel this season will bring us. This approach reminds me of an old quote about coaches wanting jobs. Abe Lemons once said "For every thousand coaches with a plan for getting a job, there might be one with an idea of how to keep it." I think the same can be said for leagues. Any idiot with a little capital and moxy can start a league but the secret is to prepare to keep it going on the right track once you start to gain some success. What I have seen is a few individuals prosper and survive as minor league owners but not the whole sum. Bismarck, Dodge City and Kansas City are arguably the most successful teams in their respective leagues but if there is not a plan to keep the Rockfords, Atlantic City's and Phoenix's of the world afloat, then their ride will be short lived. We are forced to operate on the short term success but understand the real key is long term success and laying the groundwork for that. I think many times in minor league sports we all operate in a dooms day mindset which goes back to the old addage, "If you think you are beaten you are". We feel if you walk like a champion, smell like a champion and act like a champion then guess what? You might become one.
I just returned from Teams 2000, a sports marketing conference in Chicago that was geared toward sports marketing and promotion. It was a who's who of the sports world. Among the speakers and presenters were; Marc Cuban, Bob Costas, the USOC President, The President of AAU and even Hootie from Hootie and the Blowfish. The meat of this conference was sponsors, sports commissions and Convention/Visitor Bureaus coming together to talk about the business of sports sponsorship. This conference allowed one on one appointments that put sellers of rights (basketball leagues) with potential national and regional sponsors. I personally met with over 15 potential sponsorship partners promoting ideas ranging from our All Star Festival rights to exclusive hotel endorsements. Our overtures were met with very favorable response and we hope to be announcing some done deals in the next few weeks. I was astounded but pleased that our basketball league was the only one represented at the conference. Not to be selfish but a captive audience of sponsors with no other leagues fingers in the pie was welcome