Monarchs Watch: Day 19 - Final Day

Sacramento Monarchs: 1997-2009

The WNBA made the announcement. There will be a dispersal draft held on December 14, 2009 for the Sacramento Monarchs. The Monarchs - or at least this version of them - are dead.

From the WNBA announcement:

A Dispersal Draft involving Sacramento Monarchs players will take place Monday, Dec. 14, WNBA President Donna Orender announced today. Orender also announced the league will seek to add a team to the Bay Area for the 2011 season.

“A number of potential investors have come forward and expressed interest in relocating the Monarchs to the Bay Area, a market that we continue to see as desirable,” said Orender. “Ultimately, we made the judgment that we would not be able to complete a transaction in time for a successful new-market launch in 2010. We will therefore focus our energy on adding a team in the Bay Area for the 2011 campaign.”

I wouldn't be expecting a Bay Area team arriving for some time. Frankly, the WNBA needs to stay at 12 teams and it needs to stop expanding. The current league franchises need some age behind them, and I don't want to see a 16-team league for some time to come.

So this is it. It's over, and the fans of Sacramento have my condolences. You got a championship, you got to see Yolanda Griffith and Ticha Penicheiro, but you also got shafted by the Maloofs. You got the best and you got the worst. I'm just sorry that a great franchise has to go in such a manner.

Monarchs Watch: Day 18

Note: This was written before the Day 19 announcement

Hope still springs eternal on the Monarchs coming back to the WNBA in some form. Meanwhile, the Maloofs appear to have bigger problems than just the Monarchs - they might be getting out of the basketball business for good:

From, of all places, the New Mexico Politics with Joe Monahan blog:

But they are long gone from that list and the Great Recession is reshaping their empire and their lives. The Maloofs recently sold the Sacramento Monarchs, a team in the Women's National Basketball Association. And word is growing louder that the family's once-high flying NBA franchise--the Sacramento Kings--will soon go up for sale. Sports insiders say a struggling NBA franchise like the Kings can lose $30 million a year.

The Maloof's New Mexico Coors business is also being put up for sale. It looks like the word is that "Everything Must Go" except for the Maloofs gambling empire.

(Also: If the Kings were losing $30 million a year, it makes ownership of a WNBA franchise look like an act of absolute genius. I hope that is a gross loss and not a net loss!)

It could be that the Maloofs tried to hold on to everything as long as possible before panic set in and the "great sell off" began. If the Maloofs knew what was coming, they should have at least given notice before the end of the season so that other investors could be found. If there's anything the Maloofs should be blamed for, this is it.

Monarchs Watch: Day 17

Jayda Evans over at the Seattle Times claims that the Monarchs are toast:

Very reliable sources said the WNBA was unable to secure new ownership for Sacramento, so that team will dissolve and there will be an expansion draft.

Okay. I think this is the second reporter who used a "very reliable source" to state that there was going to be an expansion draft. Here's my question: why can't the WNBA announce that? Or are they hoping that the Marion Jones story and David Stern's quote that women might play in the NBA will bury the bad news?

Because let's face it. It is bad news. Franchises folding are always bad news. Why can't the WNBA just be up front about that? Why not just get the bad news out of the way instead of giving fans false hope? If right now isn't the right time to announce that, then when is the right time?

I'm hoping that the reason that no such thing has been announced is that there is still some slight hope that the Monarchs can be relocated. And the Monarchs don't necessarily have to relocate in the West. Another eastern team would be fine. The point is to show that a WNBA franchise has value. If it doesn't, the WNBA is simply too large and we need to stop talking about new franchises opening anywhere for a lonnnnnnnnng time.

This culture of secrecy in the WNBA is as annoying as hell.

Monarchs Watch: Day 16

Clay Kallam, writing for Slam Online, wonders if the Maloofs folding the Monarchs is a sign of their future plans involving the Kings:

What it says about the Maloofs and the Kings is pretty obvious: Sacramento can wave bye-bye to its only major league sports franchise come next summer. Clearly, by folding the Monarchs, the Maloofs have given up on ever passing a measure in support of a new arena, and without a new arena, even in the best of the times, they simply will not have the resources to make it the NBA.

Kallam postulates that:

* Only a new arena can save the Kings.
* In Sacramento, a new arena depends on the voters.
* The Maloofs just tossed away part of the women's vote, and therefore
* The Maloofs know that they can never win a ballot issue on an arena in Sacramento, meaning that the Maloofs will either give up the franchise or be shopping it elsewhere.

As for the thought of no new arena being passed in Sacramento, my comments are: "Good: someone came to their senses!". I've been sick and tired over the last twenty years of big time owners (and big-time sports) squeezing money out of the voters of large cities for new facilities with the threat of "give us what we want, or we'll move". That money could have been spent on police, or for medical care, or for schools but it goes into the pockets of some billionaire in exchange for the promise of "job creation" - promises which have proven never to pan out. If any team in Atlanta - the Falcons, the Hawks, even the Braves - tried that "prove you appreciate us by funding a billion-dollar arena, or we'll leave", my answer would be "Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out." Big-time owners talk about how cities must learn to appreciate their big-time sports - but during crunch time, the relationship always seems to be one-sided.

This is one of the reasons I don't care much for NBA ownership of WNBA franchises - the second the dual-franchise owner wishes to plead poverty, he talks about how he's going to have to fold the WNBA franchise. The Simons in Indianapolis were talking about folding the Fever all of last year, in an attempt to plead poverty so the city of Indianapolis would get them an arena deal as sweet as the one given to the Colts by the city.

Maybe, as Kallam writes, it is the end of the old franchise game, where a franchise was always a money winner because you could always expect a group of people with more money than common sense to purchase one. Neither people nor cities have the kind of money to play that game any more. It was a game that was always played at the expense of urban communities. And if the NHL and NBA eventually face contraction, color me unconcerned.

Monarchs Watch: Day 15

Sports Business Daily (no link, paywall) says - from its excerpt on Google News - that the situation of the Sacramento Monarchs was the #1 item on the owners' agenda on Thursday. As I write this (1:30 pm on Friday) I'm hoping that this works itself out for the better - but I suspect that the conclusion the owners come to is "how can we spin this so that it doesn't reflect negatively on the W?"

Meanwhile, the Sacramento Bee is trying to determine why no one is going to see the Kings, the former "brother" team to the Monarchs in the NBA. Jason Jones gives the Monarchs as a possible reason why attendance is down:

Reason: Some fans are upset the Monarchs of the WNBA surprisingly folded last month. Not attending Kings games is a way for fans to show their displeasure.

Fact or fiction: Monarch fans are angry the team is gone. That anger only intensified when the Monarchs 2005 Championship banner, 2006 Western Conference title banner and retired jerseys for Ruthie Bolton and general manager Jerry Reynolds were removed shortly after the team folded. But the Monarchs had also seen a dip in attendance last season while finishing with the league's worst record (12-22). The Monarchs averaged 7,744 fans at Arco, below the league average of 8,039.

Hell, if the ownership disrespected me by taking the WNBA banners out of ARCO and with their reason that they folded the Monarchs to concentrate on the important team...yeah, if I were a Monarchs fan I'd be damned if I attended a Kings game, either.

I strongly suspect that December 9th gathering of former Monarchs ticket-holders at ARCO is going to be a Maloof beg-fest. Hopefully, 'Narchs fans won't fall for it.

Also note on the WNBA.com home page in the "Around the Web" section - they link to the article "Monarchs' Days Look To Be Numbered". Is the WNBA trying to send a message?

Monarchs Watch: Day 14

Counting the day that we first heard the news, it's been two weeks since the Maloofs announced suddenly - and surprisingly - that they were folding the team. This left the final fate of the Sacramento Monarchs in limbo. The hope has been - and remains - that the team can find a landing place somewhere in California .

We now have some news from Mel Greenburg of the Philadelphia Inquiry - the granddaddy of women's hoops reporting.

Sometime in the next 24-48 hours (it's 4:30 a.m. in the East) the ultimate fate of the Sacramento Monarchs may be revealed, though it could take a little longer depending on ongoing developments involving the franchise in the land of tremors.

In the most recent episode of the 2005 league champions (missing banners from the Arco Arena aside), the Maloof family had decided to jettison the WNBA sister of the Sacramento Kings to focus more on their NBA property and the WNBA announced negotiations were going on with unidentified persons to move the Monarchs to the Bay Area.

The results of those efforts should be known momentarily because the owners' meetings will be held Thursday in New York -- in fact they all broke bread together Wednesday night while Temple was having the time of its life in nearby Piscataway, N.J., producing another stunner on the Scarlet Knights in the current series that began in 2001.

If tea leaves are to be read, one can speculate that the news of the Monarchs' future may not be promising because by now if a deal was in place leaks would begin flowing in the direction of what is left of newspaper sports departments in San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, or one of the 'tweeners.

I'll bet money the WNBA owners know the answer to this question, or will find it out today. I can't imagine the owners not telling their coaches, and their coaches not telling their staff, and...you get the drift. I think we'll definitely learn something in 24-48 hours. My guess is that the news will be released on late Friday if it's the kind of news you want to bury.

Undoubtedly, the release of info on the 3rd-4th-5th of December is also a necessity because the ARCO staff have called a meeting with the Monarchs ticket holders on the 9th. The ticket holders will be either called to:

a) be thanked, and asked to renew their tix for the 2010 Monarchs season,
b) be thanked for their long-suffering patience, or
c) be thanked, and asked to purchase Kings seasons tickets, or be given some sort of Kings discount.

Let's consider "c" for a minute. Look, live and let live with the NBA. But what is the payroll of the Kings? $61 million dollars? That payroll is about 600 times the payroll of the (hopefully not former) Monarchs. To ask former Monarchs season ticket holders to support the Kings because there's some perception that the Kings need the money is adding insult to injury.

If I was working for ARCO/the Maloofs and I were asked to make such a foolish plea to Monarchs ticket holders, I'd only agree if I were surrounded by a phalanx of California State troopers.

UPDATE: Michelle Smith passes on news from an NBA source:

A Bay Area source said the deal with potential new owners has "fallen through" and there's no evidence that anyone else has stepped up to rescue the team.

This is very unhappy news, if it is true.

Monarchs Watch: Day 13 - UPDATE

New news from poster JRae over at RebKell:

so they have invited Monarchs STHs to come to a sit down with one of the ladies from the Monarchs Arco org and have an open discussion about the Monarchs on Dec 9th...im tempted to video tape this cuz it might turn into a riot LOL j/k. but still, a bit weird. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

This could be lots of things. It could be an offer for Monarchs fans to come support the new team in the San Francisco Bay . It could be where the WNBA tells the Monarchs fans, "There won't be a Monarchs anymore, stop asking." It could be where public ownership of the Monarchs is offered.... (Don't hold your breath on the last one.)

December 9th. I'll be there in spirit, at least!

Monarchs Watch: Day 13

The Sacramento Bee reports that despite the folding of the Monarchs, there are still some women's pro sports that are able to survive: the Sacramento Capitals of World Team Tennis are still active for their 25th season.

Have you ever visited a WNBA article on the web and in the comments some jerk exercises his wish fulfillment by claiming "Is the WNBA still around?" Well, when I read that article I said, "Is World Team Tennis still around?"

My comment above, however, was simple ignorance and not hate. I knew that World Team Tennis existed because I remembered there was a team called the Philadelphia Freedom in the 1970s - Elton John wrote the song of the same name in the 1970s, I believe, as a theme song for that World Team Tennis team. I also vaguely remember that Billie Jean King was involved.

In this case, I'm very happy that World Team Tennis is still around. Co-owner Lonnie Nielson comments:

"What happened to the Monarchs was tough," Nielson said. "If any Monarchs fans like watching women's sports, this is their opportunity. Jump on board." However, you'll have to wait until July 2010 for your next World Team Tennis game in Sacramento .

The other item of note is that news about the Sacramento Monarchs is no longer on the WNBA's front page (as we all know), but news about Marion Jones is. Posted is an item from the Associated Press. An interesting quote:

WNBA spokesman Ron Howard did not immediately return a phone message late Monday.

Well, WNBA...it is your website. And you've quoted the entire article. So are you saying loudly and boldly that you have no plans to say anything? A little too coy for my tastes.

Monarchs Watch: Day 12

I'm hearing rumors that the Sacramento Monarchs banners which were taken from ARCO Arena have been returned - but I have no proof of this. If anyone can provide verification - or even better, photographic evidence - that would be very cool.

One question you might have asked is "Who cares about the Monarch banners? The team is gone. No one who follows the Kings is going to care about those banners. What would be the purpose of returning them?"

Answer: so the NBA and WNBA won't find it so easy to erase the Monarchs. You know the old saying? "Out of sight, out of mind?" There are still forces out there that would like to erase the WNBA. Having the Monarchs banners remain indicates that that task will not be so easy.

Speaking of "out of sight, out of mind" - the news about Marion Jones's comeback and eventual attempt to make a WNBA team has absolutely flooded news. It's knocked news of the Monarchs off the basketball pages and put the WNBA back in the news. It's also attracted the attention of people who might not even follow the WNBA. Furthermore, my understanding is that the comeback wasn't Jones's idea. It was the idea of someone not in the WNBA - but the NBA. Jones was taken aback by the suggestion, but eventually concluded "why not"? Yes, it smacks of a publicity stunt, but if the offer is made....

...aside from knocking some fresh-faced youngster out of at least a taste of life in the WNBA, why not indeed? USA Today's "Halftime" column reports:

Anyone who covered Olympic track in 2000 knows there is no bigger diva in sports than Marion Jones. Now it will be fascinating to see the steroid cheat attempt to shrink-wrap her ego as she tries to fit into the team concept and scrape out a paycheck with San Antonio in the WNBA.

Well, a lot can change in nine years, but I don't think adults change that much. Jones turned down the WNBA and ABL for track when her basketball career ended in 1997. She turned down the Phoenix Mercury when they spent a third-round draft pick on her in 2003. You can't say that there has been absolutely no interest in Jones playing ball - the Mercury must have thought her rights were worth something. But the game is tougher now than it was in the mid-90s, and I suspect that Jones might be the fastest player on the court - but not much else.

Still, I'll watch her biography when it comes on TV, particularly where it deals with the WNBA. I might get a glimpse of Becky Hammon....

Monarchs Watch: Day 11

If you want something done right, call Mama. 'Cause Mama ain't afraid of you.

After the Monarchs championship banners went missing at Arco Arena, Ailene Voisin of the Sacramento Bee contacted someone who would give her a straight answer: Colleen Maloof, the matriarch of the Maloofs.

The mystery is, no one seems to know who did it. Bee columnist Ailene Voisin on Friday approached Colleen Maloof and asked why the banners are missing.

"I have no idea what happened," the visibly miffed matriarch told Voisin. "Why would anyone do something so stupid? I asked Gavin (Maloof) to talk to Geoff (Petrie) and find out what happened, but Geoff didn't know anything about it, either.

"But I don't care who made the decision; those banners are going back up. This is ridiculous."

End of discussion. Get those banners back up there. And don't take "I don't know" for an answer. That stuff didn't walk off by itself. (Although I like Queenie's theory of a Yolanda Griffith midnight raid.)

Monarchs Watch: Day 10

For anyone who follows the WNBA, this year has been a very "jagged" year - a year with a lot of ups and downs, more so than 2008 in my opinion. We've had to worry about the health of three different franchises - Atlanta, Detroit and Indiana - and fans held their breath to see if all, or any, would survive.

The loss of Sacramento has been very difficult. For some bizarre reason, it has been difficult for me emotionally. I don't know why - I was never really a fan of the Monarchs but I am still lamenting their loss even after a week. Detroit's relocation hasn't struck me in such a way; maybe the difference is between a slow death and a sudden lightning bolt.

Even if Sacramento resurfaces somewhere in the Bay Area, it's taught me one thing - it's not enough to be a fan of the WNBA, you almost have to be a prognosticator. The team that you were following today could be gone tomorrow. The economy has hit every major sports league, and the leagues on the margins - like the WNBA - are hit worst of all.

I sort of feel like Thomas Paine writing about "the times that try fans souls" - and the tough times aren't over just yet. Maybe we should imagine Paine himself speaking to us:

By preserverance and fortitude, we have the prospect of a glorious future for the WNBA; by cowardice and submission, the sad choice of a variety of evils - a ravaged women's basketball fandom - an assault on Title IX itself - no women's basketball team will be able to call itself safe, and a general hopelessness will descend -- our hopes will be pushed back with the argument that if the WNBA doesn't deserve to survive, then why should whatever team of female players have rights to an arena, or to money, or to whatever the men's teams might desire of their resources if the men's teams can claim greater love and admiration from a reactionary media? Young girls will have no hope of making a career in basketball; the only thing they will look forward to is retirement or to exile to a foreign country to ply their trade. Look on this picture, and weep over it! and if there yet remains one thoughtless wretch who doubts these words, then let that one suffer this fate, unlamented.

Monarchs Watch: Day 9

An interesting little blurb from the Sacramento Bee:

WNBA fans attending games at Arco Arena will notice something different in the rafters. The banners honoring the 2005 WNBA championship team and retired jerseys of Ruthie Bolton and former general manager Jerry Reynolds are no longer there.

It was announced last week that the Monarchs had ceased operations as Kings ownership decided to focus on the NBA team. The WNBA hopes to find new ownership for the team in the Bay Area.

Well, I hope that anyone reading this blog can forgive me for not supporting the Kings and hoping they go 0-82. Then again, I don't watch the NBA anyway so I don't think the Sacramento Kings are going to notice my missing patronage.

This reminds me of the end of the Charlotte Sting in 2006. The Sting retired Andrea Stinson's number - #32 - and there was a banner at what was then called Charlotte Bobcats Arena. This banner - from what I understand - is no longer there. Furthermore, I can't find out an answer from anyone what happened to it. Moved to the basement? Thrown in the trash? I've written the arena, but I've never gotten an answer to that question. If anyone knows whatever happened to that banner, please write.

Monarchs Watch: Day 8

"When Black Friday comes
I'll stand down by the door
And catch the grey men when they
Dive from the fourteenth floor"

--Steely Dan, "Black Friday"

If you're not an American reader, today is Black Friday - the day after Thanksgiving. The term was coined sometimes before the mid-1960s by the Philadelphia Police Department most likely. It was a tough day for a policeman, since everyone would be shopping on that day looking for a Christmas bargain.

There is no Monarchs news anywhere. Not in Google News, and not from the WNBA itself. Maybe President Orender will begin in earnest on Monday to start shopping the team around.

So for those of you philanthropists out there, let me suggest the purchase of a WNBA team, slightly used. The team is called the "Sacramento Monarchs" but it could be a part of your home city wherever you live. It probably brings in about $5 million a year but probably costs about $6.5 million a year to operate, so the price tag is a net deficit of about $1.5 to $2 million a year. It's initial purchase value is $10 milllion, which is payable in installments.

It's pretty large to put under a tree, but trust me, I don't think the fans will mind if it doesn't come gift-wrapped.

Monarchs Watch: Day 7

While President Donna Orender of the WNBA posts her Much to be Thankful For which can be linked from the WNBA front page, the link which states that the WNBA is trying to find a home for the Monarchs has finally disappeared. This doesn't mean that the WNBA isn't actively looking for a new owner for the Monarchs - and they're not going to be looking during the Holidays - but if the WNBA is planning to kill the Monarchs this is the right time to end any Monarchs talk, namely when everyone is looking at a turkey leg. (Or imitation tofurkery leg.)

nickv1025 over at Rebkell suggested that the WNBA's strategy is to quietly let the Monarchs die, but to offer a carrot with the stick. Namely, to state that they would increase the roster sizes of each team from 11 to 12, with the 12th player remaining inactive if the other 11 players are healthy - or likewise, to make it more simple for an injured player to stay on the roster. This also makes it more likely that the Monarchs players could find a safe landing spot.

Mechelle Voepel over at her blog page states:

All business owners have to think in business terms if they want to be successful. And yet it never fails to amaze me how so many people who reach power through successful businesses can sometimes fall so far short of the responsible way to deal with other people, particularly their employees.

Certainly, the Maloofs had the right to pull out of the WNBA if they felt it was financially too burdensome for them. But they could have said proper farewells to the players and those who worked for the Monarchs organization. They could have faced the music in that way.

I'm in complete agreement. It wasn't that the Maloofs dropped the Monarchs, it's the way that it was handled. The fomer Monarchs org didn't even have the common decency to inform their players individually - they were left to find out about it from other sources or to be surprised by the initial announcement.

Of course, I don't expect any news over the Thanksgiving holiday - but this is the first day in the national press since last Friday's announcement that there was no mention of the Monarchs at all, not even in an opinion article. Whether there will be an effort to save the Monarchs, or whether everyone will say "You know what? After the Shock, the Dream, and the Fever being in peril this year, we're just too tired to care anymore." And that would be a shame, particularly on Thanksgiving.

Monarchs Watch: Day 6

The only good news is that Sacramento 's newspapers are expressing their pain at losing the Monarchs and keeping the Monarchs demise on the table, as it were. (If the Dream were folded, you'd never get an editorial out of the AJC - you might get a brief article or an "I told you so" opinion piece that the AJC runs instead of news.) Ailene Voisin writes that "The Monarchs demise leaves bitterness, memories" and an editorial at the Sacramento Bee states Fallen Monarchs Won't Be Forgotten".

According to the WNBA's front page, the W is still involved with talks. I wonder if that blurb will quietly disappear over the Thanksgiving holiday?

In the meantime, I was thinking about something that might have been able to help the Monarchs but which is completely taboo in sports. This is the idea of public ownership.

A better term would be public financing. As they say, "the devil is in the details". What this would mean is that instead of the Sacramento Monarchs having one owner, they would have had several owners. Since the most famous example of public ownership is the Green Bay Packers, let's use the Packers model as a hypothetical attempt to save the Monarchs.

Assume that the Monarchs went to the public ownership model of the Packers. Monarchs fans would have been given the chance to purchase "Sacramento Monarchs Stock". Anyone who has been charged with fraud in litigation, who has been convicted of a felony or who participates in sports gambling would probably be denied purchase rights. The shares would sold to the general public at some named price: the price doesn't matter because you could probably by as much stock as you wanted, up to some predetermined limit, say, you would not be allowed to hold more than 25 percent of all available shares.

Before you think of retiring by shoving the stock in your mattress, the stock would have some heavy restrictions. The stock would state, in bold enough letters, that it would never pay dividends. Any profits earned from the operation of "Sacramento Monarchs LLC" would be invested back into the company. Furthermore, the stock could not be transferred to other people and could be cashed in only under very specific circumstances. The papers would read that the stock is an extremely poor investment and should be considered a vanity purchase only, suitable for framing but not much else - however, it does make you a shareholder and grants you specific voting rights.

The shareholders would then elect seven members of the board of the directors: a president and six other officers, with the president the only officer receiving a salary, serving in the role that the owner formerly served. The other six officers serve in an unpaid advisory capacity. (Whether any such person wanted to serve the club in a non-salaried role, would be up to the board - for example, an officer could be the head of a Sacramento accounting firm, which might volunteer accounting services to the club.) If the fans want, diversity clauses could be enforced, namely that the officers must represent a cross section of age, gender, race, religion and sexual orientation of fans in the Sacramento area.

The roles of the shareholders would be limited to electing the board of directors and, like the Packers, probably meeting en masse once a year at ARCO to decide on specific matters as directed by the board. (The joy of such shareholder meetings is that shareholders have the right to speak at public meetings, even if they own only one share of stock.) The general rule of stock ownership is, "one share, one vote", meaning that if you had 250 shares of stock and your pal had 5 shares, you would have 250 votes compared to her five votes. The real power would rest in a clause that stated that if the shareholders decided to sell the club, the money would go to some local charity and not to the WNBA.

The latter clause would ensure that the club would, in effect, never be sold.

"Okay. But WNBA clubs don't turn a profit, in general. What will the stockholders do when the club runs out of money?" Either more shares of stock will have to be sold to raise enough money to run the club for another year, or the company will have to be dissolved or the club sold.

Could such a model actually *work* in the WNBA? You might not be able to find one person willing to lose the $1.5 million-$2 million a year which is the estimated net loss of running a WNBA club. However, you might be able to find 2000 people in Sacramento willing to spend $1,000 a year to keep the club alive. You might not be able to find one big philanthropist that will own the club - but you might find 2,000 little philanthropists that will. I think the odds of that are pretty high, speaking frankly.

It is certainly a model worth attempting. Why not give public ownership an opportunity, when it seems to be working elsewhere in the world? It worked for the Packers when the NFL was as weak as the WNBA (the Packers have made four such offerings of stock). It has worked for AAA baseball, it works for soccer teams in Europe . Really, what does the WNBA have to lose by trying this?

The primary objection will be "what if the shareholders can't raise the capital?" Well then, I guess we know that a team can't survive in Sacramento. But...what if they can raise the capital?

Public ownership - or public financing - is something the sports world doesn't want to talk about. It is so reluctant to talk about it that finding the actual operating details of financing schemes is almost impossible to find on the internet. The only mention of how models are working or could work are hidden in academic and legal journals, all behind pay-walls. It's as if the entire matter has been buried and all discussion about such schemes fall into two categories - the category of "weird historical aberration" and the category of "this thing that can never work".

The big three leagues - the NFL, the NBA and Major League Baseball - have explicitly banned public financing in their operating laws. The only exception is Green Bay, and Green Bay was grandfathered in to the NFL by-laws. There will never be another system like the Green Bay system in the NFL, not if the NFL has anything to say about it.

Why do sports teams not wish to pursue public financing? There are many reasons. First, the league doesn't like it. Companies that are not private businesses but owned by several individuals have to open their books - at some level, the public has to know what is going on behind the curtain. The WNBA is probably one of the most conservative leagues around, in terms of sharing virtually zero information with its fanbase. Most likely, the WNBA doesn't want anyone to know what goes on financially, not even at the franchise level.

Second, WNBA franchises aren't worth much now - but they might be worth something someday. If/when WNBA franchises have value, like anything that has value, the withdrawal of that value also means something. The hope that WNBA owners have is that ten, twenty, maybe fifty years from now they, too, can shake down cities for public money for facility improvement by threatening relocation. The WNBA would rather not have any surviving public financing models around if that day ever comes.

Why? Because of the third reason - it is very likely that a publicly-owned Monarchs team is going to be very parsimonious. There might be no halftime dancers, no smoke machine, no nothing - just basketball. (They might make players bring their own H20 to games.) The WNBA would like to say to prospective owners and to cities "it costs X to operate a team". A publicly owned Monarchs team might show that it only costs 25 percent of X. Furthermore, if Sacramento can run the Monarchs on the cheap, it would be much harder for future owners to plead poverty with the managers of their arenas - which are usually publicly owned.

Fourth, it smacks of the eeeeeeeeeevil socialism! No, seriously. A capitalist society casts a suspicious eye toward community-operated ventures. Because if a community-owned Monarchs can succeed but a privately-owned (team X) fails, then it becomes an indictment of private ownership. Owners are more sensitive about that than you think. Which leads to Reason 4a - a community-operated Monarchs would set a "bad example" for the other more major leagues.

(* * *)

So here's the point: it seems that the WNBA would like to save the Monarchs - but not if it means public financing. They won't even consider public financing. They won't even take the concept seriously. It's not even on the table.

For all I know, the WNBA might not even be an independent entity. Theoretically the WNBA exists apart from the NBA, but I don't know what the truth is. Does the NBA "own" the WNBA in any sense? Is the WNBA an official NBA side project? What is the actual truth?

Furthermore, the NBA owners that currently own WNBA teams - Indiana, Phoenix , New York , Minnesota , Washington, and maybe "part" of Tulsa - will never allow a community based model for the WNBA. Which means that the threat of a publicly financed team is almost dead in the cradle because the WNBA Board of Directors will never approve it.

Yes, the WNBA will be encouraged to find alternate sources of revenue, alternate ways of financing, new and bigger philanthropists, and will even be allowed to put company names on jerseys. But community financing? You'll never see that happen. They'll close the WNBA down before it gets to that.

Monarchs Watch: Day 5

By now, WNBA fans have known about the folding of the Sacramento franchise for about five days. News of the franchise's demise from the reactionary sports media has dwindled to nothing as something else has grabbed their attention - I suppose Shaquille O'Neal has released another rap album or something.

In the meantime, we haven't heard anything from the WNBA, but the square "WNBA in Talks to Move Monarchs to Bay Area" still resides proudly on the splash page at WNBA.com. Either the WNBA are bad liars, or the talks are still taking place.

This begs the question, "What exactly is the Bay Area?" The Bay Area, better known as the San Francisco Bay Area, is a nine-county area serving as the home of about seven million California residents. The area includes San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose. San Jose was formerly the home of the San Jose Lasers of the American Basketball League.

So could we see the Monarchs become the San Jose Lasers/Monarchs? Aside from the NHL's San Jose Sharks, I don't think that any other sports team - major or minor - uses the San Jose Arena, which is now called the HP Pavilion at San Jose. I'm sure that San Jose would be glad to have the business over the summer - you can't have a concert every day of the week.

The problems are two-fold. The first one is finding a purchaser in San Jose, which would really be the same problem in any city for any sports franchise in any sport anywhere. The second one is trying to determine if the WNBA could survive in San Jose. During the tenure of the Lasers in San Jose, the average attendance for the team was listed at 3,181 for the first season, 4,773 for the second season and 4,447 over the truncated third season. This attendance probably just includes tickets sold/distributed and not bodies in seats. And this was at the peak of interest in women's pro basketball in the late 1990s.

I would be very surprised to see a WNBA team land in San Jose. However, it's not out of the question.

Monarchs Watch: Day 4

Right now, both Monarchs fans and WNBA fans are waiting for some rumbling somewhere - anywhere - in the Bay Area or from the WNBA that the Monarchs will be relocated/find an owner.

The first problem is that there is a deadline of sorts. The 2010 schedule has to be finalized and teams need to know if they're going to be playing the Monarchs or not. Flight and hotel arrangements have to be prepared. If there's a dispersal draft, teams need to know before they start talking seriously to the available free agents.

Aside from snide commentary: no news. Not even any rumors. Supposedly, President Donna Orender is hard at work, but one problem is the holiday season. You can bet in many locations this is an abbreviated and non-attentive week. What are the chances of finding any major philanthropist or CEO in his or her office during Thanksgiving week?

In the meantime, hope springs eternal that the 'Narchs can find a landing spot somewhere in the Bay Area. I don't think the arena is all that important. What is important is an owner who can handle the initial losses. We don't need another Hilton Koch situation.