Minor League, major dreams

The Maryland Nighthawks deal with life in the unpredictable world of minor-league basketball

The players on the Maryland Nighthawks know well the uncertainties of being a minor-leaguer, even in the newly formed Premier Basketball League.

A season of change

When Tom Doyle bought the Nighthawks in 2005 he brought them back from the brink of folding. Playing at the Capital Sports Complex in District Heights on a side court smaller than a high school gym, the team was losing money.

Doyle, a Rockville attorney, moved the Nighthawks to Montgomery County and was able to strengthen the team’s shaky finances.

But the same could not be said for other teams in the American Basketball Association, where the Nighthawks played, from their inception in the 2004-05 season through last year. As the league swelled to more than 50 teams across the country, some franchises began to feel the financial crunch of playing a 35-game schedule over five months and sometimes traveling to far-off destinations.

Gyms that held 800 people, as the Nighthawks home floor did, could not alone generate the $350,000 to $400,000 budget Doyle estimates a minor-league team needed to sustain itself. So by the end of Maryland’s third year in the league last season, 16 franchises in the ABA could not meet their payroll expenses, missed games or folded. Though he did not comment specifically on the income the Nighthawks generated in each of the last three seasons in the ABA, Doyle realized that if he did not want his team to become a part of that trend, the Nighthawks needed to change.

‘‘I don’t think that people have analyzed minor-league sports properly,” he said. ‘‘Traditional revenue streams [attendance, concessions, etc ...] will always be a failure. You just don’t bring in that many people to the games. To generate revenue, you have to take a non-traditional look at the product.”

So, along with Sev Hrywnak, owner of the 2006 ABA champion Rochester (N.Y.) RazorSharks, Doyle formed the 10-team Premier Basketball League last April. The league started operations in May, held tryout camps in the summer and kicked off its inaugural season earlier this month. The Nighthawks have already drawn more than 1,000 fans to each of its two home games so far this season.

Stabilizing the playing field

Though the Nighthawks have yet to win in the new league — Saturday’s loss to the Wilmington (N.C.) Sea Dawgs dropped the Nighthawks to 0-5 on the season — Doyle, who is the league’s Chief Executive Officer, is more optimistic about his franchise than in seasons past.

‘‘From the start, the first goal was always the stability of the league,” Doyle said. ‘‘People said with all the other minor leagues out there, and a short season, we’d have difficulty getting players, but that isn’t true.

‘‘The ABA is down to 16 teams this season,” he said. ‘‘The USBL [United States Basketball League] has suspended operations, and the NBA Development League’s model is not good. The player’s know that there aren’t too many jobs out there.”

But the more professional atmosphere of the PBL is still far from the NBA. There are no players unions in minor-league basketball, and with a salary cap of $130,000 for the entire team, the contracts in the PBL favor management. None of the Nighthawks contracts are guaranteed.

‘‘This is a league started by the owners,” Doyle said. ‘‘Teams are encouraged not to go overboard [with salaries]. There are no [individual] minimums or maximums that we can pay our players because we want to remain viable as a minor league. If we can do that, then the value of our franchises becomes something.”

The Nighthawks players are on different pay scales, and if they do not perform, they can be released at any time during the season. Yet, for many of these players, the dream of the NBA makes playing under such tenuous conditions worth the risk. Some do make it.

Brian Chase, a former Virginia Tech guard and member of the Nighthawks in 2004-05, signed a two-year contact with the Miami Heat in September worth approximately $1.4 million.

‘‘Semi-pro [basketball] is part-time,” said Nighthawks guard Johan Matos, who played at Magruder High School before graduating in 1999 and heading to Montgomery College-Rockville, where he played from 2001-03. ‘‘You can be good one game, you could be bad one game and then you’re out of there. You work hard just to play for the next week. Every night is a tryout.

‘‘You have to be at practice, on time. You have to be at the games, on time,” Matos added. ‘‘There is no guarantee that I am going to be here next week, so I have to perform. There’s a lot of pressure, but you have to push yourself. This experience will make me sharper wherever else I go.”

Some players in the PBL, like Nighthawks guard Tamir Goodman, a former Baltimore Prep legend who was tagged with the nickname ‘‘the Jewish Jordan,” are considered ‘‘franchise players” and are not subject to the $130,000 salary cap. In addition, they can supplement their income from the league with promotional and sponsorship agreements.

For the other Nighthawks, though, they have to maintain day jobs. Kevin Robinson, the team’s 7-foot center since 2005, works as an audio-visual consultant at the Baltimore Convention Center. Forward Lonnie Harrell has started his own business, a personal concierge service. Matos works with students through the Bar-T youth enrichment program at Laytonsville Elementary School, and then hustles south to District Heights to make it for practice. The long days and nights take a toll on them all.

‘‘I’m not where I want to be but I’m going to get there,” said Matos, 25. ‘‘I wish this was permanent, but it’s not, so I’m trying to do the best I can. I love working with kids, and I love basketball, so this is worth it.”

A more creative approach

Doyle and the rest of the PBL, which named former NBA player and current TV and radio analyst Kenny Smith as its commissioner, have grander plans to generate a profit. Rather than rely on limited local partnerships, the Nighthawks and the PBL have forged a global relationship with the Thai Basketball Association to help develop Thailand’s burgeoning basketball talent.

On the eve of the start of the season, the Nighthawks signed Ratdech Kruatiwa, also known as ‘‘J.O.”, a member of the Thai national team. According the Doyle, he is the first Thai national to play professional basketball in the United States, and his signing opens a new market to the PBL.

‘‘The game of basketball is universal, and our product is good,” Doyle said. ‘‘My market is not just the D.C. area. It is Thailand, it is Indonesia. We are going to set up online pay-per-view, so that J.O.’s fans in Thailand can watch him play.”

In addition, Doyle hopes the PBL will be able to tap into the growing online gaming community, devising an interactive, online virtual video game that participants from around the world can log on to and play. Advertisers can buy space in the virtual arena. That new revenue might make the Nighthawks’ stay in the PBL more lasting than it could have been in the ABA.

‘‘We’re really cutting away at tradition,” Doyle said. ‘‘The advertising streams for the video game can be lucrative. We’re trying to find new ways for teams in our league to make money.”

That’s a version of success for the PBL’s owners, who are looking to the long term to generate crowds and profits that will sustain the new league. Success for the players is more immediate. It is the game-to-game business of making a name for themselves.

Harrell, 35, who grew up in Washington and played for two seasons at Georgetown University before playing his final two college seasons at Northeastern (Mass.) University has been close to the NBA, playing in a training camp with the Milwaukee Bucks.

That stint led to a season with the Huntsville (Ala.) Flight of the NBADL, until the team folded in May 2005. Then came jaunts in the Continental Basketball Association, the USBL and the ABA, where he played for franchises in Boston and Tampa. Harrell is also known on the street-ball circuit, playing with the AND 1 team under the nickname ‘‘The Prime Objective.”

‘‘I’ve played in every minor league possible,” Harrell said. ‘‘This is nothing new to me. These are stepping stones and leagues that help guys keep that professional atmosphere going.”