One of the owners of the St. John’s Edge says his team will be ready to open its fourth season a couple of months from now when the National Basketball League of Canada returns to play a 10th year beginning in late December.
And waiting in the wings, apparently, is a new outfit — TBL, or The Basketball League (not sure if a high-priced marketing firm was awarded a hefty contract to come up with that handle) — which announced this week it’s ready to expand into St. John’s.
Even if there’s already a team in another pro league currently calling Mile One Centre home.
Then there’s the ECHL, which brings with it some sanity, not to mention structure, to counter the uncertainty and oftentimes confusion surrounding the basketball situation.
The Newfoundland Growlers are tentatively scheduled to open their 2020-21 ECHL season on Jan. 15.
The league recently announced it will start the new hockey campaign on Dec. 11 under a split-season format.
The point, however, is this: teams like the St. John’s Edge and Newfoundland Growlers rely on tickets sold, and hot dogs and soft drinks pedaled to make money. There certainly are no TV deals.
Under those guidelines, 13 teams will begin a 72-game season on Dec. 11. The remaining 12, including Newfoundland, start Jan. 15.
Here’s a hunch. How about this? How about there’s nothing at Mile One this winter of 2021, which doesn’t figure to escape another round of COVID-19?
A story in the New York Daily News this week reported every Major League Baseball team this season lost a minimum of $100 million, with some of the larger market teams between $175-$200 million.
According to respected baseball writer Bill Madden, the idea of huge national TV contracts bailing out teams this past season is a, “misconception.
“The national TV, radio and licensing monies all go into the MLB Central fund from which approximately $65-70 million per club is doled out at the end of the year. But this year that number is estimated to be about $50 million per club. The fact is, local revenues — attendance, TV and radio, concessions, merchandising — account for 80 per cent of the clubs' revenues, and they were essentially non-existent this year.”
Nobody is comparing Major League Baseball to minor pro basketball and hockey.
The point, however, is this: teams like the St. John’s Edge and Newfoundland Growlers rely on tickets sold, and hot dogs and soft drinks pedaled to make money.
There certainly are no TV deals.
Empty arenas make for empty pockets.
If social distancing remains in place this winter, how can the Edge and Growlers be expected to make money if half the seats at Mile One Centre cannot be sold (the Growlers, at least, have something going for them in that a lot of player salaries are paid by the Toronto Maple Leafs).
In the case of the Growlers, there’s the situation surrounding border crossings, and the required 14-day quarantines when entering Canada.
As for the NBL Canada, a league that’s teetering the best of times (word is pandemic or no pandemic, long-time NBL staple Halifax was not 100 per cent all in on a return to the league this season), would it be so troublesome to shut it down for a year, re-group and come up with a plan to return in 2021-22?
Rather than fruitlessly attempt to slip and shift its way through near-impossible pandemic circumstances?
Could the Growlers, if the ECHL proceeds ahead with 2020-21 plans, still play, albeit in a different venue?
In other words, is there anything in the rule book which would prohibit the Growlers from playing in an available arena in the United States for the time being?
If not, is there enough time to put together a temporary, but nonetheless massive, relocation plan?
Who knows.
With this whole pandemic thing, isn’t that the common theme?
Who the heck knows?
This much we can take to the bank, however.
If the Growlers do relocate, and Dean MacDonald is unsuccessful in his attempt to purchase Mile One, say adios to hockey returning to the building.
Nobody asked me, but …
The St. John’s Edge have zero presence in St. John’s. No office. No phone line. Not sure if there’s a fax kicking around somewhere… How is it the Newfoundland and Labrador English School District has given the approval to resume high school rugby (and good for Bas Crosbie and that sport), yet basketball remains in limbo? How is it this makes sense? There is not a sport out there, it should go without saying, with more physical contact than rugby … The Edge will be looking for a new assistant coach if there’s a 2020-21 season. Assistant Jeff Morrison of P.E.I., Tweeted Edge head coach Steve Marcus, left the team to join Joe Salerno with the Syrian national squad. Salerno was head coach of the NBL’s Moncton Magic …
Robin Short is The Telegram’s Sports Editor. He can be reached by email [email protected] Follow him on Twitter @TelyRobinShort
