Globetrotters’ Chief Credited With Assist As Team Rebounds

The Harlem Globetrotters may win every game they play, but that doesn’t mean they always draw crowds.

Only a couple of years ago, many in the entertainment business were saying the Globetrotters had lost the following they had in the 1950s and 1960s, that without such well-known players as Marques Haynes, Goose Tatum, Meadowlark Lemon and Curly Neal, their “Sweet Georgia Brown” theme music was sounding off-key.

Nevertheless, show promoters say, International Broadcasting Corp. scored with its purchase of the Sherman Oaks-based Globetrotters last month. The small Minneapolis media firm paid $30 million in cash and stock for them and the Ice Capades touring show, in a deal announced last March and completed Dec. 18.

Team and arena executives say the Globetrotters are on the road to an economic rebound. Last February, for the first time in years, the Globetrotters sold out Madison Square Garden, filling 19,000 seats at an average ticket price of $11.

In Inglewood last Sunday, the Globetrotters attracted 22,087 to two shows at the Forum.

Promoters attribute the team’s better box-office performance in large measure to Earl L. Duryea, who became president of the team in February, 1985. Duryea was responsible for recruiting better players to improve the game, and for cutting back on pranks and jokes, they say.

“Sure, they still do the fun stuff, but they don’t want to be a clown act anymore,” said John Black, a spokesman for the Forum.

“He’s made it a faster-paced, better performance,” said Robert Goldwater, vice president for marketing at Madison Square Garden.

Duryea says it has been a conscious effort. “We were playing good basketball, but not the great basketball we were known for in the past,” Duryea said. “The comedy wasn’t working well because the basketball wasn’t valid.”

In addition to making the basketball more serious, Duryea had some key players put on body microphones, so fans “in the cheaper seats could hear what was going on too.”

The team has also widened its audience by introducing two women to the team, former Olympian Lynette Woodard, who joined last January, and Cal State Long Beach star Jackie White, who played her first game as a Globetrotter at Freedom Hall in Louisville on Dec. 26.

International Broadcasting President Thomas K. Scallen has said he intends to retain Duryea and the staff of 12 administrators who work in a small office in Sherman Oaks.

“The new owners seem very enthusiastic about the Globetrotters,” Goldwater said. “They’ve made a substantial commitment, financially and emotionally, to a treasured family entertainment attraction.”

The headquarters may move to Hollywood this summer, to share space with the Ice Capades, the company said. The Globetrotters’ former owner, Metromedia of Secaucus, N.J., moved the team from Chicago to the San Fernando Valley in 1976, when it bought the team for $11 million in cash.

Metromedia sold the Globetrotters and Ice Capades as part of a dumping spree that included the sale of seven television stations in 1985 for $2 billion, and the sale of nine billboard operations for $710 million.

The Globetrotters generate annual revenue of approximately $10 million, mostly from ticket sales, and the Ice Capades brings in about $30 million a year. International Broadcasting will not reveal profit figures for either group.

Duryea says he wants to improve the company’s stability by depending less on ticket sales and more on television and licensing deals. Arrangements with promoters vary. Smaller arenas, such as the Pershing Municipal Auditorium in Lincoln, Neb., rent space to the Globetrotters for a flat fee, and let the team take care of collecting receipts.

“It’s easier for us when they promote themselves,” said Douglas Kuhnel, manager of the auditorium, where a show about a year ago grossed $40,000.

Larger arenas, such as the Forum and Madison Square Garden, enter into partnership deals with the Globetrotters, then split the proceeds.

Aside from its latest acquisitions, International Broadcasting owns a Texas television station and produces some of its own programming. Before buying the teams, the company had sales of about $5 million a year.

Scallen was once a producer of several touring ice-skating shows and circuses. The deal with Metromedia marked his return to live family entertainment, and his comeback from difficulties that culminated in a nine-month prison term in Canada on charges of securities fraud. He maintained his innocence throughout and received a full pardon from the Canadian government in 1982.

Duryea will not release average salary figures, although it has long been a touchy point with the players that the Globetrotters have consistently taken home far less than than players in the National Basketball Assn. Two years ago, the Globetrotters were making an average salary of $80,000 a player, while the NBA average was about three times that.

Nevertheless, two brand-new buses replete with televisions and videocassette recorders transport 26 players, coaches and referees around the country. Included on the bus are the Washington Generals--the straight men to the Globetrotters--who have not won a game since 1971.

Despite their name, the Globetrotters were never based in Harlem. They were started in Chicago in 1927 by promoter Abe Saperstein, who thought the Harlem label would help identify his team as all black.

At first, the Globetrotters played against the best basketball teams available. But in the 1940s, they added to their shows a variety of trick shots, hoaxes, jokes and patter, including the fancy-passing warm-up drill to the tune of “Sweet Georgia Brown” that has become their trademark.

The team has lived up to its name by performing throughout the United States and in 101 countries, including at an exhibition in 1952 at Castel Gandolfo, Italy, before Pope Pius XII.