More NBA Teams on Horizon, but the Players Will Be Women

There are growing indications in women’s basketball circles that the NBA may launch a spring women’s league in 1997.

NBA people either tap-dance around the issue or respond with “no comment” when asked about it, but women’s college basketball people, organizers of another pro league and one prominent player agent are saying the NBA is drawing up a plan for a 12- to 16-team women’s league.

NBA Commissioner David Stern, sources say, may make an official announcement at next month’s NBA All-Star game.

Bruce Levy, a New York agent, represents 71 U.S. women playing professionally in 18 countries.

“It’s obvious to me the NBA is dead serious about it. . . . They’re spending money on it, and their key people are looking at a women’s league,” he said.

“At this point I’d be shocked if there isn’t an NBA women’s league in 1997 or ’98.”

Louisiana Tech Coach Leon Barmore said the NBA is captivated by the unbeaten U.S. national women’s team, of which the NBA is already a principal sponsor.

“That national team is a great team, it’s going to be a hot story at the Atlanta Olympics, the NBA knows this, and I’m sure they’d like to use some of that momentum,” he said.

“There are other groups out there talking about a women’s league but really, in a perfect world, the NBA does it. That’s instant credibility. The NBA would make it work.”

Interviews with sources familiar with the project describe the key elements this way:

--An April-through-August league is being discussed, with teams in 12 to 16 selected NBA cities. A spring format would enable U.S. players to continue playing in Europe’s fall leagues.

--The earliest start date would be April 1997. While the NBA would have its name all over the enterprise, it might be run in its first season by someone else--Nike is said to be a possibility--with the NBA retaining an option to take it over in a second season.

Even without the NBA, women’s pro basketball figured to return to the United States next year for the first time since the last pro league failed a dozen years ago.

Levy said he knows of seven groups interested in forming women’s pro leagues.

Last Sept. 26, a Palo Alto-based group led by Silicon Valley executive Steve Hams and calling itself the American Basketball League signed nine members of the women’s national team to agreements to play in its October-February league, beginning later this year.

“We knew when we started there was a 900-pound gorilla just down the street,” said co-founder Gary Cavalli recently, of emerging reports of NBA activity.

Cavalli, a former Stanford associate athletic director, said ABL negotiations for a TV contract slowed perceptibly when rumors of sudden NBA interest in a women’s league surfaced in October.

Cavalli also said an NBA lawyer wrote “a cease and desist letter” to the ABL, complaining that the woman figure in the ABL logo looked too much like Jerry West, who is portrayed in the NBA logo.

“As far as we know, Jerry West never wore a ponytail,” Cavalli said. The logo was changed, he added.

The NBA, Cavalli said, is already sounding out the same sponsors the ABL covets.

Another source said the NBA and Nike are in “intense” negotiations over an arrangement where Nike would run the league in its first season.

Another possible first-season operator: The Texas-based Women’s Basketball Assn. The league has a TV contract with Liberty Sports, which owns the Prime Sports regional cable networks.

Cavalli: “A potential major sponsor of ours tells us the NBA is talking about a spring season, leading into its men’s season.”

Donna Lopiano, executive director of the Women’s Sports Foundation, has also heard the rumors.

“I think the NBA sees some irresistible financial efficiencies here,” she said.

“They already have marketing, merchandising and PR staffs in place, and they have arenas, many of which are dark in the spring.”

Attendance for women’s college basketball has nearly tripled since 1986. Fifteen schools averaged at least 4,500 paid per game last season. The leaders were Tennessee and Texas, both of whom averaged more than 8,000 per game.

Last week, Louisiana Tech and Tennessee drew 11,400 in Knoxville. This year’s Final Four tournament at Charlotte, N.C., sold out a year in advance.

Last year’s Connecticut-Tennessee NCAA women’s championship game drew a respectable 5.7 TV rating and a 15 audience share. By comparison, the UCLA-Arkansas men’s title game had a 19.3 rating and a 30 share.

Several NBA sources said the NBA’s Board of Governors will vote on a women’s proposal at its next meeting, at the league’s Feb. 11 All-Star game at San Antonio, and that Stern was trying to line up unanimous support for the proposal.

Until then, it’s “no comment.”

When asked if Laker owner Jerry Buss would comment about the rumored NBA women’s league, a Laker spokesman said: “Jerry has no comment about that. He’ll talk to you after the All-Star game.”