ABL Knows How to Court Top Players

Geno Auriemma, the women’s basketball coach at the University of Connecticut and an NBC commentator on WNBA games last summer, was exaggerating to make a point.

“I get tired of hearing ABL people say their league is better than the WNBA,” he said.

“How would anyone know that? No one saw any of their games last season.”

The jab illustrated only one difference in the two leagues--their respective TV deals. But there are other major differences as well.

The WNBA is Fortune 500 basketball, built from the top down.

The ABL is grass-roots basketball, built from the bottom up. It’s run by parents of basketball-playing daughters, people who know all about little girls and skinned knees, basketball fund raisers, picnic raffles, playground basketball and summer camps.

The WNBA is Madison Square Garden, the Forum and Delta Center.

The ABL is Battelle Hall in Columbus, Morehouse College Arena in Atlanta and the Events Center at San Jose State.

Before the WNBA had played a single game last summer, it had banked more than $20 million from corporate sponsors.

At ABL practices, players’ names are written on their paper water cups with felt-tipped pens. And when the ABL held its first tryout in Atlanta in May 1996, it had to charge each player $200 to cover expenses.

The ABL is Palo Alto. The WNBA is New York.

The ABL is Motel 6. The WNBA is the Ritz-Carlton, the Hyatt Regency.

A mismatch? It sure looks that way.

Yet here we go again with the ABL. And for Season 2, the league has put a team in Long Beach State’s Pyramid, the StingRays, who open there Friday night against the San Jose Lasers.

For the off-Broadway league with the big paychecks, it all started on a September morning in 1995, when reporters were called to a press conference at a downtown San Jose hotel. There sat nine members of the U.S. women’s national team, wearing ABL T-shirts. All had signed letters of intent to play in the league.

The shock wave was felt most sharply in NBA Commissioner David Stern’s New York office. After all, the NBA was a major sponsor of the national team.

So Stern, who had been “looking at” the idea of a women’s league since 1993, revved up the pace.

And here we are, with the glitz and glamour league still leading the ABL in everything but marquee player signings.

A check of every Kodak All-American team since 1975 shows 31 in the ABL, 24 in the WNBA. And of 13 premier college seniors up for grabs last season, the ABL signed 10.

Pretty simple reason for this. The ABL’s top salary is $150,000--$200,000 in some cases, with incentives--compared with $50,000 in the WNBA.

Odd, then, that the WNBA, so wizardly in high finance and corporate marketing, could come up so short at third grade arithmetic.

Women’s Basketball Notes

Season and single-game Long Beach StingRay tickets are on sale at the team’s Long Beach World Trade Center offices, the Pyramid box office and through Ticketmaster. The range: $110 for family section seats to $880 courtside. Singles: $7 to $50. . . . San Jose brings three big-time rookies to Long Beach Friday, 6-foot-5 Old Dominion center Clarisse Machanguana, 6-3 Notre Dame forward Katryna Gaither and 5-6 Georgia guard Kedra Holland-Corn.

No one’s talking buyout or merger yet, but the first bit of commerce between the WNBA and the ABL might involve Jerry Buss, owner of the Lakers and Sparks. According to Johnny Buss, president of the Sparks and Jerry’s son, the senior Buss is intrigued by the idea of renting the Forum to the StingRays, after his Lakers move into the proposed new downtown Los Angeles arena. Commented ABL chief Gary Cavalli, “We’re committed to Long Beach and the Pyramid. But I’d have a cup of coffee with [Buss] about it.”

Speaking of the Sparks, the signing of interim Coach Julie Rousseau to a contract won’t occur as quickly as was figured. The club offered her a contract, which she deemed inadequate. A long negotiation is anticipated. . . . Jim Weyermann, general manager of the Seattle Reign, will also serve as ABL director of team operations this season, Cavalli said. Weyermann will become a league vice president next season.

About 800 watched the StingRays’ final public scrimmage Saturday at Long Beach City College. Venus Lacy had permission to skip the workout, Coach Maura McHugh said. . . . There were to have been 10 ABL teams this season, not nine. But about the same time the StingRays were put in Long Beach, a deal for another expansion team on Long Island fell through.