Columnist Dean Juipe: Rothermel sees Slam going down

Dean Juipe

Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2002 | 9:44 a.m.

Two years ago when the league was in its infancy, Brad Rothermel thought the ABA 2000 was viable and that a team in Las Vegas could find a profitable niche.

In the interim, Rothermel cut his ties with the ABA and spent an abbreviated season as the CEO for the Las Vegas Bandits of the now-defunct International Basketball League.

His ongoing research and his experience -- which includes a 10-year stint as athletic director at UNLV -- has led him to a very specific conclusion: He's now among the many who feel the Slam will fail, as has been the case with their many Las Vegas predecessors.

"No one from the league has contacted me and I don't have any reason to wish them ill will," Rothermel said, "but if I was going to work for them I'd want my money in escrow up front."

Despite the Slam initially announcing it would hold its local debut Monday, Monday came and went without a ball game. It now appears the team will play at the Cox Pavilion Feb. 26, although it has yet to finalize a roster and it has little to show for its one week in town beyond the hiring of ex-Rebel Reggie Theus as a part-time head coach.

This disjointed franchise in this ramshackle league has almost no chance to succeed, as its financial backers -- who tend to come across as marginally belligerent -- will soon discover.

"When I was involved with the ABA, it called itself 'the other major league' and promised that it would use nothing less than major facilities," Rothermel said. "Now I see them playing regularly in lesser facilities such as high school gyms.

"I don't know this for a fact, but I'm led to believe the only home game the Chicago team played was in the basement of a church."

That Chicago team went 0-7 and was dissolved and replaced by one in Las Vegas that is already 0-1, having lost an unpublicized game two weeks ago in the back woods of Kentucky.

The league's website omits attendance counts and hides the fact that each of its members is struggling at the gate, with the Phoenix team, for example, no longer owning a permanent home site.

Once designed to include 12 teams each playing 80 games, the ABA is currently seven teams playing no more than 40 games apiece.

"With 40 games, at least you lose your money less quickly," Rothermel quipped.

He knows firsthand about losing money in Las Vegas, as the Bandits' dual emphasis on cheap tickets/family fun and ex-Rebels was a decent marketing strategy while proving to be a practical bust. They failed to last two seasons.

"I thought we did a lot of things well, but we couldn't interest the people," Rothermel said. "If you're going to rely on gate receipts to fund your team and provide a profit, you're not going to be able to do it indefinitely and it's extraordinarily difficult in this environment.

"If you can't offer the people in Las Vegas the best available product, it's hard to make ends meet. I applaud the Slam for getting into the Cox and hiring Reggie, but I still don't think it's going to lead to much in the way of net revenue.

"Let's put it this way: I'm happy someone else is giving it a whirl, but I'm just as happy that I'm not involved."