CHRIS TERRELL – COMMISSIONER OF THE PRO BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION – EPISODE 682

Website – http://pbaplayers.com/

Email – league@pbaplayers.com

Instagram – @pbaby1891

Chris Terrell has been the Commissioner of the Pro Basketball Association since November of 2020.  Terrell was the first American to coach at the top pro level on 4 Continents while still in his 30’s. He’s spent over 20 years in the pro game and in that time learned how to win on and off the court. Chris has had the opportunity to coach in the top league in China, Romania, Canada, and Mexico.  He has also coached in just about every minor league or domestic based pro basketball league that you can think of including the NBA D-League, The Basketball League, Maximum Basketball League, and the American Basketball Association. He also served as Deputy Commissioner of the World Basketball Association (WBA).  Chris has written for Better Basketball Magazine, and for the Eurobasket Network including USbasket and Latinbasket for the last 17 years.

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Get ready to take some notes as you listen to this episode with Chris Terrell, Commissioner of the Pro Basketball Association.

What We Discuss with Chris Terrell

• His background coaching all over the world at different levels of the game
• The problems he saw in minor league basketball in the United States
• How the PBA schedule is set up – 5 months on, 1 month off throughout the year
• Why keeping accurate statistics is so important in minor league basketball and how the PBA collects 16 box score stats on every player, every game
• Why PBA teams are required to record their games
• The PBA’s method for broadcasting it’s games on ROKU, Amazon Fire, YouTube, and the PBA app including graphics and announcers
• Why the PBA chose post-production over live streaming
• Putting a videographer at every game
• How the broadcasting and statistics available in the PBA can help players earn contracts overseas or in the G League
• His executive team with the PBA and the roles they play in the league
• The process for adding new franchises
• Implementing standards and operating procedures for each franchise similar to how Chik-Fil-A does with their franchises
• How the PBA business model is different from other minor leagues and why the price point for franchises is so compelling
• “If you’re not interested in your players having detailed statistics and getting jobs overseas and full game video, and having all of your games televised, if those aren’t things that are important to you and you just want to play ,let’s just hoop. Then there’s lots of other leagues like that for you.”
• One of the keys to franchise success is community involvement
• “I think there’s so many people involved in basketball at every level that could afford to have minor league basketball in their city and have it at a price point that is conducive with them being profitable, even with a small fan base.”
• “Something as small as a hundred to 150 fans a game is something where you start breaking even real quickly.”
• The role sponsorship plays in the PBA
• “The PBAs mission is to help as many players and coaches as possible to get to the next level.”
• What makes the PBA attractive to players
• His favorite PBA team nicknames
• Players success stories from the PBA
• His vision for the future of the PBA

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THANKS CHRIS TERRELL

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TRANSCRIPT FOR CHRIS TERRELL – COMMISSIONER OF THE PRO BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION – EPISODE 682

[00:00:00] Mike Klinzing: Hello and welcome to the Hoop Heads Podcast. It’s Mike Klinzing here without my co-host Jason Sunkle this morning, but I am pleased to be joined for the second time by the Commissioner of the Professional Basketball Association. Chris Terrell, Chris, welcome to the Hoop Heads Pod.

[00:00:15] Chris Terrell: Hey Mike, how are you?

[00:00:16] Mike Klinzing: Great, welcome back.

Glad to have you on for a second time. Got some interesting things going on in your career. At this point, you’ve taken on a pretty ambitious undertaking, which we’re going to dive into here in a second, but we thought we’d go back and for maybe people who haven’t listened to your first episode, just give people a quick synopsis, kind of, of your background in the game of basketball, where you’re coming from, and then we’re going to dive into the exciting things that you have going with the PBA

[00:00:40] Chris Terrell: Yeah, so I started the high school level, and in the late nineties, early two thousands began coaching high school basketball and got the opportunity to be an assistant at the junior college level, and then got a job in Texas where I’ve been ever since. Eventually kind of moved on to minor league basketball coached in the ABA, took a team to the championship in 2005 called the Texas Tycoons, played in the championship game and lost, but great season 28 and five, and traveled the whole country and got a chance to really know minor league basketball.

But after that coached overseas for 15 years top league in China and the CBA, we had two first ground NBA draft picks making 60 grand a month. It was just an amazing experience. Got an invitation to NBA summer leagues with the Atlanta Hawks. Was a deputy commissioner and the world basketball association coach six years in Latin America, MVP, and SIBA Copa are the two top there Fiba Europe, first division a couple seasons doing that, went to went to the cup quarter finals when I was in Europe and coaching Canada director of basketball operations in the NBA D league, 20 years of bouncing from country to country and it was incredible experience.

[00:02:16] Mike Klinzing: So you’ve been involved obviously at all different levels of the game, as we just heard. What made you decide, Hey, I think now might be the right time for me to jump in and start my own thing and kind of get the Professional Basketball Association up and running. What was the process?

Who were the people that you had to talk to first to kind of bounce ideas off of? Or how did you assemble your team? Just try to give us the origin story.

[00:02:42] Chris Terrell:  Yeah, so it really was born out of a, a lifetime of, of frustrations. I would come home every summer. You leave your wife and kids for eight months and spend Christmas on Skype, opening presents virtually and you come home you know, March, April, every year and there’s programs and, and money tournaments and summer leagues and different things.

And so I was able to, over the years kind of keep in contact with a lot of players. Scouting’s obviously a key aspect of that. And I would go to Vegas for the summer leagues every year. But developed a lot of relationships with players. I’m in the Dallas area here and you know, guys, I had either coached before, or later on in my career, I coached their big brothers or their fathers in some cases or uncles and Yeah.

So it was really just a frustration with minor league basketball in the United States, other than the NBA and the NBA G league obviously both funded by the NBA, every level of pro basketball beneath that had its own set of issues. And a lot of them you know what, let me say it like this.

So I would find players that were really terrific players that I knew were capable, guys that I knew. Cause I’d see ’em in the money tournaments or the pro-ams or in the summer league. And I’d see them go against guys that were either in the NBA or guys that were playing in high level positions in Europe or overseas and know that they were good enough.

But when I would take those players and their resumes back to the powers that be overseas to try and get them signed on my team and, or other general managers or head coaches, teams that I’d met over the years, I kind of ran into the same stumbling block. You hit your head in the same place many times, and eventually you want to try and avoid that place.

But the issue kind of all went back to the same thing. And that was that minor league basketball in the United States wasn’t organized enough to keep complete 16 category box scores for all the games played. League websites didn’t accurately depict standings or upcoming games or previous opponents player profiles with detailed statistics from each one of the games played full game video was difficult to come by. And a lot of the numbers the metrics that the overseas clubs would base their decisions off of were just not captured at the minor league level in the United States. A lot of it was just kind of made up.

And it’s a real, it’s a real problem in the industry. And it just, it took me years of kind of getting to the place where I wanted to do something about it. And, but I’d been putting the pieces in place to a address that for a long time. And, and so finally did with the PBA.  PBA plays a fall winter season, beginning of November.

Regular season is November, December, January, and February with playoffs in March. So four month regular season plus playoffs. And then our spring summer season plays starts in May, June, July, August with playoffs in September. So five months break for a month, five months break for a month is the way we’re set up timeline wise.

[00:06:23] Mike Klinzing: All right, let’s talk about a couple aspects of what you just discussed in terms of improvements that you want to make. So let’s start with the statistical side. And you mentioned that in a lot of minor leagues, you have, it’s just sort of ramshackle. You’re not really putting together and keeping track of the statistics.

So how did you go about putting together the team, the system in order for you to be able to track and get the statistics that you wanted that would enable your players to be able to get some of those bigger deals, whether it was getting signed into G league or getting a chance to go overseas, how did you go ahead and put that team together to be able to capture the statistics that you needed?

[00:07:02] Chris Terrell: Yeah. Great question. So, and, and most people that coach at different levels don’t really understand why that would be so difficult. And it really kind of comes down to finances the, the minor leagues that aren’t supported by the NBA. In a lot of instances are organizations that kind of leave it up to the teams to do what they do and how they run their organizations.

And even for those good teams that did have statisticians of the table and keeping track of everything that was needed for the game, recording all the games they still didn’t have that uniformity throughout the league where everybody did. So even you might have all the right information for your home games, but when you went on the road, you weren’t getting that information from those teams and it just wasn’t organized the league level.

And then all that information wasn’t kept on the league. I don’t want to disparage any leagues or kind of throw anyone under the bus, but that pretty much is all of them. Unfortunately there’s one other league that I know of that does a better job of that I’m referring to the national leagues, but yeah.

So what the PBA did that is different than everyone else is we contractually made it a requirement for all teams to record their games. We did flyers, which were basically just graphic artwork depicting where the videographer needs to be positioned. What the distance is from the court, the elevation above the court from each basket, follow the ball, upload a link to YouTube.

And then nationally we’re able to get those game videos from every game played nationwide. And then we have a room full of statisticians. There’s I want to say we’re somewhere in the high thirties, 35 to 40 statisticians that then it takes two per game to sit down there, pause, play, and rewind to capture all 16 categories.

So field goals made three point attempts made free throws attempts, made, assist steals, turnovers blocks, and then all the percentages and, and ratios that assisted turnover ratio, field goal percentage, three point percentage that the basic stuff that, and maybe I’m staying the obvious, but if you’re a team overseas and you’re going to spend, I don’t know, $3,000 to fly someone to your country and to get a fee license and to house them and feed them and then go through a training camp and commit to a salary.

It’s a lot of money by the time you’re all said and done maybe six, $7,000 until you get to the place where you learn whether or not the player you’ve signed is actually at the level that you need them to be. And so you know, highlight videos, showing a guy, everybody makes all their shots and their highlight videos.

What they want to see is over the course of an entire season 16 games played what the percentages are in the ratio, so they can really get a better feel for, okay. I know I’ve seen a game of you making every shot, but what can you consistently do out over the course of the season?

And then also, and maybe I’m drilling down a little too far here, but rosters and player profile information so that I can now gauge what the level is of the players that you’re doing it against. And where did they go to college? Where have they played professionally? Have they been overseas? So that once I’ve got a feel for what their level of play is, then I know what your percentages and ratios mean compared to them playing against them.

And so the statisticians that we have because we’re able to do it from the video and, and it’s a remote process, it helps scalability. It helps keep costs down. And it allows us to, to manage that for the league, we report all 16 categories to Euro basket. And the other thing that we do, that’s a, a little bit different is that we have a video editor that has a graphics package.

There’s a splash video for the PBA commercials that are inserted during the games, a score and time widget with the logos of the teams that’s displayed on the screen. So that you know, what the score is and the time remaining per quarter, And then a play by play person. We’ve got a room of play by play guys that are able to call the game.

They’re supplied the rosters from both teams. And so that video is then overlaid by an audio file that is the commentary for the game. And so you actually hear the players’ names said each time they’re involved in a play, we package all that into a TV game. That’s then pushed to all of our platforms.

We’re in 2 billion homes worldwide on Roku, Amazon fire, YouTube, and then also have apps at your app store. If you search PBA TV, all spelled together, five. PBA TV, iOS, Android, just go to your app store and you’re able to watch TV games anywhere from your big screen to your laptop, to a mobile device, anywhere in the world of every PBA game played.

[00:12:18] Mike Klinzing: So that’s pretty cool on both levels, on the statistical side of it, being able to have guys sitting in a room remotely and doing the statistics, obviously you can go back and look at it very carefully, as opposed to having each local market have to find people to show up and sit at the scores table.

I’m sure it’s much easier as you said, to be able to scale that. And then on the media side or those games are then broadcast, they’re delayed, correct? They’re not being broadcast live if I’m hearing your description correctly.

[00:12:45] Chris Terrell: Yeah, that was another thing that, that we realized is that there were a lot of teams at the minor league level that were live streaming, but you know, Eight o’clock in Los Angeles, 8:00 PM in Los Angeles is I don’t even know what time that is in, in France.

That’s probably 5:00 AM. Right. You know, the world with time zones, we’re all available at, at different times. And you know, the, the, the live streams can be buffering. They could be jumpy. They sometimes don’t have the score and time widget. Maybe you don’t have the play by play commentary. And you know, you, I guess the point could be made that you could do a professionally done live broadcast of a game like the NBA as an example, but then you’re bringing out television trucks and you got a production team and you need to be able to stream all of that.

You have your own internet capabilities. So you’re not affected by limited bandwidth or shared bandwidth inside of a facility and scaling that nationwide with the inherent costs in doing that. Make all for a financial puzzle that that’s difficult for teams to be able to work with, but the way that we do it, it’s all post production to your point.

Typically in three to four days, we have the game on TV and the owners around the league like that nobody’s staying home to watch the game on TV. They, if they want to see it live, they have to go buy tickets to the game. And then you know, on the back end we’re able to put out a product that’s professionally done.

Players are able to, and coaches have team meetings and get together scout, future opponents, be able to see what the, the games played by the other teams in their division. Self scout watch their own games, kind of have teaching moments where they’re able to talk about, okay, this is the way we defended this, and this is what I need you to do different.

And then maybe think about this on that play. And so they’re able to walk through that with their own players. It just takes the whole league to another level, I think.

[00:14:51] Mike Klinzing: As you talked about earlier, that for teams that are scouting your players, it’s a much better situation to be able to have that game available on demand at a higher level of video quality, as you said, with your announcing team in place and the widget.

So you can see time and score and all those things as opposed to the buffering and it’s coming out at who knows what time. I think it’s more important, right? From a scouting standpoint, for the quality of what those. Overseas teams or what a G league team might see. If they’re trying to look at a player, I would think that would be a huge selling point for you as you’re trying to attract players as well, that, Hey, we have this video capability that we’re going to be able to get your games to the people that need to see ’em in order to help you to get another contract

[00:15:35] Chris Terrell: Yeah. And, you know it’s in a Netflix style video on demand on Roku and Amazon fire. And so most smart TVs in 2022 have access to apps and are able to you know, watch the games on their big screen TV and comfort of your own home pause, play, rewind, sitting on the couch.

You’re able to really look at these players determine who it is that you like or who you want to look into a little bit further. And then when you couple that with all the box scores, all the data and metrics from the entire season, access to their player profiles, be able to research.

Who they are, where they went to college. What professional experience they’ve previously had, learn who some of the other players we talked about earlier that they’re competing against so that you can kind of get a better feel for what the overall level is. It really makes for a, a nice scouting process.

You could stop the game at any time and make your notes and go do what you have to do and come back and pick up later on. And so those are all things that, you know our system allows putting together this system.

[00:16:45] Mike Klinzing: Obviously for you, part of what you had to do was put together a team of people in order to make this work.

So talk a little bit about your process for how you got in connection with the people who are a part of your team that have helped you to put the PBA together. Maybe give a little bit of a, a bio on each of the people that you have that have been important in your development of the PBA

[00:17:07] Chris Terrell:. Yeah, Kurtis Greene Richards is the president of 1891.

They’re basically a tech company. And Kurtis had come to me with the idea of putting videographers in all of our gyms nationwide and recording the games. And we started doing early on in the process. I’m going back to late 20, 20 the score in time widget and keeping track of that.

But that was done by the videographer in the gym. And then as we evolved, it didn’t take long a month or two later we were hiring play by play guys to do a game of the week. And so that’s how we started with the PBA and the first season we’re going into season number three now, but in our first year it was one game a week nationwide that we picked out is a.

A big game and, and we would hire a play by play person, give ’em the rosters to the two teams, give them a lot of the data and background about the players. And once we did that for the remainder of the season and really kind of started working out the kinks we evolved to players or excuse me, teams hiring their own videographers.

And that process that I described a minute ago where they provide that video link within 24 hours of the game. But we do the stats and the play by play and everything from that. So Kurtis has been instrumental we’ve each step of the way kind of notched up what we wanted in a PBA experience.

And you know, he’s been instrumental in, in, in all of that. And 1891 has a an extensive staff now that they’ve built that we’ve partnered with that. Helps us do that nationwide for every game played. Now, every game is a TV game. So Kurtis has been a huge part of the, this whole process.

And then Angela Culver, she’s a, a team owner that, that came from another league called the ABA that just kind of was working with us and talking to us about playing in the summer. Originally we were spring summer league and the ABA was a fall winter league. And once she got involved and we put her pretty quickly into a, a regional manager position because demonstrated communication skills and networking.

And she has a military background served in the army. She’s very task oriented and she was able to, to lead. And so as she demonstrated those, those abilities, we saw the asset that she was to the league and. She went from a regional director position to a national director position.

So now she’s over all the regional directors nationwide. And on a day to day just helping us get everything done. She’s, she’s a huge part of what we do. And then Gary Dotson he’s with the junior NBA. Gary also runs one of the biggest money tournaments every year called the FedEx.

In Texas, he has a pretty extensive contact list of referees nationwide. And so that’s another aspect to the league management. That’s super important. And so Gary came on with us as our national director of officiating and he works with assigners all around the country to get referees out to our games.

So I don’t want to leave anybody out. There’s so many people that are super important to what the PBA does on a day day-to-day basis. But those three specifically are really involved in a national level and help us do what we do.

[00:20:43] Mike Klinzing: So you’re starting to put together your list of cities, franchises.

What’s the process for putting a franchise in a particular market. How do you go about letting people know that, Hey, this is a place that we want to expand, or are you talking to individuals first cities first? How does it, how does the process work of getting a franchise up and running in the PBA?

[00:21:07] Chris Terrell: Yeah, kind of a crazy story.

And so maybe you and the listeners will get a kick out of this, but you know, we started in the very beginning, I’m in the Dallas area and the idea was that there were some semi-pro teams here in the area that we wanted to join a league together spring summer. We basically play our first season from may until August with playoffs in September.

And initially it started with four teams here in the Dallas Fort worth area. And you know, I, I think because we, the way we did the website and the way that we were doing our marketing and you know, me from maybe having coached over a couple decades and kind of social media, Lot of players and coaches and managers and overseas people that were interested in what we were posting about.

It, it just kind of caught fire in a good way. I got here’s the funny part. I got a call from a team that was the sixth time in the league called the PBL, the premier basketball league there around the, the great lakes, Midwest and Northeast, and Jen, it was the owner of the Rochester razor sharks.

She also won a championship in the ABA prior to joining the PBL. And so seven, eight year running organization that had saw us in social media kind of went on the website, kinda found out what we were all about, how we were different from the very beginning. It was made kind of a point of emphasis that we’re going to record all the games.

We’re going to have detailed box scores for every game played. We’re going to partner with Euro basket. We had a certain kind of uniformity set rules and standards. Kurtis I’ll let me add this part. I probably should have mentioned it earlier when we were talking about him, but I’ll, I’ll bring it up now.

Kurtis from 1891 is an upper executive with Chick-fil-A. So those of you that are familiar with Chick-fil-A it it’s it’s an organization that has uniformity and standards and kind of a set way of doing things. They’ve got a step program and a model of what a franchise looks like.

And so that kind of drove the conversation early on about how we were going to scale this. But going back to Jen we didn’t have any teams within, this is the funny part. Within 2000 miles of Rochester, New York, we had four teams in, in the greater Dallas Fort worth area. And I remember getting on the zoom with the people that we were working on with those four other teams and talking about bringing on this new franchise and they’re like, Chris, what are you doing?

You’re crazy. Who are they going to play? How is this going to work? And we were, I don’t know, maybe two and a half, three weeks after an announcement that this new league had come about. And here I was wanting to add a team, as it turns out in Rochester and Buffalo. She wanted to have two franchises in the PBA that first season and everyone around me kind of said look that’s that doesn’t make any sense at all.

Let’s start small. Let’s do it. Right. Let’s just have teams in and around Dallas over the years we could grow and maybe we end up adding. A Houston or a little rock or an Oklahoma city and just slowly but surely kind of branch out. And I was, I don’t know, determined, for lack of a better word.

Jen joined and it, I don’t know, it just, it caught fire in a really good way. I was speaking with Angela in Georgia. Not too long after that. She’s in Columbus, Georgia. We started announcing teams in and around Rochester and Buffalo that saw that they were coming. Same thing happened in the Southeast with Georgia and in and around Texas from those initial teams that announced, then I started talking with teams in the no long short between December and we had added nationwide.

[00:25:28] Mike Klinzing: Was that mostly driven by individuals finding out about what you were doing and then coming to you and saying, Hey, I’m in such and such. And I want to start a franchise. Or was that more of you targeting after you had maybe one franchise in a particular area, you targeting those markets and going out more actively seeking people?

What was that process?

[00:25:49] Chris Terrell: Great question. Yeah, a little bit of both. So the PBA this is a little bit of a touchy conversation in some circles and it really shouldn’t be, we’ve all seen the Pepsi commercial, that’s the blind taste test challenge between Pepsi and Coke. And the person standing there at the table takes a sip from both cups and tells the camera about which one that they like better.

I mean, that’s common. This is business, right? It’s not personal, but I just preface that or want to preface what I say next by saying that, and. You know, we’ve uniquely positioned ourself in a place where you’ve got many leagues ABA, OBA, UBA, TBA E CBL PBL there’s yeah, I don’t know a dozen minor leagues that don’t do the things that we’ve been talking about.

And you know, for whatever reason, not disparaging, ’em I’m asking the listener, go to their league website and double check what I’m saying, but they, they don’t do all the things that we think is kind of a baseline of. And maybe I’m getting off topic, but I think I need to make the point.

If we’re talking about a single A baseball team in some town in Iowa that you’ve never even heard of before, is there any doubt in your mind that you would be able to go to the league website for that. Minor league baseball team and be able to see every game that they’ve played, who, who how many at bats he got, how many home runs he hit, what his batting average was, who the pitchers were on the other team that he did it against rosters, standings, things that you would just think, even at the lowest possible level at minor league baseball, of course they have that and unfortunately 99% of the leagues below us, haven’t figured that out.

And some of them have had a couple decades to do it. And then on the other end of the spectrum a league called the TBL not disparaging them good guys. They work hard to do it right, but they’ve financially put themselves at a price point that’s not cost conducive makes it really difficult for teams to be able to show a profit, the inherent expenses that it takes to.

Play in that league. Not only by way of league franchise fees, but also the travel schedule and, and salaries and different commitments that they have as to being a member of that league is very, very difficult for a minor league team to have enough revenue, to be able to support that model. And we just didn’t think that fundamentally that, that worked.

And so what we’ve done is positioned the PBA in a place where we’re giving these players and coaches an opportunity to play at the next level at an aggressive price point that is cost conducive that does allow for profitability immediately for teams. That is an offering that’s very different than all the leagues below us.

But still at a place where teams and organizations can grow and be profitable and grow a fan base and add sponsors and the business model aspect of it works financially for the clubs too. And so kind of being uniquely positioned in the middle of all that is I think what was the, the catalyst to growing as fast as we did and going nationwide and, and now being in the position that we’re in today, do you think that

[00:29:16] Mike Klinzing: One of the biggest attract one of the most attractive points for you being able to get franchises in the door and get team owners in the door is what you’re doing?

Cause what I hear you saying, and what would attract me, I think is the fact that you’re doing a lot of things. It sounds like from a centralized point of view, With your league, as opposed to some of the things that you’re doing on a league wide basis. And other leagues may be things that the team, if they wanted to offer, it would have to pay for and do themselves, which then means some teams are doing it.

Some teams are not doing it. And so it sounds like the uniformity of kind of maybe taking it to the league wide level, as opposed to a team by team basis. That’s one of the things it sounds like to me is going to be enabling you to attract more teams, more team owners?

[00:30:06] Chris Terrell: Bingo. Yeah. You just hit the nail on the head.

Exactly. Mike, and I think it all speaks to the motivation and I won’t single out a league in this part of it. Cause I can’t get into their hearts and minds and know what they’re motivated by, but just a general commentary about the industry is that you have those leagues that are just interested in adding as many teams as they possibly can.

And if they want 150, 200 minor league teams nationwide and just it’s all driven by revenue that money is what drives the entire conversation. Then from a sales process, you want to eliminate rules and regulations and stipulations and things that we think of in a positive way as organization could be seen as additional cost or additional responsibilities on the flip side of that coin.

And so most of those leagues have taken the tact that Hey, let’s give a broad infrastructure with a lot of room for individuality. And unfortunately what happens is you got. You know, 200 cooks in the kitchen and they’re all bumping into each other. And the spaghetti’s getting spilled all over the formica, you know?

So yeah, we just took a different strategy that, no, this is what is required. This is the minimum. If you’re not interested in your players having detailed statistics and getting jobs overseas and full game video, and having all of your games televised, if those aren’t things that are important to you then, and you just want to play let’s just hoop.

Then there’s lots of other leagues like that for you. And so, yeah,  I hope that answers your question.

[00:31:52] Mike Klinzing: No, it does. When you look at what you’ve been able to do to this point, and you think about the various teams and franchises that you’ve been able to bring on board, what have been some of the shared characteristics of those that have been successful, and I guess you can define successful, however you want, whether that’s business wise or on the floor, just what are some characteristics of the team ownership and the teams that you’ve brought on that you feel have made them the most successful?

[00:32:21] Chris Terrell: Yeah, I think getting out in the community is huge.

The thing that I learned from a long time overseas is I’d go to these different countries and we were the NBA in that town. And so people that were interested in getting out in the community, people that had civic engagement that partnered with the mayor that would have things at the schools that would have kids camps and clinics that would be out at the recreation centers and the YMCAS and working with, at risk youth, a big brother program just trying to be a community resource. It accomplished a lot of different things. I mean, one obviously uplifting or working to uplift the community that you serve in.

I think just kind of speaks to my heart and one of the things that we’d like to accomplish with the PBA, but obviously the other aspect of it is the relationships that you make and exposing people to your brand and to your program and growing an organization, building a fan base adding sponsors that those things are, are all critical to, to being in this and There’s a couple different models about what we think works in the United States of America.

And how some of that adapts here domestically spent a, a lot of time in, in Canada that they played in NHL hockey, arenas, and you know, several civic, auditoriums and large 10 to 16,000 seat facilities. And you know, the NBA really other than the Toronto Raptors which is just one city in a country that’s larger than ours.

Didn’t have competing leagues also a lot of great colleges and universities in Canada, this is isn’t meant to a slight to them, but they didn’t have UCLA in their backyard, you know university of Texas isn’t located in some of these cities up north.

And so I just kind of draw and contrast where the United States is a different kind of beast, right? We’ve got so many things and access to so many entertainment options.  I mean, just think about pro basketball, major league baseball, minor league baseball pro hockey, minor league hockey, all the different sports and all the different entertainment options and things that we do that every city in America has so many competing options, major division one college basketball that have been around for a hundred years and have an extremely loyal fan base that goes to every game and, and even high school sports, high school football in Texas is huge.

High school sports for basketball and baseball around the country are big as well. And so I say all that to say that at the minor league level, in the United States, putting together a formula or requirement of teams, a price point if you will, of what it takes for an organization here has to be supported by the revenue that you have the potential to acquire in individual market.

The league published statistics year, and this is league that’s supported the has NBA players moving up and down that has high draft picks players that are you know, recovering, maybe from injury that are NBA established stars. In some instances, playing on these NBA league teams yet. You’ll see them moving to facilities like the UCLA health facility that the Lakers G league franchise plays that seats a thousand people.

They they’ve gone over the years more and more away from the giant civic, auditoriums and NBA size arenas to smaller facilities. The average attendance is something what’s published is something just over 2000 fans. Now, how much of that is actually paid attendance and much of it is, you know you know comps and a ways and corporate deals and different things to be able to get butts and seats for their sponsors.

But I think and don’t quote me, I don’t want to disparage the NBA by any stretch. If the G league is struggling in a lot of cities to get 12 to 1500 people out to a NBA G league game, and they’ve got established NBA players in many instances, playing on those teams and the marketing muscle and wherewithal of the NBA behind them driving those franchises in those markets.

And they can’t consistently average that attendance then how could a structure that is at the price point that some leagues are that would require that by way of attendance in order for them to be financially viable work. And the fact of the matter is it doesn’t. There’s a large number of teams that are defaulting on loans and responsibilities, player contracts, coaching payments things like that and it’s because it’s a model that just doesn’t work.

And so what the PBA has done is make ourselves with scalability and being smart about how we do it. And everyone is in large part investing a tremendous amount of time and, and doing so in many instances, in a volunteer basis and, or smaller salaries, we’ve been lean and mean, and, and put together a program where we’re price point competitive with all those leagues below us that don’t do any of the things that we do.

And. I’ll give you an example. A franchise in the PBA is $1995, so less than 2000. It’s a one time cost to bring pro basketball to your city. That franchise fees paid once and they return every season at no charge. The referees, the play statisticians graphics, promotional social following had 1.1 million viewers on PBA TV last season.

And to be able to, the part I’m proudest about is to be able to do all of that at Hey, less than 250 bucks a game, right? Like this is something that any organization, whether it was an AAU program that wanted to, Hey, what do I do with these kids once they’re done with the. You know, 18 and unders these guys that want to come back to my program the high school coach, the, the, the junior college coach, the, the other minor league organizations across the United States that have some of the same frustrations that I can’t see the rosters of the team that I’m supposed to play.

How come I don’t have a season schedule on the league website. How come I can’t find all the games that the team I’m about to play has played online. And where are the, the stats for everyone else in my league? And why can’t I get my guys signed overseas? I think there’s so many people involved in basketball at every level that could afford to have minor league basketball in their city and have it at a price point that is conducive with them being profitable, even with a small fan base and a couple tryouts. It’s very easy to turn a profit year one in the PBA. And so I just think we’re uniquely positioned in the market to become the, the top minor league basketball in America. So is the

[00:40:21] Mike Klinzing: So is the main revenue source for teams, their local ticket sales?

[00:40:27] Chris Terrell: Yeah. Ticket sales and sponsors.  Those are the big two.

[00:40:31] Mike Klinzing: Yeah. So when you have most of those local sponsorships, right, are then those are the responsibility of the local team owner. Now you might get involved and be able to help them and give them a script or give them some talking points. But I’m assuming then the team owners, again, the more ambitious you are to go out and talk to people in the community, like you talked about, obviously that’s going to help your ticket sales, but also can obviously help your ability to attract sponsors, which is going to fall right directly to your bottom line.

[00:41:02] Chris Terrell: Yeah. And the nice part is like I stated earlier, even with a smaller fan base if a quick math less than $250 a game plus the cost of your venue a table staff what you do for your players and coaches, a videographer, a team can put together a presentation for their home fans, traveling expenses, because the other teams in their division are all drivable.

We’ve got it set up. So there’s no flights. Hotels are optional. A lot of teams can drive, play and drive back kind of more like the minor league baseball model. So we’ve got the whole thing set up lean and mean like I said earlier, but even something as small as a hundred to 150 fans, a game is something where you start breaking even real quickly.

And then as you add to that, as the organization grows and you add local sponsorship and businesses, get their message out to that ever increasing fan base over time. But the league also helps with that. Commercials that play during these televised games, I told you over a hundred over a million viewers last season.

And so the commercials that play during the games are spots that 30 spots that the teams can sell to local sponsors in their area. So, Hey, let me get you on Roku. Let me get you on Amazon. I’m going to play your commercial twice during every game. I’m going to have your banner and logo on uniforms.

I’m going to put you out there with all of our social media marketing we’re in the community. We’re getting the brand message out there and even just really small sponsorships can. The whole thing is, is conducive to the owner. Being able to cover all the responsibilities. And I think this is maybe the most important point in the whole thing, keep their commitments contractually to what they promise to players and coaches.

Don’t burn the people that help us put this product out on the floor. And the way you do that is, is just by being a little smarter with the business part of it.

[00:43:14] Mike Klinzing: All right. Let’s shift to the player side of it from a player perspective. One where do are most of the players, I’m assuming are players who are local to the community where the franchise is located, but let’s just say, once you have a franchise, how do you go about attracting players?

Open tryouts? Are you putting the word out? How do you get the word out that, Hey, we’re new in town and we’re looking for players. What does that look like?

[00:43:37] Chris Terrell: Yeah. So when a, a team is announced typically within two or three weeks of joining they’ll post about a tryout we have

groups nationwide a lot of them are kind of key markets. And then we also have an advertising spend on social media to help teams get the word out in. We have a set kind of proprietary algorithm, if you will, of search terms that we use in communities that kind of drill down to who our core market a is.

And it’s a combination of all those things.  I’m 50 years old and, and so I’m not that old, but when I was a kid, we would print flyers and we would staple to the telephone poles like word of mouth. We would go to the gym and just start passing out pamphlets. That was the way of the world.

I’m talking eighties, nineties but obviously with the internet revolution and social media and everyone’s staring at their phones all day, every day, now that we’re able to leverage the technology 1891 is a big partner with us in this, that Know, we’re able to get that, that message out and, and players are looking for an opportunity to get to the next level.

Not everybody average 15 points per game at Duke and they need that platform to be able to stand on and let the rest of the world know who they are and what they’re doing and what their contributions could be overseas. And the PBAs mission is to help as many players and coaches as possible to get to the next level.

And I think the players and coaches see that in our advertising and the things that we’re doing on social media and how much coverage we give to our existing players. They’ve downloaded the app. There is  a lot of those 1.1 million viewers on PBH TV that are watching these games on their big screen TV hearing Mike Cooper from three and you hear Mike’s name 20 times on TV and it’s kind of just human nature.

Hey, that could be me. And so they see what we’re doing and want to come out and be a part of it.

[00:46:01] Mike Klinzing: What about from a coaching perspective, where do most of your coaches, what’s their backgrounds?

[00:46:07] Chris Terrell: Yeah, so broad backgrounds like me, a lot of them came from AAU or high school basketball or junior college.

I loved working with the kids and that was a real enjoyable part in my coaching career. But there are some that just are burnout, whether it’s the parents or the politics or whatever’s going on. But even for those that have AAU programs with their organization have multiple age groups have maybe both genders and several different teams that those people that run those organizations like the idea of having that top team of their organization, because they have a built in fan base, all those players and parents that are part of those youth groups.

All want to participate with the minor league team. So they day one, when they announce the team already have all those kids and all their family members that Hey these are the players that come to my practices and have you signed basketballs and passed out t-shirts and I go support them and we give out free tickets and do things to encourage them to, to come out to the games nationwide.  And so yeah, I hope that answers your question.

[00:47:38] Mike Klinzing: No, it does. What’s your favorite team name?

[00:47:44] Chris Terrell: Ooh, that’s a, that’s a good one. You know, I grew up in LA, so I’m going to say the Lakers, but  I’m biased. I don’t know that intrinsically that’s the best team name, but they’re my favorite team.  There’s some good ones.

[00:47:55] Mike Klinzing: What about in the PBA? What’s your favorite nickname? When it came on, you’re like, oh, that’s a good one.

[00:47:59] Chris Terrell: I really like the P NW Vets. So organization that the ownership group all come from a military background and I love the idea of the the civic aspect of that community engagement people that have served.

I talked earlier about Angela and kind of the core values that, that you get in the military for those people that served thank you for your service. So I love that their uniforms are fire they’re. They look a little bit like the Utah jazz with mountains white with blue, and it says vets across the chest.

Those are really cool looking. The Vipers is a great one. It’s a obviously a Viper that’s on the that’s, the they’re purple with black and are, are really, that’s a cool too.

[00:48:36] Mike Klinzing: Do you have a success story from one of the players that’s played in the PBA that you’ve been able to help and move forward in their career that you can share with our audience?

[00:48:45] Chris Terrell: Oh my God. Yeah. There’s, there’s so many guys and, and this is why we do this, right. It’s that guy that took advantage of the opportunity and played for his team and put up the stats and, and had his games televised, and then got the overseas opportunity. So there there’s so many players like that.

One guy that kind of sticks out to me that is, is a, is a really good guy. Had some overseas experience before but a guy by the name of Mike Lebo Mike is was referred to me by Ricky Bonita. He lives in Florida had played in Latin America. And I want to say he had been away from playing overseas for a couple years, but really talented six, five lefthanded can shoot it, handles like a point guard, rebounds. Well, just kind of a multi-position athlete that we went through COVID and we had so there gap years is what they call em, resume wise for players that may make it difficult and going back to an overseas opportunity. And so the PBA was the perfect for him to come on and show that he was in shape and, and that he was still the level and capable of helping a team.

And so Mike got a contract and went down to South America and he has been playing resumed his overseas playing career. I don’t want to take credit for it. You know, he’s the one that put in the work and made the sacrifices to make that happen. But I’d like to think, getting his name out there and helping to provide that platform was, was something that he was able to utilize to stand up on it and open doors.

And that’s what minor league basketball is all about.

[00:50:31] Mike Klinzing: Yeah. That’s awesome.  I think one of the themes that’s kind of run through the podcast over the years has been just the ability to use basketball. Something that we all love to be able to impact. People, whether that’s through coaching, ’em directly, whether that’s through you getting this league started and helping players to realize their dreams.

I think that’s really what it’s all about. When you think about the opportunity to use something that you love to be able to have an impact on people. That’s really where the sweet spot is in the game of basketball. No matter what role you’re playing in the game. I think we all love being able to, to utilize the game, to, to make people’s lives better and to help grow the game.

And that’s, that’s really what it’s all about. When you look ahead Chris, to the future of the PBA over the next couple years, what do you envision? What do you hope? What’s the ideal model for what you see this becoming in another couple years, as you continue to build it out.

[00:51:28] Chris Terrell: Yeah. So we partnered with 1891.

And so the PBA is now known as the PBA by 1891. And Kurtis and I talked about him earlier, finished each other’s sentences. And so he, he’s got a great tech staff behind him. And a lot of what we’re able to do is technically driven. So we saw the advantage for both of us to partner in this effort.

More from you know a tech standpoint, Kurtis also brings that organizational and leadership aspects with his relationship with Chick-fil-A just speaking to uniformity and scalability and, and teams upholding a certain standard. So to answer your question we instituted something where $100,000 will be paid out by way of prize monies to the top PBA teams over the next two years. So that’s one deal we put together with 1891 to, to be able to offer that it’s something that in nationwide, minor league basketball currently doesn’t exist that I know of. So it was something extra kind of icing on the cake, if you will, for what we could offer to teams.

And then we’re brokering a deal so that our merchandise and already worked to do this where their merchandise is in Walmart Walgreens Publix different chains across the United States so that our merchandise is in the communities that we’re in and readily available in the retail market.

And then we’re currently working with a national sponsor. So this is the part where I’m looking into the future a little bit and I yet to be named but a large national sponsor that is looking to partner with us in a big way that that will help us take the whole thing to, to another level.

And kind of like Chick-fil-A I’ll, I’ll use this as a comparison when, when people look to run a Chick-fil-A franchise there’s, there’s no risk. They already have a built in formula where you know that you’re going to be profitable. And so they’re very selective about what bring into their model, what people they partner with to, to run their franchises.

There’s a long waiting list. And what they asked for in order to start a franchise with them is considerably less than even just their first year’s earnings. So they have a, a proven model of success that allows Chick-fil-A to be very selective about who they bring in. And we, we love that model. We, we want to be able to offer something to teams that what they get from the league is has 10 times more value than what the cost to participate it in it is.

And because of that, that gives us a long list of franchise owners that are interested in, in joining. And we can put together a professional league that everyone can be proud.

[00:54:28] Mike Klinzing: That’s awesome. I think that that vision is one that is definitely within reach based on what you’ve been able to do to this point.

I think it’s exciting for minor league basketball here in the United States, that somebody who has the vision that you’ve been able to have and put together is going to give lots and lots of players, communities, coaches, the opportunity to participate in a league that’s professionally run. And that has some of the innovations and things that you’ve been able to put together.

Before we wrap up, Chris, I want to give you a chance to share how people can find out more about the PBA, Amazon fire, and Roku. Just go through all that where people can find out more about the PBA.

[00:55:06] Chris Terrell: Yeah. So Roku, Amazon fire iOS and Android at your app store. So from your TV using the, the search menu or, or at your app store it’s just five letters, PBATV.

So it’s an acronym pro basketball association. So PBATV just search that however you want to stream and, and you’ll find us on there. On Instagram, we’re @PBAby1891. We’re at pro basketball association on Facebook. And then the league website is www.PBAplayers.com

[00:55:56] Mike Klinzing: Chris cannot. Thank you enough for taking the time out of your schedule to jump on and talk about the PBA. It’s an exciting venture that I know you’re very proud of. I can hear that in your voice, and I think you got a great thing going, and I wish you nothing but success as you and your team move forward with the PBA and to everyone out there who’s a part of our audience. Thanks for listening. And we will catch you on our next episode. Thanks.