Lavar Ball does it again-- BBB to create it's own basketball league

This idea is basically like Junior Hockey.

In Canada, guys start playing in Juniors around age 16. If they are playing in one of the three CHL leagues, they are essentially professional and wouldn't be eligible to play NCAA hockey. The majority of the NHL is comprised of CHL alumni.

There are lower levels of Junior Hockey that are very competitive but don't compromise eligibility. That's why it isn't uncommon for an NCAA freshman to be 21-22 years old. BUT you can still have a 24 year old NCAA guy go play in the NHL/AHL after graduation.

John Utah wrote:

This already exists, right?

The NBA G league. What am I missing?

Yes, pretty much.

Based on what I found, I'm not sure how his idea is any different:

From the G League website:

18. Who is eligible to be drafted?

Players must be 18 years old to be eligible for the NBA G League Draft, as opposed to the NBA’s age minimum of 19.

Sooooo, basically, anyone could be drafted by simply declaring he isn't going to play college basketball. It does appear though that LaVar wants to pay the player significantly more than they would make the in G-League.

Great, a league filled with uneducated kids with a dream supported by a moron with a big mouth.

When they are done with the league and don't make it to the NBA with 98%+ won't, they will then hit the streets and add to statistics.

John Utah wrote:

Starting a minor league basketball league.

I’m going to say his revenue projections / market demand for this product are “optimistic”.

Exactly! If nobody bothers to watch NBA "D" League games, then who's going to watch a glorified post high school league on TV? How many major sponsors has Lavar Ball lined up? Zilch. Has Lavar Ball ever managed a sports league before? Nope. Who's financing this crap? His son, Lonzo- say goodbye to your money, kid.

Born in the 856 wrote:

Exactly! If nobody bothers to watch NBA "D" League games, then who's going to watch a glorified post high school league on TV? How many major sponsors has Lavar Ball lined up? Zilch. Has Lavar Ball ever managed a sports league before? Nope. Who's financing this crap? His son, Lonzo- say goodbye to your money, kid.

The USFL failed and they had a television deal with ABC. Vince McMahon's XFL failed with an NBC deal. Ball is a complete idiot. This will be a colossal fail.

I'm torn: LaVar Bell is a big jackass, but the NCAA is a billion dollar cartel. And unless he's got 9 figures worth of investors, he won't do anything. His best bet would be to see if he can leverage his massive amount of money into a buying a chunk of a G League team (I didn't realize they changed their name from D to G) and go from there.

TSVOR wrote:

E. Bonix wrote:

Exhibit A: Clemson's new $55 million training complex -- for football players only. Most NFL teams cannot match this level of opulence.

http://www.hok.com/design/type/sports-recreation-entertainment/clemson-university-football-operations-complex/

$55 million for football players and coaches, and here I am making less than $20k a year teaching college freshmen. Anyone see anything wrong with that? The adjunct phenomenon is such a farce.

(I love sports, but is it any wonder that people in our country are so stupid with the lack of respect we show toward actual education?)

The university isn’t spending $55 million. Money from that is fit in to ticket prices to university events. And more than half is from donated funds from alumni/businesses. So basically the kids you teach today will use that education to make big bank, turn around and give back more per year/ per person than the university pays you. Wonderful system indeed. Makes you want to teach adjuct huh??

elviejo wrote:

Should do it for football too. I don't really care about the people that would play in such a league (at least, anymore than I would care about any other businessman/woman). I'd love to see collegiate athletics get back to true student-athletes. Don't really care that it won't be the 'best' players. Won't happen though. Too much money in the NCAA racket.

The NCAA doesn't want to give up their billion dollar racket. If they became the Ivy Leauge, what would the television deal be worth then?

Lamar Ball is a Kardashian wannabe. Only problem in this case is, he doesn't realize he is the joke and anyone else who supports this.

E. Bonix wrote:

Born in the 856 wrote:

Exactly! If nobody bothers to watch NBA "D" League games, then who's going to watch a glorified post high school league on TV? How many major sponsors has Lavar Ball lined up? Zilch. Has Lavar Ball ever managed a sports league before? Nope. Who's financing this crap? His son, Lonzo- say goodbye to your money, kid.

The USFL failed and they had a television deal with ABC. Vince McMahon's XFL failed with an NBC deal. Ball is a complete idiot. This will be a colossal fail.

The USFL even had Donald MFing Trump as an owner and it STILL failed yugely. Wasn't his team the New Jersey Generals or some such?

lavar is a douche wrote:

hope it works out wrote:

So what? D1 basketball already gives false hope to those who have none. People have the prerogative of making bad decisions with their money.

Well, at least when these guys are enrolled in a D1 program they can finish school and come out better off then when they went in. I wouldn't call D1 false hopes, I would call it an opportunity.

Say what?

Didn't you pay attention to the UNC academic fraud case? These kids didn't go to class or do any classwork.

One guy made the Dean's list and said he never went to a single class and he and his teammates would all load into a car to go pick up their papers that academic counselors had written for them.

And one of their one and done basketball players went to his graduation after supposedly working on his degree during the summers between NBA seasons. Someone in the media asked him what his degree was in and he told them that they were going to tell him at graduation.

The whole UNC case just shows what a sham the notion of student-athletes are.

Cap coaching salaries at each position.

Cap administrator salaries at each position.

Keep these salaries in line with their government employee co-workers and professors. (Public schools make up the vast majority of the d1 mega programs).

Athelets must face same admission standards as all others applying to the school. No consideration given to athletic performance.

Kill the head when it comes to the money. And then don’t admit “students”’who shouldn’t be at the school, folks who could not in a million years be admitted based on their academic merit and performance.

I'm so glad my parents didn't try to use me as a profit source. Seems like at every turn, this ass hat is trying to monetize his adult children for his benefit.

One of the craziest things I remember reading is that in most states the highest paid state employee is the football coach of the state university! They make more then their boss? The president of Alabama makes under 1 million a year, and Saban makes 11 million.

I put "force" in quotes because you're right, no one is forced to go to college to play football or basketball. But really, it's the only truly viable option. The CFL has rules limiting the number of non Canadians a team can have on its roster and may not want to use a spot on an unproven high school kid and no matter how good you are in Europe you won't get the exposure and money that comes with it as you would playing NCAA D1-A once draft time comes. And you certainly won't get the experience of being hyped as a college star, playing in front of 100,000 plus crowds on national TV, getting prostitutes and under the table cash, etc. So yeah, there are alternatives but they aren't likely to be used. And that's a big reason I don't think this league will succeed despite thinking it would be a good thing if it did.

E. Bonix wrote:

Born in the 856 wrote:

Exactly! If nobody bothers to watch NBA "D" League games, then who's going to watch a glorified post high school league on TV? How many major sponsors has Lavar Ball lined up? Zilch. Has Lavar Ball ever managed a sports league before? Nope. Who's financing this crap? His son, Lonzo- say goodbye to your money, kid.

The USFL failed and they had a television deal with ABC. Vince McMahon's XFL failed with an NBC deal. Ball is a complete idiot. This will be a colossal fail.

A difference between then and now is the number of potential outlets for a TV deal. Ball's league will never get a major deal but now we've got CBS and NBC Sports Networks, Fox Sports 1, etc. that were not around in the USFL days. I wouldn't rule out the possibility that one of them might decide it would be better off televising a basketball league filled with blue chip high schoolers than rodeo or poker. But maybe not.

Our cable system does carry D League games, though I think the league has moved further down the alphabet for its name now. To me that begs the question of why the players Ball wants would play in his league rather than in college as they already have the option of skipping college and playing G League. I don't see how what he's proposing is any different from G League unless he can come up with enough money to pay his guys semi big bucks.

Brave New World wrote:

I'm so glad my parents didn't try to use me as a profit source. Seems like at every turn, this ass hat is trying to monetize his adult children for his benefit.

YOUR PARENTS WOULD'VE GONE BANKRUPT. MUHAHAHAHA!!!

Seriously though, Ball is not likeable & his dissing of what Trump did for his family is disgraceful. But he did help get Lonzo to the NBA. He still could get his other sons there. I also don't necessarily think he's using them, but just making "spectacular" choices for them.

What he is doing is great.

He is fighting against a system and trying to change it . Of course profit is a motive so is getting his sons to the NBA.

What is worse him directing his sons how he chooses or another entity like college. I think people have the wrong idea. People are mad because he doesn't follow the rest of the lemmings. The lemmings are happy making 50k a year he is not.

John Utah wrote:

Cap coaching salaries at each position.

Cap administrator salaries at each position.

Keep these salaries in line with their government employee co-workers and professors. (Public schools make up the vast majority of the d1 mega programs).

Athelets must face same admission standards as all others applying to the school. No consideration given to athletic performance.

Kill the head when it comes to the money. And then don’t admit “students”’who shouldn’t be at the school, folks who could not in a million years be admitted based on their academic merit and performance.

I'll give you this, John Utah. You're an upgrade over ex-thrower and the various low IQ race baiters. When you actually put your mind to it, you draft some very sensible opinions. This one, in particular, has merit.