"The Ongoing Stupidification of America"
It may not be immediately obvious how this post pertains to basketball, so bear with me. Syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts just wrote a
column in which he decried what he calls "the ongoing stupidification of America." He is specifically referring to a comic book recently created by Brent Rinehart, the commissioner of Oklahoma County, Oklahoma. The comic book is riddled with spelling errors and claims that Satan is trying to sabotage Rinehart's election campaign--but Pitts makes a larger point that is much more important than the shenanigans involved in a small, local political race:
"I am not talking about ignorance. Ignorance is a lack of information; we're all ignorant in one way or another. Nor am I talking about people who are prone to punctuation and spelling errors; we all make mistakes. No, I'm talking about stupidity, which I define as an inability to analyze, draw conclusions from or otherwise 'use' information even when one has it. And stupidity is often characterized by smug indifference. When a CNN anchor drew Rinehart's attention to his spelling errors, his reply was, 'I don't necessarily care.'"
Right after I read that sentence I started to draft this post, because I am quite familiar with the "smug indifference" of which Pitts speaks--that is a perfect description of the guy who I dealt with a while back who
tried to cover a SlamBall conference call without tape recording it, got several pieces of information wrong and who responded to my polite corrections by creating an elaborate post to mock me, at one point scoffing that the conference call was "not an interview to save Darfur." In other words, this conference call was not important enough to him to bother to get his information straight or even to make corrections after the fact. "Smug indifference" and "stupidification"--two perfect descriptions of how he conducted himself. It is worth mentioning that after Jim McKay passed away one of the things that was most often said about him was that he made every interview subject of his feel important and he never mocked or disrespected any of the offbeat sports that he covered on "Wide World of Sports."
Pitts closes his column by referring to
"Idiocracy," a movie about stupid people inheriting the Earth. Remember when the year 1984 ended and many people gloated that George Orwell's nightmare visions had not come to pass, ironically oblivious to the many ways that modern society in fact does contain many of the ills that Orwell described? I look at the traffic numbers of certain websites and the garbage that passes for "entertainment" in many different media (books, TV, movies and music) and it occurs to me that "Idiocracy" is not about some post-modern society but a pretty apt description of the world today.
The question is what will intelligent people do about this situation? The most important thing, to borrow from Jim Valvano's famous speech, is to never give up. Jeff Sack just took over management of the site that treated me so shabbily and literally within minutes after I called his attention to the offensive post he took it down. I am proud to recommend that basketball fans check out his work at two sites,
SlamDunkCentral and
LeBasketbawl. If enough intelligent people join forces we can transform "Idiocracy" into a cautionary tale instead of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Labels: "Idiocracy", George Orwell, Jeff Sack, Leonard Pitts, SlamBall
posted by David Friedman @ 1:08 AM
SlamBall Creator Mason Gordon: "We Are Bringing on Some Pretty Fantastic Coaching Minds Who We Think Are Going to Take This Thing to the Next Level.”
One reason that SlamBall Commissioner Pat Croce has
enthusiastically embraced the sport is that SlamBall creator Mason Gordon is relentlessly trying to take the game to the next level in a variety of ways, from seeking out the most talented athletes to bringing in coaches from several different sports in order to increase the sophistication of SlamBall's strategies. I recently spoke with Gordon about how he created SlamBall and his vision for the sport's future:
Friedman: “How did you come up with the idea for the sport in the first place?”
Gordon: “I grew up doing three things and just about only three things and those three things were playing football, playing basketball and playing video games. So, as I got a little bit older I saw an opportunity to kind of put those three things together in a blender, hit the button and see what happens. I didn’t really know what I was doing. I went into a little warehouse in East L.A., built the first court from spare parts and it just kind of took off from there.”
Friedman: “What skills are the most important for someone to be good at SlamBall?”
Gordon: “It’s actually a very different skill set than what you find at the highest levels of basketball and football. The premium is really on ball specific skills but most importantly on body control, the ability to be able to hold body positions in the air, maneuver your body in the air and it’s a big adjustment for a lot of these guys who are used to being 35 to 40 inches off of the ground but now they are 140 inches off of the ground. Being able to maintain a semblance of body control and purpose at those elevated heights is really a unique skill and we’re going through the process now of trying to find elite athletes for the new season.”
Friedman: “When you bring in athletes from different sports—whether they are basketball players, football players or whatever their primary sport originally had been—how do they train to try to develop the body control that you need to be good at SlamBall? Are there certain exercises that they do or a certain workout program that you give them or do they just develop that body control through the process of playing SlamBall?”
Gordon: “It’s funny. We have tried out about 5000 athletes for SlamBall and almost universally there has been an adjustment period for even the most accomplished athletes that we have taken in. We use what is called progression based learning techniques to upgrade their skills. We usually take a gymnastics-style approach, teaching them very simple skills and then asking them to build on those skills and start linking those things together into more and more complex abilities. In very few cases—in fact, only three to date—we’ve had players walk into tryouts and we didn’t have to teach them a thing. They could just do it. We had a joke about one of the players that he must be an alien from a planet where they already had SlamBall. The guy just walked in and he could do everything right away; it was kind of like a native skill. That was very encouraging to us at an early stage that there were some people who were just gifted with this capacity.”
Friedman: “What background did that athlete have that enabled him to adjust to SlamBall so quickly?”
Gordon: “We don’t really know. He had played a little bit of college basketball and he was a standout multi-sport athlete in high school. He had a bit of a skateboarding background but it really wasn’t that. He just walked in and for whatever reason he had what we call the x factor; he had balance. He could really control his body and he didn’t get flustered from being 17 feet off the deck. He was very comfortable landing and crashing out into safety positions, which is something that we usually have to teach people. In basketball, when athletes take off for the rim or some kind of foray to the hoop they are immediately thinking, ‘Get back to my feet, get back to my feet.’ In SlamBall, we have to train away from that and get guys thinking that they are committing (to the air) and then they are committing to crashing out of that on to their back, their chest or their side because that is a much safer way to play SlamBall.”
Friedman: “I checked out the website and I looked at the rules. For someone who does not have a lot of familiarity with SlamBall, it looks kind of complicated to understand all of these rules and to see what is going on. For my readers or for people who don’t have any background in this and who don’t know about the sport, how would you describe in a simple way the basics of how the game is played, without all the intricacies of every particular rule and every kind of foul? Give a general sense of how the course of a game goes and what a team is trying to do on offense and what a team is trying to do on defense.”
Gordon: “The offensive team is trying to score as many points as possible by putting the ball through the basket in a variety of ways that are scored differently. The defense is trying to stop them by using the fullest extent of the contact that is allowed during the game in order to knock the ball loose and force the action the other way in an attempt to score. You have something that is very similar to the movements in basketball but it is actually even more like the movements in hockey because you are managing momentum up and down the court. Momentum is really what gives you an advantage at the rim over the defensive players. I think that people will see a lot of elements from sports that they do understand, like the hockey goalie—in SlamBall we have a position called the stopper, a guy who looks to stay back at the rim whenever possible in order to guard against easy slam dunks. That can lead to a really spectacular collision at the rim or a spectacular block or a spectacular finish. The entire game is funneled toward these fantastic midair confrontations and we’re looking to see a great proliferation of different skills this year as we bring in specialists like shooting specialists from major college (basketball) programs and enforcer-type specialists from football programs. So you will be able to watch the sport and really see who are the shooters, enforcers and high flyers. We think that there is going to be a really tremendous mix that is very engaging from the perspective of a sports fan.”
Friedman: “In basketball height is a very important asset. You can excel at basketball without being tall but then you are always working against that or working around your lack of height. With the trampolines being used in SlamBall is height particularly important or does it not make much of a difference how tall someone is?”
Gordon: “Height helps in certain situations but the great thing about the springs—as we like to call them—is that they do some really amazing things. First and foremost, they convert energy, so what you get out of the springs is what you put into them—very simple physics. We find these explosive athletes who manage to attack the springs with speed or verticality. A guy who can broad jump into the trampolines with these great strides and hit the angles just perfectly is going to get a tremendous result; you can also do that with speed, so we have had some smaller, quicker players be very, very dominant at the rim against bigger, stronger players by virtue of their athleticism and quickness.”
Friedman: “From what you are describing, power, speed and athleticism are essential traits for SlamBall players but in terms of having a winning team how much is based just on assembling the best, most explosive athletes and how much is based on a strategic component? If you follow what I write at 20 Second Timeout then you know that I really emphasize the strategic aspect of basketball. There are some deep, underlying strategies in the NBA; it is not just a bunch of talented athletes running up and down the court. How much of a strategic aspect is there to SlamBall?”
Gordon: “I would invite every one of your readers to take a really hard look at SlamBall as we debut on television again this year. There is a tremendous strategic development going on. Not to give you a long answer but to give you an example (of the differences between basketball and SlamBall): you cannot play defense in SlamBall the way that you do in basketball. It is completely futile to get down into a defensive position and slide your feet because of the speed of the game. You have to actually play defense in SlamBall very much like a defensive back does in football. You have to be in a crouched, explosive position, you have to open up to the ball, you have to follow pursuit angles and you have to make contact when necessary to jar the ball loose and get your teammates going the other way. In terms of team defense, you have to force the ballhandlers to the outside of the court and deny the middle part of the court because that is where the offensive players have the greatest advantage and the largest variety of ways to score. Offensive players need to have that Barry Sanders-Allen Iverson skittish kind of way of sliding through the defense--and full contact defense at that--in order to break through where the defense is trying to funnel you and thus gain an advantage. So, there is quite a bit going on strategically and it is evolving very, very rapidly. We are bringing on some pretty fantastic coaching minds who we think are going to take this thing to the next level.”
Friedman: “It sounds like what you are saying is that to develop someone into a good SlamBall player and then to assemble those players into a good SlamBall team is a two step process. First you have to get the athletes acclimated to the different kind of physical movements in the sport and then after they are acclimated to that aspect then you have to train them about how to apply those skills in the proper way from a strategic standpoint, such as keeping the other team away from the middle of the court and so forth. Would that be an accurate paraphrase or description?”
Gordon: “I think so. Some of the emerging strategies to look for this year include a midair pick and roll that we have developed that is pretty spectacular and some plays that are referred to as up and under plays or up and over plays that are two and three man plays that require a series of alley oops that are very intricately timed. There are secondary options and shot options based off of that, so it is really quite an impressive marriage involving the blending of basketball skills with football skills where you find ways to integrate core strategies from each sport. Then the other piece of it that I think is the most interesting is the psychological element of these athletes, the idea that they are bringing courage, fearlessness, coachability and professionalism to the table. We are finding a great number of very, very high caliber players who I think will represent this game very effectively on to the next level.”
Friedman: “Since this is a relatively new sport would I be correct to assume that most of the coaches you are developing are people who have played the sport and literally learned the strategies on the fly? There have not been decades and decades to develop coaching theory like basketball has; the theory is kind of developing out of practice. Would that be correct?”
Gordon: “We have players in our pipeline who are looking to become coaches and we certainly are trying to accommodate those transitions but we are also reaching out into multidisciplinary backgrounds, specifically basketball and football types but also rugby coaches—people who can come into the sport and hopefully bring some outside the box thinking and really help lay the groundwork for what we think are going to be very complex strategies.”
Friedman: “How can people watch the games on TV or go see the games in person?”
Gordon: “We are actually in the final stages of putting together our broadcast deal. Hopefully by the time you go to press with this we will be able to give you an answer about that.”
Friedman: “Is there anything that you would like to say about SlamBall that has not been covered in the questions that I asked?”
Gordon: “The sport seems to have touched a real nerve with a generation that grew up with video games and the idea of jumping higher and hitting harder. I think that it is the perfect kind of sport to bridge from the end of the NBA season to the beginning of the NFL season. I think that it is something that people can really get excited about during the summer and find a team whose style of play that they like; I think that they will see very disparate styles of play from the various teams and I think that they will find stars who they really can identify with.”
For more information about SlamBall, check out the official website.Labels: Mason Gordon, Pat Croce, SlamBall
posted by David Friedman @ 6:29 PM
SlamBall Commissioner Pat Croce: "Who is Going to Tell me What's Impossible?"
Few people personify the ethos of living life to the fullest more than Pat Croce, who went from being the first physical conditioning coach in NHL history (1981, Philadelphia Flyers) to being the owner/operator of a chain of 40 fitness centers. In the mid-1980s he served as a trainer for the Philadelphia 76ers and then a decade later he acquired an ownership stake in the team and served for five years as team president, during which time the Sixers climbed all the way from the depths of the draft lottery to the heights of the 2001 NBA Finals. Croce is an avid motorcyclist, a best-selling author and he has also earned a fourth degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do.
His current passion is SlamBall, a sport created by Mason Gordon. Croce is the SlamBall Commissioner and he brings to this endeavor the same passion and energy that he has applied to everything else that he has done. On his website, Croce provides advice to help people be more successful. One of his tips is about the "elevator pitch," which he describes as "a concise, carefully planned, and well-practiced overview that you should be able to deliver in the time span of an elevator ride (which is usually less than a minute). The elevator pitch is the brief 'tease' typically used by entrepreneurs when pitching an idea to a venture capitalist for potential funding. Or by TV show producers trying to get their show idea picked up by network executives. Or by a publisher to buy your writing. Or by salespeople hoping to tickle customer interest."
On Wednesday, I participated in a conference call with Croce and listened to him share his vision for what SlamBall can become. Here is his "elevator pitch" for the sport, in which he dismisses the idea that SlamBall will have the same fate as the XFL:
"I don’t think that there is a comparison whatsoever! XFL was just bastardized football. Ours is not crazy basketball. Ours is a combination of basketball, acrobatics, extreme action sports where you will see things that skateboarders and bikers do with their equipment that these guys (SlamBall players) will be able to do with their bodies once they get used to the trampolines and the in the air momentum. The XFL was no good. Everyone watched the first half of that and you were bored. They were talking more about the cheerleaders than the game. Those who saw SlamBall on Spike TV in 2002 and 2003—you couldn’t take your eyes away from it; you were riveted. It was wild. Everyone looked like Michael Jordan above the rim and it was full contact! Whack, bam, slam you’re dead! It was wonderful. You had them whacking off of the boards like in hockey, you had the basketball prowess. I don’t see any comparison. I think that what UFC is doing to traditional sports SlamBall can do to traditional sports. We’re not saying we’re basketball. We’re not saying we’re hockey. We’re not saying were football players. We’re no different than skateboarding or snowboarding; ours is just a different sport for a different generation. The longevity of a sport is to be entertained and to see something different where you say, ‘Wow, look at that guy.’ XFL had nothing. It did nothing to make you say, ‘Wow.’ I think that the ratings of the XFL for the first half of the first game were wonderful and then they went down precipitously ever since then. I think that SlamBall is totally different. Once the players get used to the acrobatics and the aerial display of their own bodies we don’t know what they will be able to do in the air.”
I had an opportunity to ask Croce several questions; naturally, I could not resist inquiring about his experiences in the NBA and how they relate to what he is trying to do now with SlamBall.
Friedman: “You have had a very interesting career and life path, from being a trainer with the 76ers to owning the team to being a black belt and a motorcyclist. I am interested to know the background of how you first found out about SlamBall and how you got involved in the league.”
Croce: “David, that’s a good question. It was the summer of 2001 and I had just left the 76ers. I finished my five year term from worst to first with the team. We busted the Lakers out here in (game one) of the Finals of 2001. A friend of mine, Mike Tollin—the movie producer and director—came to me with an idea that he and Mason Gordon were pursuing, this game called SlamBall. He told me to come out to L.A. and see what they were doing. They knew that I had stepped away from the 76ers and said that they would love to have me be involved. Mike Tollin, to me, is one of the smartest guys on the planet. He’s got common sense and book sense. So I came out, and he was doing the show ‘Arliss’ at the time and I forget which movie he was producing at the time. I saw these guys—the whole court was probably about three or four feet off the ground and it had glass all around it—and it looked like Michael Jordan everywhere. I didn’t know what was going on. I see them hitting each other and the training was going on and they were hitting and rolling and doing all these kinds of drills. I thought, ‘This is outrageous.’ I liked it and I got captivated. I left and said to Mike that I was interested but that I’m not the perfect demographic; I wanted to bring my 21 year old son Michael and see what he says about it—and I won’t prejudice him about it at all. I think that in January or February 2002 I brought Michael out to see it as they were training and getting ready for the first season and he was in awe; he loved it. He was captivated by the athletes, by their conditioning and not only their aerobic capacity but I should say there should be another term for it—‘aerobatic’ or whatever you would call it when you do something in the air when you are up there that high. After that I got involved as a spokesperson and helped give it some validity and authenticity by talking about it to Jim Rome and Dan Patrick. We invited Jay Leno and Jay Mohr and the ‘Best Damn Sports Show’--I forget which big football player it was but he said, ‘This is BS’ and he got out there and got his ass kicked. It was so funny and so cool to see this macho guy who could not do squat against these guys who were nimble and used to the tramps. I was hooked and I’m still hooked. I wouldn’t be involved otherwise. If you know anything about me—if you go to my website PatCroce.com and obviously David you’ve done some research on me—I only pursue things that I am passionate about because I don’t have to work. I want to be able to enjoy this journey and I really like this sport. I think that this is going to go somewhere and I love Mason and Michael because they are not complacent. They will not settle for whatever we had. We want to take it to what we don’t even know exists yet.”
Friedman: “What specifically are your duties? You are listed as the commissioner of the sport. We have a clear idea of exactly what David Stern and Roger Goodell do; we see them publicly and understand what their duties are. What exactly are your duties and your day to day involvement with SlamBall?”
Croce: “Hey, that’s a great question. I’m doing one of them right now. I want to preach the gospel. Just think of me as David Stern on steroids—or on caffeine, but I don’t drink coffee. I set the law. For instance, if those athletes are not in shape, they are not coming to camp. Mason is the CEO and he runs the SlamBall league but what I can do as commissioner is help to ensure that any policies, procedures and amendments--anything that we put in the commandments of the league, whether it is about players who fight getting expelled or anything else--all the players know that I walk the talk. If it’s in writing, then I will adhere to it. If players don’t do what they are supposed to do they will be fined or suspended. I will make sure that I lay the law down. I did it with Allen Iverson and I will do it with them.”
Friedman: “You were a trainer with the 76ers. I know that the championship team (in 1982-83) was really in the forefront in terms of hiring John Kilbourne as a dance coordinator and looking at flexibility and conditioning and using and applying that in sports. Since it is the 25th anniversary of that championship team, what memory stands out most for you from your experience as a trainer with the 76ers and how did you apply those experiences to your future endeavors as an owner and now as a commissioner?”
Croce: “I wasn’t there in 1983. I didn’t come on until Charles (Barkley) came.”
Friedman: “Right, you were there starting a little bit after that.”
Croce: “I did know Kilbourne, who was the first to bring that kind of flexibility (training) to the NBA. I was the first conditioning coach in the NHL in 1981 with the Flyers. He came on (with the Sixers) and then he brought me on the next year because of Andrew Toney’s injury and to get the ‘Round Mound of Rebound’ down from a svelte 300 to 250. I’ve always been a master proponent of fitness, of conditioning off the court, off the ice, because I believe that since the bodies are their tools these athletes have to be in fine tuned shape flexibility-wise, strength-wise, aerobic-wise, anaerobic-wise, core-wise. So we were doing plyometrics and that kind of stuff back in the 80s. When I was with the Sixers (as owner/president from 1996-2001), probably my biggest frustration was that Allen Iverson, the little SOB, would not work out off the court. He just wouldn’t do it. God gave him such great gifts that he thought that his talents would last forever. You know what, he’s defying gravity right now. It was such a bummer to be the conditioning guru who could not get this guy to do it. He thought it didn’t matter; he would do it but he would not do it with the intensity that a Kobe Bryant or Michael Jordan would do it. I would say, 'Bubba' (Iverson’s nickname), come on, you’ve got to train.’ Here, as the commissioner of SlamBall, I can dictate that every athlete will be doing off court training. Every athlete will come to camp in shape. When I first started with the Flyers in 1981, they’d come to camp with hockey sticks under one arm and a case of beer under the other and I had to get them in shape. They’d be throwing up. Bobby Clarke and Reggie Leach and the others—camp was for getting in shape back then. Then, the Russians really taught America that you have to do all this dry land training to be a great hockey player. I think that has permeated everywhere, except maybe baseball.”
Friedman: “Yeah, it does not seem to have caught on with pitchers completely--like David Wells.”
Croce laughs.
Friedman: “You mentioned that you got into SlamBall right after you left the Sixers.”
Croce: “When I left the Sixers I still kept a percentage of the team for another year but I got into SlamBall in the fall of 2001 when I started talking with Mike Tollin and Mason Gordon.”
Friedman: “You had such a passion for the Sixers and for basketball--like you do for SlamBall as well--is there any way that you might decide to be an owner or a managing general partner with an NBA team?”
Croce: “David, you know what? I’m still passionate about the NBA. I still talk with David Stern and Adam Silver and I’m still an NBA fan. I’ve learned in life—I’m smart enough now—to know to never say never. So I would never say never because you don’t know. You don’t know. If an opportunity presents itself, you don’t know. Philadelphia is my home and so it was very special. The problem is I couldn’t leave there without making the Sixers a winner or otherwise they would have burned my home down.”
Friedman: “That’s pressure.”
Croce: “Way pressure. Look at everyone who has left Philadelphia. It’s scary because if you don’t do well there, they’re not a patient bunch. They’re passionate and that passion can fuel their dreams so strongly that you’ve got to win--and I loved it.”
Friedman: “Have you had any involvement with their commemoration of the championship team?”
Croce: “Oh sure! Even when I was there, I had the team back—Julius (Erving) and Moses Malone and Bobby Jones and even (trainer) Al Domenico and (former GM) Pat Williams and (Coach) Billy Cunningham. I even retired Charles Barkley’s jersey. I can’t remember everything that I did during those five years because it melds together with the time that I was a conditioning coach and physical therapist about 10 years before I became the President and minority owner. I was involved in every one of their tributes. Are you kidding me? We don’t have that many champions in Philadelphia; the ’83 Sixers are the last championship team we’ve had.”
Friedman: “Are you still in contact with Andrew Toney? I know that he does not stay in touch as much with the group.”
Croce: “You’re right. I was in touch with him when I was running the team but I haven’t been in touch since then. You’re right. He is very aloof, very introverted. Maurice Cheeks offered him an assistant coaching job.”
Friedman: “I remember that.”
Croce: “I thought that he was going to take that. You know the guy, the hardest one to reach who I could never get? He wasn’t from the ’83 championship team. He was from the Billy Cunningham team..."
Friedman: “The championship team that Cunningham played on?”
Croce: “Yeah. When was that?”
Friedman: “That was 1966-67. Was it Hal Greer?”
Croce: “Hal Greer! I called Hal Greer and I wanted him to come back because I got everyone else back in the house—but I couldn’t get him. I wanted Hal back in the house but he just had such a negative response, I guess, in reaction to the former ownership that he would never come back.”
Friedman: “Yeah, that’s another story with the Sixers but I think that a lot of people have that attitude with that particular group.”
Croce laughs.
Friedman: “The reason I asked some of those questions is that I grew up as a Sixers fan, particularly of that team in the 1980s with Dr. J and Toney. I think that Toney is one of the underrated players of all-time. It is really a great tragedy what happened with him with the foot injuries and that his career did not have a natural progression or a natural conclusion.”
Croce: “Oh, you are so right—that he didn’t leave on a high note so that everyone could just see him leave the building like Julius did.”
Friedman: “I guess because there was not MRI technology, people did not really understand exactly what his injury was and there was all that controversy about the situation.”
Croce: “He believed—or he overheard—the owner say that he was faking. That is really what set him off. I was there; I was his physical therapist taking care of him.”
Friedman: “That was a plantar fascia situation, right?”
Croce: “No, it was more than that. It also involved his ankle. He had a problem with the sub-talar joint.”
Here are some of Croce's other thoughts regarding SlamBall (the topic is listed in italics and Croce's answers are included within quotation marks):
Why has SlamBall been on hiatus for several seasons?
Croce: "The hiatus occurred because we had it on Spike TV those first two years, though it wasn’t called Spike the first year; I think it was called TNN and then they switched to Spike. We didn’t want to be a made for TV sport. We want to be a traditional sport, a franchise sport similar to Arena Football on a second tier compared to the big four sports. So we went on a European tour, an Asian tour and we were looking all this time for a broadcast partner who is a big player, a global player like IMG. We needed someone who had the power, the bandwidth to create an international splash with sponsorships, with venues, with practice facilities so that we could take this to the next level. We weren’t going to settle. We did not want to be a cartoon sport for TV. That was not what we wanted. We are looking at all kinds of ways to take the sport to the next level. One of them is that we have engaged a consultant named Vance Walberg, who is notorious for his dribble drive offense that (Coach John) Calipari is using to take Memphis to the Final Four. We read about him in Sports Illustrated and he has come in and consulted with us to see how we can make the plays not only more high energy, more intricate but so that--like the pick and roll in basketball--we can come up with our own plays in SlamBall. Mason Gordon, the CEO and creator of SlamBall is fanatical. He is nuts about this. We don’t want what you saw a few years ago. We want to take this to the next level, whether it’s the players, the plays, the technology of the court. We have a philosophy of continuous improvement."
How will fans be able to watch SlamBall?
Croce: "We have some great opportunities (for deals with TV networks) and we hope to announce that soon. We want it on a network. Obviously, there will be some great internet strategy associated with that. With IMG as our partner, Chris Albrecht--who is one of the key players in IMG who you might have heard of because he was the Chairman/CEO of HBO, who brought them ‘The Sopranos,’ ‘Entourage’ and ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’--is our partner in this and he and Michael (Tollin) and Mason (Gordon) have spoken with (NBC's) Dick Ebersol and CBS and FOX and Versus. We are looking at a variety of tiers so that you can see it. We have to make it viewable. We could have the best sport in the world, but if people don’t see it what good is it? We want to make sure that we are internet savvy so that we have a multiplatform network so that you can see it in a variety of ways. In June we will film all of this year’s tournament. This Monday we have tryouts in L.A., followed by tryouts Tuesday in New York and Thursday in Florida. The following weekend is when camp starts--two weeks of intense camp, during which 120 athletes from the draft will be weeded down to 64. Then for the next six weeks they will go through extensive training with their coaches and trainers. The month of June is when we will film all of the games, either here in L.A. or in Las Vegas. We have also been offered (a venue) in New York, so I don’t know where it is going to be filmed this year but the goal next year is to have a franchise league in eight to 10 cities so that there is a Philly team, a New York team, an L.A. team so it’s the real deal and we have teams at venues where you can see them live. When we did this for Spike TV we filmed for several weeks at Universal Walk right here in L.A. It was live for people to see and the stands were packed but I can’t answer that right now in terms of where we are filming in June but we’ll let you know right away. The best way is to see it live. Shaq came and Snoop Dogg came--to watch it live is unbelievable."
Where do you see SlamBall being in five years?
Croce: "The same place you would have seen snowboarding or skateboarding or beach volleyball. I want to see it in the Olympics in 2012. People always say, ‘You’re nuts. That’s impossible’ but remember that I was a trainer who became an owner of an NBA franchise, so who is going to tell me what’s impossible?"
For more information about SlamBall, check out the official website.Labels: Allen Iverson, Andrew Toney, Billy Cunningham, Charles Barkley, Hal Greer, Julius Erving, Kobe Bryant, Mason Gordon, Pat Croce, Philadelphia 76ers, SlamBall
posted by David Friedman @ 1:24 AM
