Sports Illustrated's Alexander Wolff founded a minor league basketball team -- the Vermont Frost Heaves -- in 2005. He has used the team to experiment with the sort of management styles suggested by sports fans over the years, and has also written about the sports ownership experience in the magazine. One of the gimmicks Wolff implemented was to let Frost Heave fans vote on who would coach the team. Will Voight, a Vermont native and three-time champion of the Norweigan league (seriously) won the job.This summer, the unstable Bakersfield Jam of the NBA's Developmental League decided to also let fans vote for the team's next coach. Guess who they picked? Yep, Will Voigt.
Ridiculous Upside, the best D-League blog on the planet, bemoans the selection based on Voigt's lack of qualifications. (ABA success just doesn't bring the buzz it used to. You know, in 1972.) But it goes further than that for the Jam ownership, who are really reaching into a bag of tricks to make money off the team.
The Jam will cater almost completely to Bakersfield's wealthy this year, offering pricey season tickets which include catered meals, valet service, suite seating, tickets to Lakers games, a round of golf at a local country club, an open bar and access to a cigar room in the arena. The arena that seats 550 people, mind you.
You can only buy tickets to a Jam game at this new Jam Center by purchasing one of those season tickets, which runs $3,000 for 18 games at the low end -- $166 per seat per game at minimum, some $70 more per ticket than the average Lakers seat. So basically, it's a country club setting with the sideshow of 10 dudes running around the hardwood playing for their professional lives. (The Jam will also play two weekend games at a larger Bakersfield arena with cheaper tickets available. How generous!)
Somehow, I don't think this is what David Stern or Alexander Wolff had in mind.
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