Summer Vocations : Hybrids of Hockey, Tennis and Soccer Fill Arena Schedules, but Can They Fill the Seats?

Wayne Gretzky was nowhere to be found in the Kings’ locker room Tuesday.

Instead, a bunch of little-known hockey players had gathered for a peculiar game in an odd league.

Even the most ardent sports fan wouldn’t have recognized these players.

As game time approached, John Black, their coach, went over last-minute strategy.

“Tonight’s game is the only game that really matters,” Black said. “Let’s get off strong. Let’s get some shots on goal. Lets go get ‘em.”

“Lets go!” the players yelled as they emerged from the locker room and gathered near the edge of the Forum rink.

The lights dimmed and the players stood there, 14 guys on the threshold of an improbable dream: They were actually getting paid to play roller hockey .

“Ladies and gentleman, now taking the floor, your Los Angeles Blades,” the announcer boomed.

The first player to skate out slipped on the “Sport-Court” surface and landed on his rear.

Same with the second guy.

The fans laughed, then applauded when the fallen players stood.

This kind of stuff could only happen in L.A., right?

Actually, no. Similar scenes--perhaps minus the falling--are being played out in arenas across North America, all because of “the lull,” that period between the end of the NBA season and the start of the NFL and NHL seasons.

Traditionally, during the lull, fans have nothing to watch except baseball.

And during the lull, arena promoters find revenues reduced because of dark, idle buildings.

Now, there are reasons to turn on the lights--non-traditional versions of football, tennis, soccer and hockey.

Take roller hockey. It certainly isn’t major league, but it isn’t “American Gladiators,” either.

“With these sports, you’re going after a niche,” said Bryan Colangelo, who operates three pop sports at Phoenix’s America West Arena. “You’re going after a true soccer fan, a true football fan.”

The purists--some of whom would rather watch a three-hour baseball game u-n-f-o-l-d than be seen in a pop sports arena--have dismissed these fast-paced hybrids, laughing at them, calling them “junk” sports or “freak” sports.

“I wouldn’t call them junk sports,” cautioned Colangelo, whose father, Jerry, is co-owner of the Phoenix Suns. “We like to use the term pop sports. “

The big four of the summer pop sports world--if there is such a distinction--includes:

--TeamTennis, an energetic version of the sport, whose fans are encouraged to make noise.

--Indoor soccer, yet another arena version of the outdoor sport, hoping to succeed where so many previous leagues have failed.

--Roller hockey, a concept so new that no one can say for sure whether it will be safe, let alone succeed.

--Arena football, a rollicking hybrid of sports and entertainment, advertised as “in-your-face football.”

“We’ve pretty much had the thing to ourselves in the summertime,” arena football founder Jim Foster joked.

Not anymore. Now, there are four.

In leagues of their own, they’re bringing pop sports to a climate-controlled arena near you.

Southern Californians have a smorgasbord of pop sports, with seven area teams in San Diego, Newport Beach, Anaheim and Los Angeles. Los Angeles and Phoenix lead the pop sports league with three teams apiece.

“We knew we had to stage some summer events to fill (the) summer lull,” said Colangelo, 28.

Jeanie Buss, who operates three pop sports at the Forum agreed.

“It’s better to have something going on here (at the Forum) than to leave it dark,” she said.

During downtime at the Forum--after Showtime, after Gretzky--Buss and Co. flip on the lights for the Blades, the Strings of World TeamTennis and the United of the Continental Indoor Soccer League.

“Certainly, I’m not going to try to fool myself that we will rival the Lakers or Kings as far as attendance,” Buss said.

She’s right. It’s not even close.

The United drew 1,088 fans for its home opener.

The Blades, who opened Tuesday, drew 2,874.

Still, the sparse attendance probably didn’t shock the Blade players. Moments before they left the locker room, Sam Bayne, the Forum’s director of operations, had given them a warning.

“Hey guys, one thing I want you to know,” Bayne said. “In L.A. it takes people a long time to get into the building. Don’t get depressed when you see a thin crowd right now. . . . It might take one or two games in L.A. to get the crowd into it, but it’s going to happen.”

There’s a saying: “If at first you succeed, it’s probably your father’s business.”

Jeanie Buss and Bryan Colangelo have spent a lot of time living down nepotism, while trying to live up to their fathers--both fabulously successful NBA owners.

These purveyors of pop sports are a unique pair, with common problems, common goals and fathers named Jerry.

“I will never outgrow the term Jerry’s son, “ said Colangelo, good friends with Jerry Buss’ daughter.

Buss, too, is trying to emerge from her father’s shadow.

“It’s more difficult, for me, to the outside world,” she said. “Because I’m his daughter, people don’t take me seriously.”

That sentiment began early, when Buss was appointed general manager of the Strings, at 19.

“I guess I was considered ‘owner,’ ” Buss said with a shrug. “It was awful. I was so naive. If I knew then, what I know now. . . .”

Now, with a solid background in lesser-known sports, Buss said she is ready for the NBA.

“I think I have the necessary tools to work for any professional sport organization, whether it’s this one or any (other),” Buss said.

“(But) I work in a family business, and that’s my dedication. If my dad decided to sell everything and go into farming, I would be in the farming business.”

By contrast, if Jerry Colangelo began driving a John Deere, his vacated desk chair would be taken while it was still warm by his son.

“If it were up to me, I’d slide over and kick him out,” Bryan Colangelo said, admitting that he’s only half joking. “It’s going to be tough to get him out of there. . . . He’s a very young 53.”

A NEW DREAM

It was about 1989 when Jim Foster’s dream appeared on the verge of dissolving.

After two moderately successful seasons, the Arena Football League’s national television contract with ESPN expired.

Even worse, problems with investors brought the league dangerously close to failure.

Foster, who invented the game and developed the league, says three of the six owners conspired to take over arena football.

“That was probably the only time I didn’t think we’d come out alive,” said Foster, league consultant and former commissioner. “We really had a battle on our hands.

If arena football had not been played in 1989, the league would have joined the USFL, the World Football League and others as faint footnotes in sports history, relegated to the defunct league trash heap, Foster said.

That didn’t happen.

With the support of several owners, among them Detroit’s Mike Ilitch, and with 10 credit cards of his own charged to their maximums, Foster and his partners fielded five teams for a 10-city barnstorming tour.

Foster’s group also considered selling the league to Bruce McNall, but did not, a decision Foster regrets.

The league’s luck soon changed, however, thanks to the U.S. Patent Office.

On March 27, 1990, Foster and his three partners in Gridiron Enterprises, were issued U.S. Patent No. 4911443, legal protection for their unique brand of football.

That helped revive the league, giving potential owners a guarantee that arena football would be rival-free.

Suddenly, established NBA and NHL owners were signing up. Stability and sanity were operative words. And soon, the league began to prosper.

By 1992, the league had 12 teams and sellouts had become expected in such new markets as Charlotte, Tampa and Phoenix.

The Arizona Rattlers have sold out every game at the 15,505-seat America West Arena since they began last summer, and average league attendance last year was more than 12,000 a game.

And there is a new television contract. ESPN will televise six games this summer.

Under the cosmetics, though, problems persist, Foster said.

For example, the ESPN agreement forced league officials to move the start of the 1993 season from June to mid-May, the busiest time of the sports year. It competed with the NHL and NBA playoffs, the Indianapolis 500 and the Kentucky Derby.

“It’s a mistake for us to play in May,” Foster said.

Other problems also have emerged.

The San Antonio Force dropped out of the league this season because the team was unable to work out a schedule at HemisFair Arena.

The New Orleans Night folded because it had trouble drawing fans, partly because it was 0-10 last season, partly because the city already supports an NFL team.

Also problematic is the league’s inability to sustain a team in a major market, such as Los Angeles, New York, Chicago or Philadelphia.

The Los Angeles Cobras and New York Knights played in 1988, but weren’t around in ’89.

And smaller-market teams must contend with more than $500,000 in start-up costs, forcing potential owners into a gamble, because teams invariably lose money during their inaugural season.

“For us, Arena football broke even in Year 2,” Colangelo said proudly.

In the competitive Los Angeles market, however, Arena football would appear to be a thing of the past.

The Cobras--who played at the Sports Arena and stumbled to a 5-7-1 record--often competed with Laker telecasts and averaged only 7,507 fans a game.

RIGHT SPORT, WRONG CITY

Somehow, Ron Weinstein was smiling as he surveyed the “crowd” during the Los Angeles United’s home opener at the Forum three weeks ago.

Only 1,088 were in attendance but Weinstein, the CISL commissioner, masked disappointment.

“I wasn’t taken back by what I saw,” he said a few days later. “I pretty much knew what to expect in Los Angeles.”

Soccer failure in Los Angeles has been predictable and Weinstein, former executive vice president of the Lazers, is well aware of it.

With competition from the Kings and Lakers, and with an annual deficit approaching $1 million, the Lazers withdrew from the Major Indoor Soccer League in 1988 after six ho-hum seasons.

“With the parameters and the competition within the (Forum), it was virtually impossible for us to be successful,” Weinstein said.

Undaunted by his Lazer experience, however, Weinstein began envisioning a new league, one with a different economic structure and attitude. A league that would compete during the summer.

He pitched his vision to established owners, such as the Jerrys--Buss and Colangelo.

And when the Major Soccer League--it had shortened its name--folded last year, Weinstein wooed the Dallas Sidekicks and San Diego Sockers, two established teams, telling them that this league would be different, that this league would be viable.

“We basically eliminated 99% of the negatives of (past) leagues,” Weinstein said.

At the United’s home opener, it looked as if 99% of the fans had been eliminated, too.

That was unexpected.

Jeanie Buss and others had hoped that the Los Angeles soccer community would unite to support the United, a team made up of local players.

It hasn’t happened.

“This league needs a lot of nurturing,” Weinstein said. “This is a new league.”

Maybe, but for a new league, the CISL had a recycled look on opening night. The borrowed playing surface--emblazoned with the Sockers’ logo--looked like a garage-sale leftover from the defunct MSL; some of the press notes were from the MSL; and the uniform number of one player was hand-drawn with a marker.

“It’s very tough to resurrect something once you shut it down,” arena football’s Foster said.

Weinstein seemed to agree.

“If it doesn’t work this time,” he said ruefully, “it’ll never work.”

TEAMTENNIS, ANYONE?

The first time out, TeamTennis was backhanded by a wicked paradox: The more the league succeeded, the closer it came to folding.

From 1974-78, the game attracted tennis’ elite players, and in turn, slowly collapsed under the weight of their salaries.

Then the league folded, the players went back to the usual tournaments, and the concept of team tennis seemed all but dead.

But Larry King, who co-founded the game with his former wife, Billie Jean King, wasn’t ready to get out of TeamTennis. He believed the sport could succeed, given the right economic structure.

“I restructured TeamTennis, centralized the league and made it one business, instead of having walkouts, lockouts and (owners) bidding against one another,” King said.

It seemed as if he was on to something: a league with an economic structure that controlled costs by using fixed salaries or prize money; a league in which the owners were not rivals, but partners.

In 1981, the league was resurrected under King’s guidelines.

Players signed with the league and competed for $310,000 in prize money. Salaries were nonexistent and only four teams competed.

Then, slowly, using a cast of non-star players, the league stabilized, then expanded and finally began adding marquee players.

Now, World TeamTennis has 12 teams, whose players compete for $720,000 in prize money. And this year, a league-high five salaried players are competing--Jimmy Connors, Bjorn Borg, Martina Navratilova, Mats Wilander and Tracy Austin.

All five have won Grand Slam events. But as critics point out, all are past their prime.

“Because the (critics) have said so much about the ‘league of has-beens,’ that has kept John McEnroe from playing,” Jeanie Buss said. “The TeamTennis format is perfect for him. I am hoping eventually that he will play.”

NO ICING HERE

Larry King didn’t stop with World TeamTennis. Roller hockey, an increasingly popular sport on the streets of America, was next.

Given the right economic conditions, a roller hockey league could work, should work, King said.

And so it went.

King and Dennis Murphy founded Roller Hockey International in 1992, using the same economic theories that helped TeamTennis succeed.

“In our league, everybody wins,” King said, a month before the season began. “We should survive because owners can’t commit hara-kiri .”

The difficulty, it seems, will be selling fans on hockey without the trappings--no Zamboni, no Gretzky and no fights.

“Our goal is not to have any (fights). Our goal is to have skills, not goons,” King said.

Surely, the no-goon directive is nice.

The league’s slogan--”Hockey that’s fresh, not frozen”--is catchy.

But will the league be able to draw fans consistently?

Will the concrete surfaces used by many teams prove safe and effective?

Will Roller Hockey International become another defunct league?

By fall, those questions will have been answered and league officials will decide whether to try their pop sport again in 1994.

If not, fans might be left with the indelible image of a roller hockey player falling on his butt.

“I have to say, that that was one of the funniest things that has happened at a (Forum) event,” Jeanie Buss said.

The Hybrids

A Look at some Non-Traditional versions of some very traditional sports:

ARENA FOOTBALL LEAGUE

Like football but . . . narrow, 50-yard-field, eight-player platoons, rebound nets, no punting.

Ten teams: Albany Firebirds, Arizona Rattlers, Charlotte Rage, Dallas Texans, Detroit Drive, Cleveland Thunderbolts, Cincinnati Rockers, Miami Hooters, Orlando Predators, Tampa Bay Storm.

Season: May 14-Aug. 22.

Founder: Jim Foster.

Original cost to join league (1987): $125,000.

Cost in ‘94: $250,000, plus a$250,000 line of credit.

Expansion: Planning 12 or 14 teams in ’94.

Player salaries: $500 a week; additional $150 per victory. (Several players have personal appearance contracts to supplement income.)

Buzz: Renowned for its high-scoring games. Every time a team gets the ball, it’s in scoring position.

Television: ESPN will televise six games in 1993.

CONTINENTAL INDOOR SOCCER LEAGUE

Like regular soccer but . . . smaller ball, no penalty shots, on-the-fly substitutions.

Seven teams: Arizona Sandsharks, Dallas Sidekicks, L.A. United, Monterrey (Mexico) La Raza, Portland Pride, Sacramento Knights, San Diego Sockers. Charlotte, Las Vegas and Pittsburgh have committed to join the league in 1994.

Season: June 17-Oct. 3.

Founders: Ron Weinstein, Jerry Buss.

Original cost (1993): $50,000.

Cost in ‘94: $150,000.

Expansion: Planning 18 teams by 1994.

Player salaries: $500-$4,000 a player per month.

Buzz: World Cup fever could help the league but previous indoor leagues have failed.

Television: Prime Network will carry seven regular-season games and at least three playoff games.

ROLLER HOCKEY INTERNATIONAL

Like regular hockey but . . . played on concrete with in-line skates, five players to a team, no blue line, 10-minute quarters, league-patented puck.

Twelve teams: Anaheim Bullfrogs, Calgary Rad’z, Connecticut Coasters, Los Angeles Blades, Oakland Skates, Portland Rage, San Diego Barracudas, South Florida Hammerheads, St. Louis Vipers, Utah Rollerbees, Toronto Planets, and Vancouver Voodoo.

Season: July 1-Early September.

Founders: Dennis Murphy, Larry King.

Original cost (1993): $55,000.

Cost in ‘94: $125,000.

Expansion: Planning 17 teams in ’94.

Player salaries: $672,000 in prize money; average player will make $583 a week.

Buzz: Many potential players are waiting to see whether it’s safe.

Television: None.

WORLD TEAMTENNIS

Like regular tennis but . . . five sets total, no-ad scoring, overtime, super-tiebreakers.

Twelve teams: Atlanta Thunder, Florida Twist, Kansas City Explorers, New Jersey Stars, Raleigh Edge, Wichita Advantage, Los Angeles Strings, Minnesota Penguins, Newport Beach Dukes, Phoenix Smash, Sacramento Capitals, San Antonio Racquets.

Season: July 7-Aug. 1.

Founders: Billie Jean King, Larry King.

Original cost (1981): $25,000.

Cost in ‘94: $60,000.

Expansion: Planning 16 teams in ’94.

Player salaries: Players compete for $720,00 in prize money. Five marquee players have salaries ranging from five figures to mid-six figures--Tracy Austin, Bjorn Borg, Jimmy Connors, Martina Navratilova and Mats Wilander.

Buzz: League would love to get John McEnroe.

Television: Prime Network will carry five matches.