BASKETBALL Valley will have new pro team

By JOE SCALZO
VINDICATOR SPORTS STAFF
STRUTHERS -- Frank Petrakos already has been involved with a bad minor league basketball league. He's confident he's getting involved with a good one.
"This is a great day," Petrakos said Thursday. "We've always said this Valley is very sports-oriented and we're very excited about this.
"We think this can work."
Petrakos, a 36-year-old dentist from Canfield, and Craig Mangie, a 49-year-old oral surgeon from Boardman, represented the ownership group for the Valley's International Basketball League team that will begin play in April at Struthers Fieldhouse.
Petrakos was a minority owner of the Youngstown Hawks of the International Basketball Association -- one of two professional basketball teams in the area that failed to catch on. The Youngstown Pride of the World Basketball Association also failed.
"We learned a lot from the mistakes that were done before," Petrakos said. "The majority owner of the Youngstown Hawks, Ted Stepien, really had no idea how to market to this area."
Part of 15-team IBL
The new team, which could be called the "Mahoning Valley Wildcats," will be part of the 15-team IBL, which includes teams from Akron and Dayton. The IBL offers a faster, more athletic game with an emphasis on playing regional teams, said Tony Alvarez, the IBL director of league operations.
"I'm not going to sit here and tell you that minor league basketball leagues work because they don't," Alvarez said. "But we think this one will work because of the model we've set up."
Youngstown will be grouped in the Ohio-Indiana-Michigan "cluster," which will reduce travel time and create regional rivalries, Alvarez said. It will also take one lengthy plane trip to play teams outside its cluster. The first-year league has commitments from teams in California, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, Michigan, Ohio, Oregon and Vancouver.
Each team's operating costs are expected to be around $90,000 a season. By contrast, a Continental Basketball Association team costs about $500,000 a season, Alvarez said.
Minimum salary
The minimum salary for players and coaches is $30 per game, and the owners said the team expects to recruit players from northeast Ohio and western Pennsylvania. Players must be at least 20 years old and most will have major college experience.
The team will only need about 850 fans a night to cover costs, Alvarez said. Most tickets will cost between $6 and $8. A coach and a general manager will be hired in the coming weeks.
Because the league plays from April through June, it will not have to compete with high school and college teams. The NBA still will be playing, and the IBL has tried to offer an alternative to the defense-first mentality of the pros. The league allows teams only one time-out per quarter and teams must immediately inbound the ball.
"The brand of basketball is different," said Mangie. "I'm not saying the NBA is boring, but this is a very athletic brand of basketball."
scalzo@vindy.com