Unfortunate News From CBA Headquarters

CBAThe Continental Basketball Association employs many talented athletes and coaches, and has provided an excellent venue for athletes to show their skill before making a jump to the D-League or overseas for over fifty years.  At the end of 2008, I heard a rumor that the CBA was thinking about folding after not finding enough funding to finance its teams.  That worry was eventually put aside, and the 2008-09 season began, with Dynasty clients on a few of the rosters.  Yesterday, a press release from the CBA affirmed what many of us feared back in 2008. The CBA needs resuscitation and may be gone for good.

ALBANY, NY (February 2, 2009) – The Continental Basketball Association today announced that they have abbreviated the remainder of the 2008-09 season. The regular season will conclude on February 3. The CBA will then hold a three-game series in Albany with the top two teams in the league standings facing off, the Albany Patroons and the Lawton-Fort Sill Cavalry, to determine the 2008-09 CBA Champion.

The CBA Finals will start on Thursday, February 5 with Game 1. Game 2 will take place on Saturday, February 7 and if necessary, Game 3 will be on Sunday, February 8. All games will take place in Albany at the Washington Avenue Armory. Game time for all three games is 7:00 PM EST.

“Due to the ever increasing problems with the economy, the CBA has decided to abbreviate the remainder of the regular season,” stated CBA Commissioner Dennis Truax. “This is the best course of action for the CBA to take at this time. The economy has affected us all and we are now directly seeing the fallout from that. We will be holding an owners meeting during the finals as we look to restructure the CBA and come back next season stronger than ever.”

I thought sports were immune to a struggling economy? Not so much. This is very disappointing news for my company and many other players and coaches employed by the CBA. In a matter of months, two large “minor leagues” have folded with an ounce of hope that they will return in the future. The Arena Football League and the Continental Basketball Association will be missed this year. Will they ever return?

By Darren Heitner

Darren Heitner created Sports Agent Blog as a New Year's Resolution on December 31, 2005. Originally titled, "I Want To Be A Sports Agent," the website was founded with the intention of causing Heitner to learn more about the profession that he wanted to join, meet reputable individuals in the space and force himself to stay on top of the latest news and trends.

Heitner now runs Heitner Legal, P.L.L.C., which is a law firm with many practice areas, including sports law and contract law. Heitner has represented numerous athletes and sports agents as legal counsel. He has also served as an Adjunct Professor at Indiana University Bloomington from 2011-2014, where he created and taught a course titled, Sport Agency Management, which included subjects ranging from NCAA regulations to athlete agent certification and the rules governing the profession. Heitner serves as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Florida Levin College of Law, where he teaches a Sports Law class that includes case law surrounding athlete agents and the NCAA rules.

5 replies on “Unfortunate News From CBA Headquarters”

what does this mean for dynasty? with basketball clients not good enough for the nba or europe will you abandon the basketball division or wait till this years draft?

Darren and others with insight, what effects do you think this will have on lower leverl basketball representation? As an aspiring basketball agent this worries me as this was a league in which i viewed as an opportunity break into the business. Also, do you see any other leagues folding, not just basketball but for all lower level sports?

Lower level representation in any sport is looking rough. The CBA ended early, the AFL never got started. Will the new UFL ever begin? How about talks about a re-birth of the USFL? Is it even worth throwing your clients at these leagues that seem to be destined to fail? False sense of hope?

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