La Crosse, Wisconsin: Former Home of the Catbirds
La Crosse, Wisconsin is a city along the Mississippi River and the southern Minnesota/ Wisconsin Border. La Crosse is a slightly longer drive to Chicago when compared to Dubuque, but it sits on Chicago and Milwaukee’s doorstep as well. Either city is well within driving distance of the entire midwest cluster of teams. Like Dubuque, La Crosse has a regional airport. Flights from La Crosse land in both the Twin Cities and Chicago. The Onalaska and La Crosse Metropolitan areas combine for a total of around 127,000 residents. The community is ideal in size for an IBL basketball team. The Catbirds (of the CBA) played in La Crosse starting in 1985 and basketball finally left La Crosse when Isiah Thomas had finished running the league into the ground in 2001. A study was conducted several years ago to predict fan turnout (ticket sales) for a community based on their population size. The study suggested that La Crosse has a 70% better fan turnout for basketball than other communities the same size.
The Catbirds were coached and run by Flip Saunders who has coached for the Timberwolves and Pistons of the NBA. Several talented players were on the roster including Elliot Perry, Kenny Battle, and Andre Turner. Turner was selected in the 1986 draft by the Los Angeles Lakers and was born in 1964. In the 1990-91 season the “Little General” averaged 5.9 points and 4.4 assists in 70 games for the 76ers. After the NBA, Turner took his game to Spain and still plays as of 2008. Could this 44 year old point guard return to the Catbirds of the IBL this spring?
The Catbirds played in the La Crosse Center which still exists today next to the Mississippi River in downtown La Crosse. The capacity of the arena is 10,000, but how it is currently set up the arena holds 8,000 for basketball. In the picture below you can see the unused space that could be turned into floor seating. For basketball the arena might be able to seat 9,000 plus?
La Crosse has a local low-power TV station (in addition to NBC, Fox, CBS, and ABC) that serves the community. Currently it broadcasts high school sports. It is not a stretch of the imagination to assume the IBL and this TV station would make great partners. The community also has several AM and FM stations as well.
Great cities like Dubuque, Coeur d’Alene, and Newberg have been discussed previously, but none of these cities has the rich basketball history that La Crosse has. These cities do support their local amateur teams, and that is why they made the list. However, you know what you get with La Crosse. La Crosse offers the opportunity to play in a big arena. They have past evidence of high ticket sales. Overall, the community was a basketball Mecca in the 1980s and 1990s. Since 2001 the community has been trying hard to bring a professional basketball team to La Crosse. A deal died a few years ago to bring the NBDL’s RimRockers. Since then the basketball rumors have gone quiet, but you can be sure it won’t be long before La Crosse has a pro team again.
Is OMT and La Crosse the perfect match? Maybe. After extensive research I’ve identified five communities that I see as best fits for the next IBL franchise. This includes three northwest cluster cities (Newberg, Oregon, Longview, Washington, and Coeur d’Alene, Idaho). The best two midwest cluster cities are likely Dubuque, Iowa and La Crosse, Wisconsin. Each city could be the best fit for us, but it all depends on the parameters. If locating close to the IBL offices in Portland becomes the most important issue, then locating in Newberg or Longview would make the most sense. If we have a large budget our first year, then locating in La Crosse might be wise. There are a variety of factors that have to play out for us to know which location is best. Locating an ideal facility and lease is one key component. These issues may eventually rule out some cities. Finding title level sponsors at the $10,000 level is another key component. If those can’t be found, then that would likely rule out a city. La Crosse has a strong history of supporting sponsors and fans in the community.
In what situation would La Crosse be ideal? La Crosse would be ideal for us if we have a sizable IBL budget for the 2009 spring season. Remember, the local community is basketball savvy, so the roster has to be top-notch. We are talking about recruiting the best players from the PBL, NBDL, CBA, ABA, and overseas and signing them to our IBL roster. That would mean having one of the largest player salary budgets as well as playing in the largest arena. La Crosse already has a team name and logo in the Catbirds. I’m not sure if that is available or if we would have to purchase it. La Crosse is kind of like Seattle in that the next team that locates there would be wise to use the name and logo the city identifies with. That means OwnMyTeam wouldn’t get to create a new logo right away, but they would be able to make the 1985 jerseys look modern. The plus side to this is that the merchandise sales would be a lot higher than in other communities. Also, locating in an arena not school related means beer sales.
La Crosse basically has the potiental to be a great minor league city for any minor league basketball program. If OMT decides to locate in La Crosse they better be on their game. That means high quality entertainment at the level of former Catbird greats Flip Saunders and Elliot Perry. Are you up to that challenge?
Elliot Perry
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