The Utah Starzz will not only live on, they will get bigger in the front office as owner Larry H. Miller throws even more resources their way in an enhanced effort to make WNBA basketball thrive in Salt Lake City.
Miller was to sign the WNBA's three-year extension agreement at noon Friday during a Delta Center press conference, despite what he calls "substantial financial losses" over the first three years of the franchise."If you look at that (first three years) as the foundation, we're going to build on it the right way -- the way we did with the Jazz, with sponsors and advertisers -- and I feel the fans will respond," said Miller. "We paid the price. Now we'll see what we can do with it."
He asked himself, "Is it a product that can be built in this market?" He doesn't know, but he said, "We haven't had our act together, on the floor or in the administration," to find out. That's what's coming next, with his choice to accept the WNBA's extension. "We've learned a lot more how not to do it," Miller said. "I can't say we've tried everything yet."
After signing the agreement Friday, he was going to commit to hiring between two and four new Starzz-only front-office employees to help build on what's already in place. "We're going to redesign the administrative side," he said, adding the number of potential hires is "totally hip-shooting here."
Miller said he has no one in mind yet for those jobs. "We haven't built the organization chart yet," he said.
The Starzz will seek people with knowledge of the women's game and of the female players, likely to function in general-manager and player-personnel-manager-type roles so that Jazz general manager Tim Howells and Vice President of basketball operations Kevin O'Connor can concentrate on the Jazz. Many other NBA teams that have WNBA franchises have functioned with such separation, and the WNBA has wanted Utah to do the same.
In making the decision to upgrade, Miller now agrees. "We clearly need administrative and management people who understand the women's game," he said.
He said he is pleased with the way coach Fred Williams, who became coach four games into the season, turned the club around in the second half of the 1999 schedule. That success, as well as the season-ending declaration from Natalie Williams that she'll return to the Starzz, helped Miller choose to more fully explore the Starzz's potential in a market that has not completely warmed to women's basketball in general. Even BYU-Utah college games don't draw well.
"Personnel-wise and coaching-wise, we have something pretty good to build on," he said, adding he was "delighted" when the Starzz were able to draft Williams, a former ABL MVP who grew up in Taylorsville. "We have a pretty solid nucleus," Miller said, counting Elena Baranova and Margo Dydek. "That makes it pretty exciting" to go forward.
"We've done most of the things we do (with the Jazz) pretty well, and there's no reason we can't do this unless this is just a market that won't support it," Miller said.
The Starzz have not seen the kind of box-office success that other WNBA teams have. Even Washington, which entered play in the second year of WNBA existence and which has won even less than Utah, has been a huge hit with fans.
The WNBA made it known last summer that it was unhappy with Utah's progress, threatening to move the franchise elsewhere. It made the same kind of threats to Charlotte, Sacramento and Los Angeles.
The league's original operating agreement called for clubs to reach average per-game attendance of 6,000 and gate receipts of $75,000 a night. Utah reached the attendance but not the gate receipts, and the WNBA offered the Starzz, Sacramento and Charlotte three-year extensions while other charter teams were offered 10-year extensions.
Howells, who is also the Starzz general manager, was sensitive to the differences, but Miller said it didn't bother him because there was some validity to what the league said, though he didn't like the idea that it came out in public. "It's distressing to me to make a big deal out of it. To me, it's a non-factor," he said.
But he said the league's public decree that Utah and other franchises might be relocated "put us in a corner," making people wonder if the franchise would continue.
Miller said he had many conversations with NBA commissioner David Stern, who told him it was his opinion that the WNBA will "build value." Miller said he "kept that in the equation" when making his choice to expand the operation.