When it was announced last month that the WNBA had taken back franchises located in Orlando and Miami, Utah's Natalie Williams relaxed. "I thought we'd be fine," she said.
All of the Utah Starzz employees knew for months that their futures were on shaky ground, but when the news finally came on Thursday that the team was being relocated to a new WNBA market in San Antonio, "It was heartbreaking. It's a shock," said Williams, the Olympic gold medalist who grew up in the Salt Lake Valley.
"I just think they don't know what to feel. They're trying to sort out what they feel," said coach Candi Harvey about her players. In 1 1/2 seasons in charge of the Starzz, Harvey made them one of the WNBA's most-competitive teams.
Maybe too competitive for Salt Lake's own good.
San Antonio could have had either of the Florida teams, but it wanted the one from Utah, which was 39-25 over the past two seasons — 34-17 with consecutive playoff appearances — under Harvey. Utah, the last of the league's eight charter franchises to ever play in the post-season, made the Western Conference playoff finals in 2002.
Clarissa Davis-Wrightsil, San Antonio WNBA chief operating officer, said as much Thursday in Texas as the Starzz's move to that city was announced at the same time Utah was getting the bad news in the Delta Center from team operator Larry H. Miller. "We are extremely excited to have a team with the experience and caliber of the Starzz. We are looking forward to seeing our efforts brought to life with this group of players, who . . . will make San Antonio proud."
Miller said he wouldn't "duck the issue," that it was his "emotional" decision to let go of the team for the good of his other 6,500 because of "seven-figure" losses in each of the six years he's operated the Starzz.
Some years' losses were $1.7 and $1.5 million.
Thursday morning, a "mutual" decision was made between Miller and the league, which for four years had threatened to relocate the club. The WNBA had urgency because San Antonio was impatient.
"I think they wanted to do it. I think San Antonio was pushing them really hard because they've got 6,000 season tickets they've sold, and they want to get on with their plans, so get-on/get-off with Utah because that was their first choice," Miller said.
Miller went from talking Wednesday night about keeping the club another year or more to learning at 11 p.m. Wednesday that he was to be involved in a teleconference with the NBA and WNBA leaders at 7:30 a.m. Thursday.
He doesn't say what changed during that teleconference, but that ended the history of the Starzz in Utah and cost 15 Starzz employees and coaches Harvey, Tammi Reiss and Bobbi Morse their jobs. Miller and the league endorsed Harvey to be the San Antonio coach, and she has made calls to that management, hoping to be re-signed.
In the Lone Star State, under Spurs Sports and Entertainment ownership, they will not be known as the Starzz. A new name will be announced within weeks.
Miller said his organization tried everything it could think of to improve revenue, but attendance flagged. "The enigma was, the team did so much better, and the attendance went backward," Miller said.
The Starzz stepped up staffing and marketing efforts the past two years to try and improve the gate, but that cost more than it brought in. "It's a backwards equation. It just doesn't work," said Miller.
In 1999, Utah averaged 6,189 paid tickets per game at money received of $8.82 each. That was with a lot of discount tickets, a practice which changed over the past two years. In 2002, the figure was 3,773 paid at $11.81 received, which is about a $10,000 revenue loss each game.
A 1999 three-year renewal of Utah's right to operate the WNBA team expired soon after eventual 2002 league champion Los Angeles beat the Starzz in the conference championship series 103-77 on Aug. 24.
An announcement had been expected two or three weeks after that date on whether Utah would continue, but it was postponed throughout September, October and November as the league and Miller haggled and the league announced a new set of operating rules to be used for 2003 teams.
Instead of NBA teams operating WNBA teams that were owned, as were player contracts, by the league, from now on, the teams will be owned individually. Most will be owned by NBA teams, as in San Antonio, but owners other than NBA clubs are now allowed, and teams do not have to be located in NBA cities. A new collective bargaining agreement with the players' association is being negotiated, but their contracts will now be matters for individual team owners, and it's expected that salaries will escalate.
Miller wasn't sure how much that played into his decision. "I wouldn't say it was the straw that broke the camel's back," he said. If he could have seen "light at the end of the tunnel in two or three or even five years, I'd probably (keep it).
"I'd settle for break-even, or even less, in a heartbeat and keep the team forever," he said. But break-even would have required a 240 percent gain in attendance/revenue. "I couldn't afford the Jazz if nobody came to a game," he said.
"I just think Larry made a business decision, which is understandable," said Harvey. "Without him, we wouldn't have had a team in the first place."
Assistant coach Reiss called it "inevitable. Larry didn't make money. When you continually lose and lose, you gotta sell. People just didn't support it here. How can you blame a guy who's losing money?"
E-MAIL: lham@desnews.com