STAYING OR GOING?

By EARL GUSTKEY

July 14, 1999 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

While the WNBA’s best players show off their talents in tonight’s All-Star game, league executives will meet this week in New York behind closed doors to discuss a fallen star--Los Angeles.

What’s up with owner Jerry Buss and son Johnny? Are they looking for a way out of their WNBA commitment? And if their commitment to the WNBA enterprise is total and unconditional, why won’t they say so?

The Sparks, with one of the best of the league’s 12 teams (10-5, winners of seven of their last eight) stand 11th in attendance (6,799 per game). Worse, Spark attendance has gone down from last year’s 7,605.

Speculation over the Busses’ WNBA commitment began when an interview with Johnny Buss, the Sparks’ president, appeared in Sports Business Journal in May. Buss discussed a league requirement that teams must average 6,000 per game or risk losing their WNBA operating agreement.

“If we fall below 6,000, we wouldn’t want the team anyway,” he said.

Later, Buss said if the Sparks fail to average 10,000 this summer, he and his father would meet after the season and “reevaluate the whole thing.”

Buss the elder, who also owns the Lakers, hasn’t commented publicly on the Sparks’ future, although Johnny Buss said he would encourage his father to do so. Mum is also the word at the WNBA office in New York, where league President Val Ackerman has declined comment on her relationship with the Busses.

Is it a stretch to imagine the Sparks moving into Staples Center in the summer of 2001 (the Democratic National Convention precludes a WNBA schedule there next summer) under the banner of the Clippers? The Clippers say no one has raised the subject with them.

In an interview earlier this season, Johnny Buss said: “It wouldn’t surprise me if this team is still here in 12 or 15 years.”

The very next day, he told a columnist: “We’re only obligated to do this [run a WNBA team] for three years.”

When the NBA asked Jerry Buss to take on a WNBA team in 1996, his response was: “I’ll do it on one condition--we get Lisa Leslie.”

His wish was granted--Leslie was the Sparks’ first allocated player. But the first two Spark teams weren’t much, finishing 14-14 in the inaugural season and 12-18 last year.

Then Los Angeles, with new coach Orlando Woolridge doing the picking, had a highly successful draft, taking 6-foot-2 ABL star DeLisha Milton with its first pick, 6-5 ABL center Clarisse Machanguana second, 5-9 Purdue rookie Ukari Figgs third and another ABL player, 6-2 La’Keshia Frett fourth.

Milton, Figgs (currently out because of an ankle sprain) and Frett are all starters. And the team is on a roll.

So where are the crowds?

Some say Johnny Buss hasn’t marketed the team well, a charge he denies.

How would the WNBA’s TV partners--NBC, ESPN and Lifetime--react if the Busses relinquished their team and Los Angeles was left without a franchise?

“The reality is that L.A. really isn’t a factor in the WNBA TV ratings,” said Brian Donlon, executive producer at Lifetime, the cable network that carries Friday night WNBA games.

“Our best ratings come from games at Phoenix and Houston, where there are big crowds and a high energy level inside the arena. In L.A., you get a sea of empty seats.

“Johnny Buss is a great guy, a very good interview on camera, but I don’t think he does a good job of marketing that team. In the other WNBA cities, I see WNBA billboards. I’ve never seen a Sparks billboard in L.A.”

ESPN senior vice president Len DeLuca said through a spokesman that he didn’t want to “get involved in speculation” about WNBA decisions.

“The league has shown great judgment and we have every confidence in them,” he said.

NBC Sports chairman Dick Ebersol wouldn’t comment on the Los Angeles market, saying: “We’re very happy with our long-term commitment with the WNBA.”

Johnny Buss, in a recent interview, said the women’s pro game is a tough sell in Southern California.

“There are two ways you make money at this,” he said, “by selling tickets and selling sponsorships. We’re finding it hard to sell sponsorships too. Cleveland is the best in the league at it, they make $2 million a year. The average is about $1 million. We’re at $500,000.

“But I’m now confident we’re going to qualify for renewal of our operating agreement.”

He said the Clippers came up at league meetings in New York after last season, and he’s the one who brought them up.

“Ackerman was scolding me in front of everybody for our attendance and sponsorship sales, and she told me: ‘Johnny, you need to pick it up.’

“So I blurted out: ‘What’re you going to do, take the team away from us and give it to the Clippers?’

“She didn’t say anything, and neither did anyone else.”

He said his preseason goal of a 10,000-plus per-game average is attainable.

“Our best crowds have been late in the season,” he said. “I’m confident we can get 12,000, 14,000, 16,000 late in the season, particularly if we’re challenging for the playoffs.”

“Remember, we started at 4,500 per game for part of the first year. I’m marketing this team to families, just like the Dodgers did all those years. There may be faster ways to do it, but I want a foundation of families supporting us.”

He says his father has OK’d a doubling of the team’s advertising and promotion budget, to $800,000. He also said the Sparks’ costs are high.

He said he doesn’t know if his Forum costs will change under new arena ownership, but said his father charged him $10,000 per home game, plus the $14,000 required to staff the building for one game.

Lastly, any chance the Sparks could be set adrift in the event of a sale of the Lakers?

“My Dad just told me the Lakers are not for sale, but that he’s had ‘wonderful offers,’ ” Johnny Buss said.

WNBA Attendance: Standings

1. Washington: 14,858

2. New York: 12,682

3. Phoenix: 12,484

4. Houston: 11,202

5. Orlando: 9,917

6. Minnesota: 9,703

7. Cleveland: 8,858

8. Sacramento: 8,019

9. Detroit: 7,889