American Basketball League (1998)
Tombstone
Born: 1998 – ABL expansion franchise
Folded: December 22, 1998
First Game: November 6, 1998 (W 84-67 vs. Nashville Noise)
Last Game: December 20, 1998 (L 66-57 @ Colorado Xplosion)
ABL Championships: None
Arena
UIC Pavilion (7,800)11998-99 San Jose Lasers Media Guide
Opened: 1982
Marketing
Team Colors: Red (PMS 200), Black, Warm Gray (PMS 409) & Orange (PMS 717)21998-99 San Jose Lasers Media Guide
Ownership
Owner: American Basketball League
Attendance
Background
The Chicago Condors were a blink-and-you-missed-’em women’s basketball franchise in the defunct American Basketball League (1996-1998). Through little fault of their own, the Condors went out of business after just 12 games and six weeks of play when the ABL went bankrupt in midseason on December 22, 1998.
The ABL was one of two start-ups that tried to capitalize on the Gold Medal performance of the U.S. Women’s Basketball team at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. The other was the NBA-sponsored WNBA, which had immense financial and infrastructure advantages over the ABL. But the ABL was the first to market in the autumn of 1996 and signed eight members of the U.S. Gold Medal team. Most observers of the women’s felt that the ABL bested the WNBA in the initial battle for talent.
The ABL product was outstanding. But there were big problems. To keep the top players away from the WNBA, the ABL paid through the nose. The league’s average salary in 1997 was $70,000, plus year-round benefits. (The WNBA, by contrast, had a top salary in its launch year of 1997 of $50,000, or just above the ABL’s minimum salary of $40K). Other than the New England Blizzard franchise, which was wildly popular in Connecticut, all of the ABL’s teams struggled to draw more than 3,000 to 4,000 fans per game. And the league’s efforts to attract national sponsorship deals and a meaningful TV contract were a flop.
Last To The Party
The Condors were one of two expansion teams (along with the Nashville Noise) added for the ABL’s third and final season in the fall 1998. The expansion timing was rather curious, because the single-entity ABL owned all of the franchises and was practically insolvent by the spring of 1998. The league contracted that summer shuttering teams in Long Beach and Atlanta.
Condors GM Allison Hodges, the wife of outspoken former Chicago Bulls sniper Craig Hodges, was the face of the team in the Chicago business and media community. In this excellent 1999 postmortem on the ABL, Hodges told Lena Williams of The New York Times that ABL co-founder Gary Cavalli called her on the day the Condors franchise was introduced to the media, instructing her to cancel the event because the league was out of business. Cavalli then called back moments later to say that everything was fine.
The Condors debuted on November 6th, 1998 Chicago against the Nashville Noise. NBA stars Scottie Pippen and Juwan Howard and pop icon Usher were among the announced 7,060 on hand at Chicago’s UIC Pavilion for the festivities. The Condors blew out the Noise 84-67 behind 26 points from their best player, Yolanda Griffith.
Vultures Circle The Condors
The true severity of the ABL’s financial problems at this moment was not known to the public nor to most league employees and players, although a 10% paycut was forced on all ABL staff a few months earlier. In fact, speculation in the press was that the ABL might turn a corner in the fall of 1998 due to an NBA lockout that wiped out the November calendar in the men’s league.
The Condors would play only four more home games in their brief life. The ABL very abruptly shut down and declared bankruptcy on December 22, 1998. The Condors played what would be their final game two days earlier on the road in Denver.
The team would finish with a 4-8 record. We’ll never know how the team would have fared in the long run in Chicago. Through five home games in 1998, the Condors were second in the nine-team ABL with average attendance of 4,775. The Condors reported season ticket sales of 650 with an additional 500 mini-plans in a Chicago Tribune article a few days before the season opener.
Trivia
Seldom-used Condors guard Joanne McCarthy out of the University of Illinois-Chicago is the sister of former Playboy model and actress Jenny McCarthy. The McCarthy sisters appeared together at the Condors introductory press conference in identical #21 jerseys. Asked by a Chicago reporter how people could tell them apart, Jenny McCarthy replied “By our calf size.”3Hirsley, Michael. “Condors hope they can fill Chicago basketball void”. The Tribune (Chicago, IL). October 13, 1998
After the demise of the ABL, Yolanda Griffith moved on to Sacramento Monarchs of the WNBA. She won that league’s MVP award in 1999 and became an eight-time WNBA All-Star and the Finals MVP in 2005. She is considered one of the great rebounders and defensive players in the history of women’s basketball and was named to the WNBA All-Decade Team for the 2000’s.
Chicago Condors Shop
Links
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