World Basketball League (1992)
National Basketball League (1993-1994)
Tombstone
Born: 1992 – WBL expansion franchise
Folded: July 9, 1994
Last Game: May 1, 1992 (L 127-103 @ Florida Jades)
Final Game:
WBL Championships: None
NBL Championships:
Arena
Winnipeg Arena (12,331)11992 World Basketball League Media Guide
Opened: 1955
Demolished: 2006
Marketing
Team Colors: Teal, Black & Silver21992 World Basketball League Media Guide
Ownership
Owners: Sam Katz, et al.
Background
The Winnipeg Thunder were a minor league basketball team that played fitfully for parts of three summers at Winnipeg Arena in the early 1990’s. The team had the misfortune to play in not one but two ramshackle leagues that went out of business in the middle of season. As a result, the Thunder managed to complete just one of the three seasons they embarked upon.
The Thunder started out as an expansion franchise in the World Basketball League, a pro basketball circuit with a height limit (yes, really) of 6′ 7″. The WBL had 10 teams scattered haphazardly across Canada and the U.S. from Calgary to south Florida. By the time Winnipeg businessman Sam Katz and his partners bought into the WBL in 1992, the 5-year old league was teetering on the edge of the abyss.
The other nine teams in the WBL operated on a scheme where 40% of each franchise was owned locally and 60% was controlled by the league itself, which was in turm bankrolled by Ohio-based Mickey Monus, CEO of the 300-store Phar-Mor pharmacy chain. Winnipeg was unique as the only WBL team where local ownership held the controlling interest of the franchise. This set-up would shortly lead to the league’s doom.
Monus stopped pumping money into the league during the 1992 season. With the cash spigot switched off, the WBL was forced to euthanize three teams in Florida and Pennsylvania in mid-season. Turned out the walls were closing in on Monus, who was funding his basketball hobby with millions embezzled from Phar-Mor. When his scam was outed in July 1992, the WBL collapsed immediately without completing its fifth season.
New League, New Problems
In the summer of 1993 the Thunder re-grouped in the all-Canadian National Basketball League. Former WBL clubs from Halifax, Hamilton and Saskatchewan also joined the NBL.
Midway through the NBL’s second season in July of 1994 the league closed its doors without completing its regular season schedule.
Sam Katz went on to launch the tremendously popular Winnipeg Goldeyes independent baseball team in 1994. He was elected Mayor of Winnipeg in 2004 and served ten years in the office from 2004 to 2014.
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