Continental Basketball Association (1995-1996)
Tombstone
Born: July 1995 – The Mexico City Aztecas relocate to San Diego, CA
Folded: January 5, 19961Sullivan, Mike. “Struggling Wildcards make this fold official”. The North County Times (Escondido, CA). January 6, 1996
First Game: November 17, 1995 (W 108-106 vs. Chicago Rockers)
Last Game: December 30, 1995 (W 107-104 vs. Yakima Sun Kings)
CBA Championships: None
Arena
San Diego Sports Arena (13,000)21995-96 Continental Basketball Association Official Guide & Register
Opened: 1966
Marketing
Team Colors: Cardinal Red, White & Black31995-96 Continental Basketball Association Official Guide & Register
Owner
Owner: Doug Logan
Attendance
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Source: Sullivan, Mike. “Struggling Wildcards make this fold official”. The North County Times (Escondido, CA). January 6, 1996
OUR FAVORITE STUFF
Continental Basketball Association
Logo T-Shirt
This Old School Shirts release is strictly for the hardcore hoop heads.
Before the NBA had the G-League, it had the CBA with teams stretched from Puerto Rico to Honolulu. During the CBA’s 1980’s and 90’s heyday, the league provided a launching pad for future NBA All-Stars such as John Starks and Michael Adams as well as coaching legends Phil Jackson and George Karl.
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Background
San Diego, California is not a wise location to start a professional basketball franchise. The city has already lost three major league basketball clubs, which has got to be the record, right? The NBA’s San Diego Rockets (1967-1971) and San Diego Clippers (1978-1984) barely made themselves at home before packing up and heading to greener pastures. The American Basketball Association washed out in the 1970’s with the San Diego Conquistadors/Sails (1972-1975).
The San Diego Wildcards were a minor league club, part of the Continental Basketball Association. At the time, the CBA played the role that the G-League does today, operating as a developmental league one-step below the NBA. The immediate goal of most CBA players was to score a 10-day NBA contract for a club with a short-term need. The immediate goal of most CBA owners was to find a buyer who might take this thing off their hands.
The CBA tried valiantly to cultivate an air of mainstream respectability. The truth was that it remained a ramshackle operation during the era of its NBA partnership in the 1980’s and 1990’s – the “Cockroach Basketball Association” as former CBA coach Charley Rosen put it (fondly). Franchises shifted non-stop. It wasn’t unheard of for teams to go belly-up in the middle of a season. The Wildcards franchise was shopworn even by CBA standards. It began as an expansion team in Detroit in 1982 and wandered through the hands of numerous owners in Savannah, Tulsa, Fargo and even Mexico City before rolling into San Diego in July of 1995.
Arrival From Mexico
Wildcards owner Doug Logan acquired the franchise from reclusive minor league mogul Horn Chen in the spring of 1994. Logan worked for the largest concert promoter in Mexico. He set out to assemble a pro sports division for the company in Mexico City that would include a CBA franchise and an Arena Football team. The CBA franchise, the Aztecas, lasted only one season and the Arena Football club never got off the ground. By mid-1995, the Mexico effort was dead. Logan hauled what was left of the Aztecas across the border to San Diego and set up shop for the 1995-96 CBA season.
Logan didn’t have the financial resources to underwrite or properly promote the franchise himself. And all of the sudden he had new competition for his attention. At the same time the Wildcards were getting off the ground in San Diego in late 1995, Logan was hired as the start-up Commissioner of Major League Soccer.
Busted
San Diegans showed zero interest in CBA basketball or the promise of heated rivalries with Quad City, Illinois or Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The Wildcards persuaded veteran coach Mauro Panaggio to come out of retirement and manage the club. Panaggio was the winningest coach in CBA history. But he couldn’t get much out of this bunch of Wildcards. The team got out to a 4-17 start.
By early January 1996, less than two months into the season, the club was $500,000 in debt. The Wildcards averaged only 1,651 fans per game in the 14,000-seat San Diego Sports Arena. On the club’s final day in business on January 4th, 1996, the club’s box office staff sold a grand total of five tickets for the following night’s scheduled home game against the Shreveport Storm.4Sullivan, Mike. “Struggling Wildcards make this fold official”. The North County Times (Escondido, CA). January 6, 1996 Logan pulled the plug after two months of play.
Logan would serve as Commissioner of Major League Soccer from 1995 to 1999 and later as CEO of USA Track & Field from 2008 to 2010.
The Wildcards name and ghastly logo (pictured above) were inspired by a sponsorship deal with the nearby Viejas Casino & Turf Club, whose logo appeared on the team jerseys.
San Diego Wildcards Shop
In Memoriam
Coach Mauro Panaggio passed away on April 11th, 2018 at the age of 90 of diabetes-related complications. Rochester Democrat & Chronicle obituary.
Links
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