Arkansas RimRockers
The Arkansas RimRockers were a NBA Development League minor league basketball team based in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Logo design: A red, white, and blue ball going through a basketball rim (homage to when they were in the ABA)
Unfortunately, the team will not return to Arkansas for 2007-08 because attendance dropped to the point that the owner could no longer afford the lease. The team hoped to move to La Crosse, Wisconsin to play at the La Crosse Center for the 2007-08 season, where they would have been known as the La Crosse RimRockers. However, due to the Center's lease demands being higher than Little Rock's, the deal fell through. The team will be inactive for the 2007-08 season, and then look at their options for 2008-09.
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Several global companies are headquartered in the northwest corner of Arkansas, including Wal-Mart (the world's largest public corporation by revenue in 2007), J.B. Hunt and Tyson Foods. This area of the state has experienced an economic boom since the 1970s as a result.
In recent years, automobile parts manufacturers have opened factories in eastern Arkansas to support auto plants in other states. Additionally, the city of Conway is the site of a school bus factory.
Tourism is also very important to the Arkansas economy; the official state nickname "The Natural State" was originally created (as "Arkansas Is A Natural") for state tourism advertising in the 1970s, and is still regularly used to this day.
The annual operating cost for most teams ranges from $200 - 500K depending on how each individual member of the league operates their teams.
The expansion has had varied results.
Despite these some of the individual teams problems, a new round of expansion for 2005-2006 occurred, with forty-seven teams scheduled to begin play.
Another wave of expansion was announced for the 2006-2007 season, with the cost for a new expansion franchise was raised to $50,000. One notable 2006-2007 expansion franchise was the Vermont Frost Heaves, owned by Sports Illustrated writer Alexander Wolff. Also in 2006-2007, former NBA player John Salley was named league commissioner and Maryland Nighthawks owner Tom Doyle was named chief operating officer.
Following the league's first public offering in 2006, it was reported that Joe Newman was voted out of his position as league CEO. In a form filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission in February 2007, the ABA board of directors stated that Newman was removed as league CEO on January 31, 2007. It went on to state that Newman's actions as league CEO would be reviewed to ensure that they were performed with the board's permission. The same filing also claimed that Newman and other shareholders plotted to remove Tom Doyle, John Salley, and David Howitt from the board and elect Paul Riley as its director. Newman denied his removal ever occurred and claims he is still the league CEO . The lawsuits were settled in late March 2007 with Doyle and Salley's resignations from the ABA Board of Directors.
The ABA has also formed official partnerships with Jaws Marketing and Pony. Pony has even gone as far as putting ads in a variety of national publications and magazines in an effort to associate Pony with basketball again. For years Pony has been known as for its "street" shoes. This is why you will see a number of ABA players wearing Pony footwear.
