College Basketball Startup League to Come to The Triangle in 2020

CLEVELAND – The Historical Basketball League, an athlete-centered college basketball startup, is planning to bring elite-level talent to The Triangle in June 2020. 

Along with Raleigh, the eight inaugural cities are Charlotte, N.C., Atlanta, Norfolk, Va., Richmond, Va., Washington, Baltimore, Md. and Philadelphia.  

The HBL’s executive team features Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder Ricky Volante, Chief Innovation Officer and Co-Founder Andy Schwarz, Chief Development Officer Keith Sparks and two-time NBA Champion and Raleigh native Chief Operating Officer David West.  

“What we’re trying to do is focus solely on 18-23-year-olds that are going to be in college while playing in our league,” Volante said. “College athletes shouldn’t have to choose. For us, it’s a false choice in many ways. If you’re a (computer science) major, you can develop an app, you could see it to a tech company, all while you’re in college. You can have an internship with Google, and be paid for that, while in you’re in college; and no one would even think in their wildest dreams that we should ask those students to work for free, because they would need to maintain their CS amateur status. 

“For us, you know, the whole ‘amateur’ as in idea is a con in many ways; and so, we’re trying to bring that down, but again we are college basketball. We are just college basketball re-imagined.” 

The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching published in their 1929 report on American college athletics that 81 of the 112 schools surveyed subsidized their athletes. According to the report, a subsidy is, “any assistance, favor, gift, award, scholarship, or concession, direct or indirect, which advantages an athlete because of his athletic ability or reputation, and which sets him apart from his fellows in the undergraduate body.” 

“This was before the NCAA was able to institute no compensation rules against the board which didn’t happen until the 1950s,” Volante said. And so, for us, what we’re doing, people think that college basketball athletes have always been amateurs, and you know like Olympians are amateurs and these types of things. And again, that all is a part of this ‘amateurism is a con.’ A narrative that the NCAA has been able to fabricate and kind of pull out of thin air.  

“Why we are the Historical Basketball League? Is that we are reverting college sports to what it historically was and should’ve always remained.” 

HBL athletes will earn $50,000 – $150,000 a season plus the opportunity to earn more money through endorsement deals, monetizing social media accounts, group licensing opportunities and can sign agents.  

“For our players,” Volante said, “our season is going to be played during the summer. Their educational opportunities during the fall and the spring semester our going to be more meaningful, because they’re not going to be traveling every week, trying to split their time between a full-time job as an athlete and a full-time job as a student. And so, it was again important for us to arrange so these athletes have a real chance to a meaningful education while they are in college and while they are playing college sports.”

HBL athletes aren’t limited to 4-year universities and can attend two-year schools, junior colleges, vocational programs, technical colleges, community colleges and online programs to maintain eligibility. The league will also train athletes in life-skills such as financial literacy, mental health awareness, vetting and selecting agents and public speaking along with a handful of others. 

Like any league, two important make-or-breaks are fan engagement and elite talent. The task for the HBL is taller since there’s already a league, the NCAA, that occupies a similar niche. 

“We’re kicking around variations on rules and things,” Volante said, “looking at different technologies that could be implemented with the on-court product so we can make it a more fun, a more engaging, product for fans. Also, there is no college basketball video game, we’re in process of trying to bring that back in the context of the HBL, so that again fans sort of have that opportunity to engage with the product in a different way. 

“We’re also looking at all sports betting options. The college basketball as it currently exists, can’t really consider that because players are susceptible when they are not getting paid to betting schemes. … We’re looking into how we can overlay the sports betting and analytical component into our live streams, into our in-arena content; so again, there’s a stronger engagement opportunity with fans in our product.”

Volante views Raleigh as a “flag-pull” city with its proximity to Duke and UNC. If the HBL can have a successful team in The Triangle, Volante believes it would prove their model. Moreover, a Triangle sports fan would only have to choose between the HBL, baseball or soccer on a night-to-night basis since the league is during the summer.  

Regarding gameplay, the HBL will have an NBA 3-point line, 24-second shot clock and quarters instead of halves. Volante feels this will benefit the players more and take a lot of the “guess work” out that NBA scouts do when evaluating prospects. The HBL Athlete Advisory Board which includes NFL Hall of Famer Terrell Owens and NBA player and Durham native T.J. Warren bridges an important gap for their players.

“No one knows better of what it takes and what you need to do to go from the collegiate level to the professional level than the guys who’ve done it,” Volante said.  “… In the HBL, between David and the athlete advisory board team, we have more years spent in the NBA than any Division I program in the country can offer to a player.

“So you know, thinking of that elite prospect trying to figure out how I go from my senior year in high school to ultimately having the highest draft value I can have, going to the best situation I can have, being the best prepared for the NBA as I can be, who can answer that question better, the HBL or a Division I program that has a coach that has never played professionally?”

The HBL is in the process of securing rental agreements with venues in the eight cities and hiring coaches.  

“Once we have (the coaching) piece in place,” Volante said, “recruiting will begin wholeheartedly. We’re going to be in players’ living rooms and gyms and things like that coming here in I would say in August at the latest. And personally, I’m really excited to get to that phase of it where we’re actually sitting down with the players and their families and laying in front of them exactly what the HBL is, and the meaningful opportunities that their son would get for participating in it.”