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Ohio Valley owners trying to save franchise
Associated Press
Posted: 1 hour ago
WHEELING, W.Va. (AP) - Anybody looking to buy an indoor football team can find one on eBay.
The owners of the Ohio Valley Greyhounds are hoping to save the franchise through the Internet.
The starting bid for the team on the auction site is $100,000. The 10-day listing, which ends Nov. 11, includes an artificial turf field that came from the Hoosier Dome in Indianapolis, helmets and shoulder pads, and office equipment.
"The future of the franchise is definitely in jeopardy," managing general partner George Kellas said Tuesday. "I just don't have the time or energy to devote to two full-time jobs."
Kellas said the Greyhounds will fold if a new owner is not found before Nov. 15, the deadline he has set to sell the team.
He insists the deal is a good one.
"Once you crunch all the numbers, we're basically offering an existing franchise — almost a turnkey operation — for less than the price of starting up an expansion franchise," Kellas said.
The eBay listing touts the seven-year-old Wheeling team as "one of America's most successful minor league professional sports franchises."
But no one had bid as of Wednesday morning.
The Greyhounds won consecutive titles in the National Indoor Football League in 2002 and 2003 and advanced to the conference championship games in 2001 and 2004. But the team struggled this year after moving to the United Indoor Football Association, ending the season 6-11.
Kellas has placed one stipulation in the offering. The new owner must agree to keep the team in Wheeling.
"I'll go in the tank with it before I'll let someone come in here and move it," he said.
Kellas said he had tentative verbal deals with two separate buyers but both fell through.
"We're running out of time," he said. "The season starts in March so, if anyone buys it, they'll have to be up and running by Dec. 1 at the latest."
Kellas estimates he has lost $35,000 and his partners a little less.
