The league that introduced mainstream America to show-time basketball, the Ice Man’s finger roll, and Julius Erving’s Afro is making a triumphant return to the cradle of basketball.

A reinvented version of the American Basketball Association will unveil its newest franchise, the Brooklyn Wonders, on Thursday. But sophisticates who sported 1970s Afros and perfected their own finger rolls are no longer the desired audience for the new ABA’s marketeers.

They’re going after the beer swilling, cash rich working stooge this time around.

The new league has already taken cities in America, Canada, and Mexico by storm, becoming the fastest growing sports league in American history. And its founder, Joe Newman (no Joe Six-Pack there), says the sky is the limit. “We are in a lot of small markets. I see Brooklyn as a city in itself. Why can’t we have a team in Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island?”

It would be hard to argue with this formidable sports entrepreneur. Mr. Newman founded the league in 2000 with only eight teams. When this season tips off, the ABA will have 50 teams fighting for the über-prestigious league championship, and there are 30 expansion teams waiting in the wings for 2007.

Although the new American Basketball Association uses the same patriotic trademark red, white, and blue ball, it pales in comparison to its flashy, urbane predecessor.

The original league, flush with funds, was able to compete with the National Basketball Association. Teams could attract marquee players like Julius Erving and George Gervin. In fact, the league became so successful that it merged with the NBA in 1976.

Today, the league recruits its players at open tryouts, and most don’t have the talent to even contemplate the NBA or the lucrative sneaker endorsements deals that accompany it.

Instead, Mr. Newman is hedging his bets on a grass roots operation that will attract fans that are disenchanted with professional basketball. “The NBA has gotten too expensive for fans and there are an awful lot of good players without jobs,” Mr. Newman said. “We are the fans’ alternative to the NBA.”

His business plan is very similar to the formula that reinvigorated the farm systems of Major League Baseball. “We want to build fan-friendly venues and make it a point to become part of our communities,” Mr. Newman said.

Successfully garnering community relationships in small markets like Gallup, N.M., and Peoria, Ill., is a different animal than in Brooklyn, however. Mr. Newman thinks that guerrilla marketing is the key. “We will get out into the community and become a part of it,” he said.

Tickets for the Brooklyn Wonders games at Kingsborough Community College will cost $10 for groups, $15 for individuals, and — Jack Nicholson and Spike Lee, take note — $22 for floor seats.

The league can offer inexpensive seating because teams have low operating costs. A salary cap is placed on each franchise of $120,000, which translates into about $10,000 per player over a 36-game season.

“Players can use this league as a springboard to the international game or even NBA call-ups,” Mr. Newman said. “And in New York we can recruit good players from St. John’s and Hofstra.”

The American Basketball Association of the 1960s and 1970s is often credited for its commitment and contribution to cultural diversity in sports, a philosophy that the new league shares. “There is too little diversity in ownership in the NBA,” Mr. Newman said. In his league, 60% of the teams have ownership groups made up of African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians, and women.

News recently leaked that the league will name former NBA star John Salley as its new commissioner, a move that could boost Mr. Newman’s lofty aspiration for his grass-roots league.