The Memphis Grizzlies’ majority owner, Michael Heisley, is not a happy camper. Last year, Heisley was unsuccessful in his effort to sell his share of the basketball franchise to investors; his team finished with the NBA’s worst record, and his business is not thriving financially — this year the Grizzlies ranked last in attendance among National Basketball Association teams. Moreover, Heisley cannot count on the kind of television revenue that is available to bigger markets such as New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago.

To that end, Heisley has been a proponent of adopting revenuesharing practices in the NBA that would mirror those of the National Football League and Major League Baseball. But with scant support for any proposals to reconsider the NBA’s financial policies, Heisley could be waiting for a long time. More likely, he will need the backing of NBA commissioner David Stern, who could go a long way in helping to convince bigmarket owners such as the Knicks’ James Dolan, the Lakers’ Jerry Buss, and the Bulls’ Jerry Reinsdorf that it is in the league’s best interests to devise an equitable revenue-sharing plan. One that would allow small-market teams like the Grizzlies to keep up with those in the larger markets.

During an interview last week with this columnist, Heisley went on record about the need for an effective revenue-sharing plan in the NBA.

On September 29, 2006, Heisley, and the owners of small market teams in New Orleans, Milwaukee, Salt Lake City, Portland, Charlotte, Minnesota, and Indianapolis, sent Stern a letter asking for assistance: “If appropriately managed teams can’t break even, let alone make a profit, we have an economic system that requires correction. The needed correction is serious revenue sharing not just modest revenue assistance and we urge you to address this issue on an urgent basis this year,” the letter read. The correspondence prompted little, if any, league action, according to Heisley.

“Last year, we had the perfect storm and things just went wrong,” said Heisley, who failed to sell his 70% percent stake in the franchise last winter.

“We lost the support of the fans for whatever reason it was. All I am trying to say is that if I knew what it was, I would fix it, but I don’t know completely why we lost so much of it. I think we can get it back. If we can get it back to the level we had before, then I think it’s a reasonable fan base to be in the middle of the pack [and] in the smallest market in the NBA.”

But fan base is not the real problem. With limited resources, Heisley cannot afford the cost of additional assistant coaches, public relations and sales representatives, and other personnel that might bolster the business aspect of the franchise. And the lack of a profitable television market that generates revenue to cover increased operating costs means the business will likely continue to suffer.

Heisley’s Grizzlies actually fail on two of three prerequisites for a healthy franchise: Television revenue slim, and Memphis doesn’t offer much in the way of corporate support, since there are not many Fortune 500 companies operating in the city. Federal Express’ purchase of naming rights to the cityowned arena, and the presence of the founder of AutoZone, J.R. “Pitt” Hyde, who is a partner in the team’s ownership, have been sources of revenue for the Grizzlies, but there is not much else.

Heisley remains unapologetic about dashing off that owners’ letter to Stern last September. “I think the NBA is way behind the times in that area,” Heisley told The Sun. “I think if you look at the NFL and how successful they have been, how they spread the championship around to smaller market teams, big market teams […] I have franchise companies in my business and the judge of the franchise is how all the franchises are doing and the strength of a franchise is how the weakest is doing, not the strongest.”

So how does Heisley change the culture of the NBA ownership and force a version of the NFL’s “leaguethink” on his 29 colleagues? Heisley pointed the finger directly at Stern and said it was up to the commissioner to implement some reasonable form of revenue sharing.

“David runs this league and he is basically the guy who is making the decisions,” Heisley said. “I don’t think it’s my position to criticize or offer suggestions to him, that’s not how the NBA is structured.

“We get 100% of the [national] television revenue [from Disney’s ESPN and Turner’s TNT, as well as other broadcast properties], I think, but then we don’t get a lot of the sales that take place overseas. For example, we get nothing outside of our territories when [Stern] sells our jerseys. Pau Gasol is extremely popular in Spain, I don’t know how much he sells, but I get nothing in Spain. The money goes to the league and they use it for whatever they choose to use it for to run the league.”

Heisley warned that there could be serious repercussions if the league continued to ignore the issue of revenue sharing. A careful look at MLB and the NFL demonstrates that the leagues have only grown stronger in the wake of revenuesharing practices, Heisley said.

“The handwriting is on the wall, if you want to have your franchises viable, then you can’t have a situation where New York and Chicago and Los Angeles are doing very, very well and some other teams are, but, I would say, a significant percentage of the teams in our league are struggling financially.

“I am looking at an 800,000-population city and you can say, ‘why are you there?’ I basically looked around [in 2000, after he decided to leave Vancouver] and tried to go to what was available to me and we did a tremendous investigation and I am not knocking Memphis, I’m just saying it’s a small market and that means we need revenue sharing or some help.”

Still, for Heisley, regaining the support of ticket-buying fans is not likely to amount to much in the bigger financial picture. He has his sights set on revenue sharing and, ultimately, saving small market franchises from extinction. If Heisley and his fellow small-market cohorts begin pushing more publicly for changes in the NBA system, Stern may soon have an insurrection on his hands.

evanjweiner@yahoo.com