Houston Comets officially sold

Nobody probably cares but, Calvin Murphy might return to broadcasting.

http://chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/sports/4516925.html

Hilton Koch, the chainsaw-waving furniture impresario whose omnipresent TV commercials promise cut-rate prices for couches and bedroom suits, donned a business suit and a red Comets cap Wednesday to celebrate his purchase of the city's WNBA franchise.

Koch, 39, agreed to pay about $10 million — in the same range as transactions involving the Los Angeles Sparks and Washington Mystics — to buy the Comets from Rockets owner Leslie Alexander. The sale was approved Tuesday by the WNBA's board of governors.

The owner of Hilton Furniture on Houston's south side also has signed a three-year lease to keep the team at Toyota Center as the Rockets' tenant and will name a coach and general manager next week to succeed the retired Van Chancellor, who led the Comets to the first four championships of the 10-year-old league.

"I'm very proud of where the Comets have been," Koch said at an afternoon news conference. "I'm very proud of where the Comets are. I'm proud of the fans and sponsors who will be with the Houston Comets, and I'm very, very excited and passionately involved about where the Comets are going. ... We're going to do what they say can't be done."


That would be to make a profit as the sole proprietor of a franchise in the WNBA, which annually has received million-dollar infusions from the NBA to remain in business.

"We'll look at it more as a local marketer versus what the traditional (NBA) owner has done," Koch said. "We have more to bring to the table. We know the market, so we feel that we're at an advantage."

Koch, who was a Comets corporate sponsor and is a Rockets season-ticket holder, said his goal is to raise $4 million from corporate sponsors. He also hoped to sell 1,000 season tickets during his first day as the team's owner and said ticket prices will remain unchanged.

Paola Furber of Furber Advertising, which has handled Hilton Furniture's ad accounts for four years, said Koch "will reinvent the Comets. We have fresh faces and fresh ideas and a different approach to get the city excited about the team."

Three-time league MVP Sheryl Swoopes, who attended the news conference, said she believes Koch will bring new ideas to the table.

"I know there are a lot of people doubting whether this will work and whether we'll be successful, but we're going to make it happen," she said. "I kind of look at this as starting over with the rebirth of the Comets."


Also on hand for the announcement were former Comets star Cynthia Cooper, the women's basketball coach at Prairie View A&M, and Basketball Hall of Famer and former Rockets broadcaster Calvin Murphy.

"I've known Hilton for a while, and I would like to be involved in any way that can help take the franchise to another level," Murphy said.

That could include work in community development, his former job with the Rockets, or a return to the broadcast booth.

"That (broadcasting) has been my expertise for the last 15 years, so why not?" Murphy said.

Koch said he has not determined Murphy's role with the team but said he "has always been a friend to me."

Cooper, meanwhile, said Koch "will put forward the marketing and the energy needed to help the WNBA be successful." She added that she was not a candidate for the coaching job and was "100 percent committed to Prairie View."

Alexander did not attend the news conference but said in a statement that Koch "will work tirelessly to continue the winning tradition we have built over the past decade."

Tad Brown, the Rockets' senior vice president, said Koch will inherit five or six Rockets employees who worked primarily with the Comets. Rockets general manager Carroll Dawson also will work with the team on an interim basis, and the Rockets will work with Koch to line up new radio and television partnerships.

Brown said the sale will leave the Rockets free to focus on "our core business, which is the Rockets and the operation of Toyota Center."

"Mr. Alexander feels the Rockets are going to do great things, and we want our core business to be the key focus of our employees," Brown said. "This is a time when WNBA franchises are going to non-team owners. It has been a good model for other cities, and we think it will be a good model (for the Comets)."

Brown would not say whether the Comets were profitable but said Alexander was "pleased with the value of his investment in the franchise." He acknowledged that Comets operations were a "negligible" factor in the Rockets' overall financial picture.

The Comets are the fifth WNBA team purchased by a non-NBA ownership group under a league provision adopted in October 2002. The Connecticut Sun was purchased in 2003 by the Mohegan Sun tribe, and independent operators purchased the Mystics and the expansion Chicago Sky in 2005.

The Sparks, winners of WNBA titles in 2001 and 2002, were purchased in December by former motion picture executive Katherine Goodman and attorney Carla Christofferson.

 

Murphy should make a run for the coaching job.That'd be an interesting experiment.