At the time the Bakersfield Jam made the decision to move to the Jam Events Center, which is currently known as the Dignity Health Events Center, in 2009, they had been at Rabobank Arena for three years.
David Higdon and Stan Ellis purchased the National Basketball Association Developmental League team in 2006. Higdon, who is the president and managing partner, felt that initially the two business partners were a bit over their heads in their new venture into professional basketball.
“Basketball was kind of like a side business for us,” said Higdon. “It was not a primary business, we were probably over our heads in getting involved.
“Not knowing sports, not being hands on the first three seasons of the club. From an operational standpoint, we kind of put it and trusted it in other people’s hands as far as the day-to-day operations.
“When we first announced the purchase of the team, shortly after the announcement, Stan decides to run for political office. So we have all these other things going on and he decided to run for office. Literally the work that should have been started with this franchise, those things were not taking place. At the same time this is all going on, he decides to run for State Assembly.”
He mentioned that the focus for the Jam business wasn’t where it needed to be. Higdon felt that they never really recovered from that. They tried various promotions to try and get fans to come out, from $1 tickets, to free for military, discounts for students and seniors and other types of special deals. None of it worked for them, and Higdon also felt that since the economy was in turmoil at the time, it also played a role in their struggles.
The business partners felt that to continue funding the Jam didn’t make any business sense for them. They had many other business ventures that staffed over 350 employees, and the Jam was losing over a million dollars a year. With all the mitigating factors involved, Ellis and Higdon decided to shut down the franchise.
“We had a make-good date in our agreement with the city; I believe it was April 30th,” said Higdon.” We were able to let them know if we were going to play or not, and around the same time, Stan and I were over in San Diego, trying to get acquisition of a solar company.
“So Stan just woke up one day and told me that it was just not smart business for us to continue with the Jam, and so we ultimately made the decision to let the city know that we weren’t going to play. That was on a Thursday when we made that decision, and the deadline was the next day. So we basically made the decision so we can concentrate on our other businesses.”
Higdon went on to mention that they had a previous meeting set up with Jeanie and Jerry Buss of the Lakers the following week. They kept that meeting because they felt that out of courtesy to them, they deserved to know about their decision. They were partners with the Busses, and when they met, they explained to them why they reached their decision. Out of the meeting, the Busses suggested to them to move into their practice facility and play their games there. The Lakers were losing money with the Defenders (D-League affiliate) when they were playing at Staples Center, so they decided to move to the Lakers practice facility, and it worked for them.
“A couple of weeks later, we had conversations with the NBA, and they didn’t want to lose the franchise in Bakersfield,” he said. “Out of those talks, basically we asked them if we could just play in our own practice facility. They said it’s more important to keep the team, and you can play in your own facility. So it was all well and good, but we still needed to come up with a business model to play in our own facility.”
Over the course of the next four months, the practice facility was built out to become the business model it is today. The idea was to make it a business-to-business model that was focused on selling season seats. Everything they did was geared toward business relationships, and they provided many amenities to their season-ticket holders. The concept and idea was one that worked really well for them, according to Higdon.
“We went from losing money to making a little bit, which makes good business sense, and the franchise value has increased exponentially over the last couple of years,” said Higdon. “For us it’s just been a lot more fun.”