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Kathy Betty Saves the Dream for Atlanta
By Lee Michaelson
Publisher
Photo Caption: New owner Kathy Betty (second from left) joins (from left to right) Atlanta mayoral candidate and team supporter Lisa Borders, WNBA president Donna Orender, Atlanta Dream Coach and WNBA Coach of the Year Marynell Meadors, and Dream player Jennifer Lacy in celebrating the team’s change in ownership. Betty’s purchase of the Dream will keep the team in Atlanta where it experienced one of the most dramatic turnarounds in league history, making it to the playoffs last summer.
Photo Credit: Courtesy NBA Photos/Getty Images
The Atlanta Dream will remain in Atlanta under new ownership, WNBA president Donna Orender announced today.
Kathy Betty, a prominent Atlanta businesswoman and sports advocate and the widow of former Earthlink CEO Garry Betty, has stepped forward to purchase the Atlanta Dream. Betty will become the new managing partner of the team, pending WNBA Board of Governors approval which is expected to be forthcoming, while the team will be owned by Dream Too, LLC, an investment group led by Betty.
“It is so exciting!” said Betty, who has been a season-ticket holder since the Dream’s inaugural season in 2008 and was able to rattle off the team’s accomplishments off the top of her head. “What a great platform I have to build on. We have the Coach of the Year. We have the Rookie of the Year. We have two team members [Erika DeSouza and Sancho Lyttle] who made the All-Star Team. We led the league in rebounding.”
In 2009, the Dream recorded the second-largest one-year turnaround in WNBA history, finishing with an 18-16 record after going 4-30 in its inaugural campaign in 2008. The Dream earned the second seed in the Eastern Conference and their first-ever WNBA Playoff berth. Forward Angel McCoughtry, the top pick in the 2009 WNBA Draft quickly emerged as a star and earned Rookie of the Year honors, while Marynell Meadors was named WNBA Coach of the Year this past season. But the team’s fate was placed in limbo when original owner Ron Terwilliger announced he was looking to sell his interest.
“We start with this team, and now we want to win some playoffs,” said Betty, who also hopes to keep the team accessible to the community and prove that a WNBA franchise can turn a profit.
“I am a basketball fan, pretty much a women’s sports fan,” said Betty, who grew up in Alabama, where she said she had never had a chance to play organized basketball. “There just weren’t sports for women when I was growing up.”
But that didn’t stop Betty, whose parents, she said, are also avid women’s basketball fans. “I had one sister and no brothers, but we had a basketball court and a baseball field. … That’s what you do in Alabama. You play sports and you go to church, and sometimes playing sports takes priority over going to church.”
Despite her enthusiasm for women’s sports, Betty singled out Mo Miller, a junior guard on Georgia Tech’s men’s team, as her favorite basketball player. Miller is the recipient of a scholarship endowed in memory of Kathy’s late husband, Garry Betty, who succumbed to cancer.
“He’s a special player,” said Betty, and because of the link to her husband, “Mo Miller is very, very special to me.”
“I am confident Kathy’s passion for the game and the Atlanta community, as well as her vision for the Dream, will ensure that the team continues to build on its strong start,” said Orender. “We look forward to building upon the success the team enjoyed both on and off the court this past season.”
Betty’s group bought out 100 percent of the interest of former owner Ron Terwilliger, whom Orender thanked for his role in helping bring the WNBA to Atlanta in 2007. Terwilliger, the head of Trammell Crow, the nation’s largest multi-family housing developer, had sought additional investors since the team’s inaugural 2008 season. Even after a dramatic turnaround vaulted the two-year old franchise into the WNBA playoffs this summer, Terwilliger, who had moved to New York, let it be known that the team was on the block.
Atlanta risked losing the franchise, and season-ticket holders and other fans were left on hold as to the team’s future while organizers looked for an investor who could save the team for the city.
It was “extremely important” to keep the team in Atlanta, said Betty, unlike the Detroit Shock, which was sold to a Tulsa investment group earlier this month. “It was definitely a group effort,” Betty said. “It was about the community, the Circle of Friends [a group originally organized to support the team’s expansion in Atlanta]. It was important to the business world as well as to the fans.
Both Betty and Orender singled out Lisa Borders, a candidate for mayor of Atlanta, for her role in keeping the Dream in Atlanta. “Lisa – she’s in the middle of the mayoral campaign right now – she stopped and got on the phone, worked with the business leaders and the business community to keep the Dream here. Number one, she’s the must enthusiastic fan we have, and number two, she puts actions with her words,” said Betty.
“The Dream belongs in Atlanta. Lisa understands that and so do I. In the midst of a tough political campaign, she carved out time to bring sponsorships to the table and find investors who will make the Dream a continued reality for the staff, players and, of course, our fans.”
“Atlanta has been a great market, and Lisa Borders has been a constant ambassador,” added Orender.
Though no one doubts Borders’ role as an ambassador for the team, some have questioned how great a market Atlanta has been. Average attendance for Atlanta home games dipped from 8,316 in 2008 to 7,102 in 2009, while the league says its average attendance was 8,039, a slight increase from the 2008 average. And that’s stated attendance. Observers say that actual bodies in the seats appear to be significantly fewer than the published figures, not only in Atlanta but also in many of the league’s franchises, and the league has yet to respond to Full Court’s request for an interview about how its attendance figures are computed.
Betty said now that the team’s future in Atlanta is secured, she, too, will look for additional investors. Though for the time being, she will be 100 percent owner of the team, Betty said she’s had a lot of people “very interested in investing,” and said that she will be talking to other potential investors as well as sponsors. A team spokesperson said a continued role for Terwilliger was still under discussion.
Betty has also resolved to prove that WNBA teams, many of which have struggled and even folded, can be profitable. “WNBA teams – you know, the more they ask me that, the more I’m determined. It’s a good business. We can make money at it. We’re all about the fans, the community, the business leaders, the opportunities for woman-to-woman networking.”
“We want to develop a compelling case to go to the business community to say, ‘It’s valuable. … This will help your bottom line,’” Betty added. “I think there’s a way to make this work, or I wouldn’t have done it. First and foremost, I’m a businesswoman.”
In addition to serving as the CEO of the Garry Betty Foundation, established by her late husband Garry Betty to fund cancer research, Betty is a former partner with Ernst & Young and previously served as the Executive Vice President of Scott Madden, Inc., an Atlanta-based management consulting firm. Betty has compiled a lengthy track record of business success and community involvement. She also is a major contributor to Georgia Tech’s men’s and women’s basketball programs.
“The opportunity to own the Dream, which is all about providing accessible and affordable world-class entertainment for the families of Atlanta, is what excites me,” said Betty. “In addition, the fact that these women serve as role models for youth, and especially young girls, is something I feel strongly about.”
“The players really want to be involved in mentoring, and that’s something we want to support,” added Betty.
In the end, said Betty, her motto for the team is this: “We’re going to play to win, and we’re going to dream to make a difference.”
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