Going Big Time

IT WAS, unmistakably, a big-time sporting event. The venue had been sold out in advance, with a pair of front-row seats going for $451 on eBay. More than 100 media credentials had been issued. A convoy of television trucks with their corkscrewing satellite dishes lined the parking lot. In the days leading up to the event, Cincinnati's newspapers and sports-radio stations had done their part to nourish the hype. The game, though, involved neither the Bengals nor the Reds. Not even the Cincinnati Bearcats or the Xavier Musketeers. Instead, a sellout crowd of 16,202 crammed into U.S. Bank Arena on Feb. 18 to watch local favorite North College Hill High play Oak Hill Academy, of Mouth of Wilson, Va., in a showdown between two of the top high school basketball teams in the nation. � While many of the principals on the floor are still too young to vote, some are already celebrities in their own right. North College Hill's 6'5" junior point guard, O.J. Mayo, has been anointed the next LeBron James. Oak Hill's best player, 6-foot senior point guard Tywon Lawson, is penciled in as a starter for North Carolina next season but has already been projected as an NBA lottery pick in 2007. Michael Beasley, a 6'9" forward at Oak Hill, and Bill Walker, a 6'6" swingman at North College Hill, are rated among the top five players in the class of '07, just behind Mayo.

At one time the prospect of playing in this atmosphere would have rattled all but the most poised high school kids. No more. North College Hill is used to such national attention, and most college stars would be envious of the coverage that's been afforded Mayo and Walker. As for Oak Hill, like a band on a winter concert tour, the team has been barnstorming the entire season. The week before the game in Cincinnati, the Warriors were in Trenton, N.J., competing in the PrimeTime Shootout. The following week they were in Boone, N.C. Last Saturday they traveled to Washington, D.C., where they lost their first game of the year, 74-72 to Montrose Christian School of Rockville, Md., ending a 56-game winning streak. The News & Record of Greensboro, N.C., calculated that Oak Hill traveled 13,600 miles this season. For perspective, the paper figured that Roy Williams's North Carolina Tar Heels covered 9,100 miles. "We want to play the best, and we'll go anywhere to do it," says Oak Hill coach Steve Smith. "I joke that we're more popular in California than we are in Virginia."

The matchup of the two powerhouses lived up to its billing. Despite suffering from a chest cold and a stress fracture in his foot, Mayo was spectacular, scoring 43 points, while Walker added 24. But Oak Hill's depth was overwhelming, and the visitors won 88-74, snapping North College Hill's 40-game winning streak. The outcome, however, was not as significant as the game itself, which was the latest piece of evidence that elite high school basketball has become a national sport.

Surveying the tableau, Jeremy Treatman permitted himself a contented smile. The president of the Philadelphia-based Scholastic Play-by-Play Network, Treatman, 40, had promoted the game and stood to make a tidy profit. He had taken a few financial baths this season orchestrating similar high-profile events. But two of the top teams in the country? On a Saturday night? With easily a half-dozen pro prospects on the two rosters? It was a promoter's perfect storm. "This," he said, "is just an amazing time in high school basketball."

For most of his adult life Treatman has been immersed in high school hoops. During a 15-year span he covered high school sports for The Philadelphia Inquirer, reported for a high school sports show on local television and coached the freshman team at Lower Merion High in Ardmore, Pa., where he also served as a media liaison when Kobe Bryant was a senior. Around that time, inspiration struck. As more and more players were bypassing college and heading directly to the pros, high school basketball was gaining currency. The Internet was making it easier to track high school players from around the country, and there was an explosion of sports cable networks, each insatiably hungry for programming. Why not organize national games involving the most prominent players, hold them in large venues and bill them like heavyweight fights?

In 2000 Treatman promoted his first high school game, a matchup at Temple University between Camden (N.J.) High and Philadelphia's Roman Catholic High--and, more important, their two respective stars, Dajuan Wagner and Eddie Griffin--broadcast on local cable television. Treatman was told to expect 3,000 fans; when 9,400 showed up, Allen Iverson among them, Treatman knew that he had tapped a rich vein. Husky and radiating nervous energy, Treatman is hardly a slick impresario, but he's clearly found a niche. The game in Cincinnati was the 55th he's organized. He estimates that 250,000 fans have seen his games in person, and hundreds of thousands more have watched on television.

Indeed, not a weekend goes by from November to March without a top team traversing time zones to meet some other elite unit. "There's no question the trend is accelerating," says recruiting guru Bob Gibbons, editor and publisher of All Star Report. "For a lot of top teams, the days of playing only schools in your area are long gone."

When putting together a national game, Treatman and his ilk follow the same straightforward blueprint:

?Find teams that either feature a budding star (7-foot center Greg Oden of Indianapolis's Lawrence North High, for instance) or have national name recognition (like Akron's St. Vincent--St. Mary, James's alma mater, which remains a big draw even without him). "There are 50 teams in high school basketball that can be in a national game," says Rashid Ghazi, a partner in the Chicago-based Paragon Marketing Group, which recently promoted an ESPN2-televised game between Lawrence North and Dayton's Dunbar High.

?Negotiate a fee, usually around $10,000 for elite programs, plus accommodations, meals and travel expenses.