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Show PROFESSIONAL BASKETBALL IS NOW BOOMING By CLARK B. KELSET (U. P. Staff Correspondent) CLEVELAND, 0 Jan. (U. P.) Professional basketball is rapidly erashinftinto the big league class in the pay-for-play division of sport, is leading pro football and approaching approach-ing baseball as a money-maker, a survey of the sport here discloses. With a huge payroll, regular training hours and crowded halls for big games, the local clubs, the Cleveland Hosids, is drawing bigger big-ger gates than baseball, pro. football, foot-ball, or boxing. The Cleveland payroll for the five month's season totals $30,0X), and Marty Friedman, leader of the local is said to draw a $5,000 check for his annual tsalary. , The game is played in Public Hall, the largest available auditorium auditor-ium the scene of the 1924 Republican Republi-can convention. Twenty-four thousand thous-and fans jammed the galleries during dur-ing two games on Washington's birthday last year, during the afternoon after-noon and evening, and the 12,000 capacity has been taxed on other cage occasions. Prior to 1025, the games were played in a small hall which could seat but 1,000 persons. The same hall is being used for tlie l(i home games this season and 190,000 persons are expected to attend. at-tend. Tlic gate receipts for a single game average about $10,000. Nine American UisebaU league teams Cleveland, Buffalo, Boston, Brooklyn, Washington, Detroit, Chicago, Chi-cago, Ft. Wayne, and Rochester play 32 league games during the season, 1( on each home floor. The playing season, extending into two parts the first of the from Dee. 1 to April 1, is divided schedule ending Feb. 1. The winners win-ners of each half will meet for the lengue championship after the sea-sou sea-sou formally closes. Besides the regular league battles, bat-tles, each team meets fit) independent, independ-ent, opponents in exhibition games. Cleveland has already scheduled 22 exhibit ion games, to be played in Ihe following cities : Lancaster. Dayton, Springfield, Fremont, Cincinnati, Cin-cinnati, Oak Harbor, and Columbus, Colum-bus, in Ohio ; Butler, Harrisburg. Kane, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Corry in Pennsylvania; Richmond, Whiting, and East Chicago in Indiana; In-diana; Jamestown. Olean and Geneva Ge-neva in New York : and Jackson. Lansing and Flint, in Michigan. |