Leagues of their own.

• Author: Lamme, Rob
• Position: Sports deals for North Carolina businessmen - Includes related article

North Carolina businessmen have scored some major sports deals in the minors.

Last January, car dealer Bill Black witnessed a sight he thought he'd never see. Surrounded by more than 20,000 screaming fans packed into the Greensboro Coliseum, his Monarchs thrashed the archrival Charlotte Checkers, 7-1. For the record, it was the largest crowd ever to see a minor-league hockey game. For Black, it was nothing short of a miracle.

A year earlier, the Monarchs had set a record of a different kind. Pushed off home ice while the coliseum was renovated, the team played 19 straight road games in the first two months of the East Coast Hockey League season. It was the longest road trip in the history of professional hockey, at any level. Without a place to play and ticket revenues, Black wondered if the team could make it on the ice or at the bank.

Now the place was packed with paying customers. "It was 'Break the Record' night. We didn't give away a single ticket," says co-owner Morris Jeffreys, who oversees the team's day-to-day operations. "They just poured into the coliseum."

That game proved to the Monarchs' owners that the team could make it. For other Tar Heels in sports management, it affirmed the burgeoning size and influence of minor-league sports in the state. North Carolina is now home to 10 baseball clubs, three hockey teams, an arena-football team, two outdoor soccer teams and an indoor soccer club. And the minors are generating some major revenues. "You'd be safe to say minor-league sports are worth at least $100 million a year to North Carolina," says Bill Dooley, director of the N.C. Commerce Department's Office of Sports Development. That doesn't match the majors: The NFL Carolina Panthers' economic impact in Mecklenburg County is projected to be $302 million. But that point's moot if the increasingly strike-prone majors aren't playing.

The days when minor-league clubs were run by ex-coaches long on love of the game and short on business skills are gone. Many minor-league executives are veterans of corporate boardrooms, more familiar with the bottom line than the foul line. A list of minor-league team owners reads like a roster for the North Carolina Capitalists all-star team. Some of the key players include:

Power Hitter: Since taking over his father's Cadillac-Oldsmobile dealership in 1984, the Monarchs' Bill Black has added a Volkswagen dealership to the family business. Last year, sales for the dealerships topped $35 million.

Prime Time Player: Durham Bulls' owner Jim Goodmon is president and principal shareholder of Raleigh-based Capitol Broadcasting Co., which has assets of about $400 million and owns three radio stations and two TV stations, including WRAL in Raleigh. He also co-owns a fledgling outdoor soccer team, the Raleigh Flyers.

Base Stealer: Ballclub owner Don Beaver also owns the Brian Center Corp., which runs 48 nursing homes in five states and had 1994 gross revenues of $200 million. In 1993, he moved the Class A Crawdads from Gastonia to Hickory, and he bought the Class A Winston-Salem Spirits and Class AA Knoxville Smokies last year.

Utility Player: Charlotte Checkers co-owner Carl Scheer has been an executive for three NBA teams, including the Charlotte Hornets. In 1993, Scheer and Charlotte millionaire Felix Sabates became co-owners of the Checkers and the Charlotte Vipers indoor-soccer team, though they soon sold the Vipers...