Michael Tuckman

Michael William Tuckman is the current president of West Coast Sports, LLC, and present owner of the Continental Basketball Association (CBA) team Great Falls Explorers. The Explorers were purchased in November 2007 from Apex Sportstainment, present owners of the Minot SkyRockets.^[1] West Coast Sports also hold expansion rights to the Vancouver Dragons. Tuckman previously owned the Bellevue Blackhawks and Tacoma Navigators of the American Basketball Association. In 2005, he was named 2004-05 ABA Executive of the Year the same season his Blackhawks played in the ABA championship game only to lose to the Arkansas RimRockers in front of 15,000 fans at Alltel Arena in North Little Rock, Arkansas, the largest crowd ever to attend an ABA game.

As CEO of Puget Sound Sports and Entertainment, LLC (PSSE) from 2000-2007 Tuckman developed and proposed sports arena projects in Bellevue, Renton, Tacoma, and Olympia, totalling more than $300 million from March 2000-2006.

Educated at the University of Oregon, Tuckman is an attorney who represented several San Francisco 49ers players in the 1980s. In 1989, he authored the national bestseller, The San Francisco 49ers: Team of the Decade. In 1992, Tuckman served as Chairman of the Facilities Committee on San Francisco Mayor Frank Jordan's Blue Ribbon Task Force on Sports, a panel that also included San Francisco 49ers President and CEO, Carmen Policy, and former San Francisco Warriors center Nate Thurmond. That year he was also named as Chairman of the Giants Stadium Committee, which was organized to build a new ballpark for the San Francisco Giants. In 1993, Tuckman was part of a private consortium led by Safeway Chairman Peter Magowan that bought the San Francisco Giants from Major League Baseball in 1993 and built the privately-owned AT&T Park.^[2]

Tuckman wrote about the sale of the San Francisco Giants in a 1993 cover story for California Lawyer magazine.

The following year he won the "Maggie Award" from the Western Society of Magazine Publishers for his second California Lawyer cover story, a profile of San Francisco 49ers President and lawyer, Carmen Policy.

Tuckman became President and General Manager of independent Seattle TV station KONG-TV in 1996, serving until the station was sold to Belo Corporation, the owners of KING-TV, in March 2000.

In 2002 Tuckman bought his first franchise in the CBA, to be an anchor tenant in his $155 million proposed sports arena and performing arts center in downtown Bellevue. The franchise was named the Bellevue Nighthawks.

In 2004 Tuckman purchased a franchise in the American Basketball Association (ABA), naming the team the Bellevue Blackhawks. Tuckman led the team to the ABA Championship Game in Little Rock, in front of 15,000 fans, the largest crowd ever to see an ABA game. Belleuve led by 5 points at halftime, but went cold in the third quarter and was defeated by the Arkansas Rimrockers 118-115. The following year, the Rimrockers moved up to the NBA Development League. In recognition of his efforts, Tuckman was named 2004-05 ABA Executive of the Year.

In November 2007 Tuckman purchased the Great Falls Explorers franchise of the CBA from Apex Sportstainment, LLC, seven games into the 2007-08 CBA season. Tuckman inherited former Boston Celtics star Scott Wedman as head coach and a team that started the season 1-9. After 12 home games in December 2007, gate receipts collected by the Explorers' home venue, Four Seasons Arena at Montana ExpoPark, totaled just $12,977, leaving a balance of $14,562.

Tuckman returned home to Seattle on December 22, 2007 for heart surgery. By January 2008, Wedman had coached the Explorers to a 6-19 record. Tuckman accepted Wedman's resignation over the phone on January 4, 2008 from his hospital bed the night before a scheduled home game with the Butte Daredevils, which ultimately had to be cancelled after Butte had completed a two-and-a-half hour bus ride in the snow. Tuckman immediately called Rick, Turner, his former coach from one of the ABA teams, the Bellevue Blackhawks. The next day, Sunday, Turner jumped on a plane to meet the team in Pittsburgh for a Tuesday night game. Tuckman kept two players from the original Explorers team, and working with Turner, assembled a ten-man roster that finished the season 10-5. But, the franchise struggled to make money. It got locked out of its office at Four Season Arena for not meeting its contracted rent payments, and was forced to finish the season by playing games at local Great Falls high school gyms on an ad hoc basis. The Explorers hosted the eventual 2007-08 CBA champion, Oklahoma Cavalry, at tiny Fairfield High School gym in Fairfield, Montana, an hour north of Great Falls. A sellout crowd of about 500 people turned out to see the first professional basketball game ever played in the small town of Fairfield.

Tuckman was quoted in a story from a Seattle paper^[where?] as saying, "When I was asked by Joe Clark to buy the Explorers seven games into the regular season, I knew it was going to be Mission: Difficult. But, once I set foot into Montana and saw what a train wreck the team's finances were, I discovered it was Mission: Impossible."

Tuckman returned to Seattle in March 2008 after the conclusion of the CBA season, and purchased two expansion franchises in the Indoor Football League (IFL). He signed a three-year lease with Comcast Arena at Everett for his Everett Destroyers franchise, only to lose a head-to-head battle with the now-defunct AF2 league for a lease at the new ShoWare Center in Kent, Washington. Tuckman continues to own two CBA franchises, the Vancouver Dragons and the Seattle Explorers (formerly the Great Falls Explorers).

In 2009, Tuckman briefly took over operation of a Seattle independent TV station, KHCV-TV. He changed the station's call sign to KPST and created a new campaign around the theme of Puget Sound Television. As Executive Producer of Puget Sound Television Studios, Tuckman created no original primetime programs while serving as the five-channel station group's President, General Manager and Chief Operating Officer.

Tuckman founded the Puget Sound Sports Hall of Fame as a non-profit foundation in 1999, and has contributed more than $100,000 to the organization over the years, which he continues to serve as Chairman of the Board of Directors.

References

1. ^ http://www.oursportscentral.com/services/releases/?id=3564020
2. ^ http://www.oursportscentral.com/services/releases/?id=3182367

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