When the Northern Knights joined the league, then known as the Eastern Basketball Association (EBA), it attracted national attention for being perhaps the most misplaced franchise in the history of professional sports. Playing in Anchorage, Alaska, the team was 5,000 miles away from its nearest competitor, as all the other teams were based in the eastern Pennsylvania–New York–New Jersey area. League officials "began to see the publicity value a team in Alaska would have for the EBA, which, with an enlarged talent pool since the ABA folded, had been trying to upgrade its image from that of a nickel-and-dime Pennsylvania mill-town circuit—which is mostly what it had been—to something on the order of baseball's Triple-A leagues," John Papnek in Sports Illustrated.[1]
During the team's first two seasons, the Knights began their regular schedule with an extended homestand; then endured a mid-season bus trip to every CBA team in the league; then finished out the season with another homestand. The Northern Knights had the longest recorded road trip in professional sports history during the 1979–1980 season as the team traveled by bus around the contiguous United States—playing 16 games in 31 days.[2]
The Knights experienced success in the 1977–78 season, leading the league in attendance and often playing before big crowds, although they never did sell out their home venue. They won the Western Division with a 24–7 record in 1977-78. The team advanced to the CBA Finals the following year, where they were swept in four games by the Rochester Zeniths, with whom they had begun to develop an impassioned rivalry. In 1979-80, the Northern Knights captured the CBA Championship by defeating Rochester in seven games. It was the first professional sports championship won by an Alaskan team.[3]
The demise of the team came with the very nature of their expenses, as the team never turned a profit. The first two seasons saw the team pay for air fare for teams to fly out to Anchorage. The next three seasons saw a share of travel costs, but in 1982, the owners wanted to push that out, which led to a vote for the Knights to pay for all travel from Seattle to Anchorage. The success of the vote, combined with the arrest of an owner for a pyramid scheme, led to the disbanding of the team from the league.[9]
^Tomasson, Chris (February 17, 2001). "CBA fading into a memory, and other notes". Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service. Cleveland, Ohio.
^Rogers, Carroll (May 31, 2006). "Kelly Cup Finals: Aces just chillin': Win or lose, team planning to take it easy". The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Atlanta, Georgia. p. J1.
^"Untitled". United Press International. Dallas, Texas. June 23, 1983. Retrieved June 18, 2018.
^"Untitled". United Press International. Seattle, Washington. October 7, 1980.
^"Detroit Dazzlers sign Dick Harter as coach for Liberty Basketball Association world premiere at The Palace February 18". PR Newswire. PR Newswire Association LLC. January 22, 1991.