By Garrett Dvorkin | Baltimore Business Journal
A new sports and entertainment company has secured the rights to bring a basketball team to Baltimore City.
Maelstrom Sports and Entertainment, founded by UMBC graduate Jacob Dennis and former Division I basketball player Charles Carrington, is currently on the hunt for investors to fund a new semi-professional basketball team called Baltimore Venom.
The Venom would play in The Basketball League (TBL), a fast-growing semi-professional league with teams across the country. Dennis learned about Baltimore’s passion for basketball while in college, and he wants to fill the void left by the departure of the Baltimore Bullets to Washington, D.C., in the 1970s.
“We want to go as far as the city is willing to go with us,” Dennis said. “We are going to focus on homegrown Baltimore talent, guys who played [Division I] or [Division II] college [basketball].”
Dennis decided to partner with TBL after seeing the league’s rapid expansion. The league started in 2018 with eight teams and has expanded to 38 teams in just six years. Many of the players in the league are former college basketball players. The league aims to feature players who aren’t quite at the NBA level. Dennis said a lot of the league’s players could play in international leagues but prefer to stay closer to home.
Dennis and Carrington, who played at North Carolina A&T State University, decided to reach out to TBL about securing exclusive rights to start a team in Baltimore City because of Dennis’ experience organizing basketball. He organized a charity basketball tournament while he was a student at UMBC and realized he had a passion for bringing people together.
Event planning, however, ended up leading Dennis into the spoken word space. The biggest event that Maelstrom has put on so far is called Selah!, which attracts 70 to 100 people to listen to religious poetry, rap and spoken word performers.
The Venom is the latest venture into family-friendly fun that Dennis wants to bring to the region. He admits that there is still a lot of work to do before the team can tip off its first game, including finding players, an arena and investors to bankroll the operation. When it comes to a home base, Dennis said he is only considering gyms inside the city limits. He hopes the Venom will be up and running in time to play its first game in 2025.
Maelstrom is working with students at Loyola University Maryland for the team’s marketing. Dennis said the school’s 2,100-seat Reitz Arena could be a good home for the team. Baltimore City has three other arenas: CFG Bank Arena, which seats 14,000 and is home to the CIAA Men’s & Women’s Basketball Tournament, Morgan State’s Talmadge L. Hill Field House (4,500) and Coppin State’s Physical Education Complex (4,100).
The Venom would be the second Basketball League team in Maryland. The Frederick Flying Cows, which played their first season last year, currently play at Hood College’s BB&T Arena (1,600).
Dennis said Maelstrom’s biggest challenge right now is getting investors and potential corporate sponsors on board. He said the Venom could be a good investment because it is “very cost-effective.” Maelstrom is currently courting investors, and the team’s future depends on getting the funds needed to start up. Dennis said this is currently the “soft launch” stage, and that he wants to get the team’s social media pages up to generate buzz.
“We are talking to business owners about sponsorships, and we are planning some public events in the city later in the summer,” Dennis said. “We are not trying to take over the NBA, this is different, and it is contingent on getting investors.”
Photo Credit: Coppin State Athletics/TagTheShooter Photography