Don't forget the hidden costs like superannuation for all employees, holiday and sick leave for non-contract ('permanent') employees, prob company tax, advertising and promotion (which to me is on top of 'adminstration').

I would guess that it's less than what you've suggested. Maybe more like $2-3m for a club abiding by the cap, depending on the costs of hiring a venue, how many admin staff they have, etc.

Jack i reckon you are about double what it is

Salary Cap is $800,000 ish even if you double that it is still only $1.6 mill and that would cover all staff wages.

Travel is equalised out amongst all the clubs, promotion would be all contra with the radio , tv whoever concerned

I suppose if you got the media on board, then advertising and promotion would be right down.

Sounds like $3M for a "budget" club, and possibly $10M for a big club. Still outside the range of my chequebook.

What would the deal be with the NBL? Is there an annual fee per club, or does the NBL distribute excess funds to clubs based on profits from global merchandising, TV rights etc ala the AFL. With the AFL, they seem to control the direction of the sport and then pay each club a "dividend". The Crows are owned by SANFL and distribute their profits to the nine SANFL clubs at the end of the season.

Still think you're miles off. Think 1.5-2m for a budget club, and 2-4 for one of the others. Very much doubt any NBL club is spending anywhere near 6m let alone 10m!

Look at the Tigers for example - might spend up to 2.5m on roster/coaching/support, but their admin is skeletal and they barely advertise at all. Their admin is shared out of Seamus' primary business - when I visited some years back, it seemed to be 2-3 rooms and a couple of staff besides Seamus himself. Quite shrewd.

Doubt there's any "global merchandising" to speak of in the NBL or that any TV money filters back to clubs at this point (if the league gets anything at all right now). There'd probably be some sort of annual dues and travel pool from clubs to the league though. I don't think, currently, that it'd be excessive though.

$3M seems a little low, but if that is the cost of running a club then let's take it as that.

Question: What is the cost of running an NBL club?

Answer: $1.00 more than most of the owners currently have.

Jack, what makes you think it would be higher? Main costs are going to be salaries of players, coaches and support staff. You can probably guess at a general range for most of those. The rest are not quite as high - training court, game night venue, flights/accomm/per-diem, etc.

You might think flights/accomm is going to be huge, but some basic calculations:

15 road games, 12-15 people. $1,000pp or so would likely average out and cover (considering multi-game road trips, shorter trips balancing longer ones, bulk deals with corporate partners, players sharing rooms, etc) flight, accommodation and their per-diem payment per game. Might be about $200k for a season.

Following the debacle of Sydney Spirit, I think the first "n" in the title of this thread should actually be an "i"!

well said RG!!!

36ers expenses vary from around 2.5m to 3m per year.