They have some concept of promotion. there logo is on boxes and signs, they have news coverage.. they are on news papers... they actually market themselves like a professional sports team, so are treated as such by the public.

It's the big double-banners hanging on the Wellington St and St George's Tce lamp-posts =D Beautiful, inspiring sight. As someone on OzHoops pointed out though, helps that Perth occupies something of a sweet spot for price of advertising vice eyeballs compared to Syd/Melb or the small markets.

The location factor shouldn't be discounted either; if you plopped Perth Arena wholesale on top of where Challenge is now, we would not be averaging 10k+

Yep, sexy girls always help

Sexy girls? We have the sort of cheerleaders that wouldn't raise the indignation of a Southern Baptist temperance union matron. Unsexiest cheerleaders in Australia, possibly the world.

Well, that's probably unfair. They are exactly what it says on the tin - dancers, not cheerleaders.

^ What are its public transport links like?

They have been doing around 1000 hours a year in schools and other public appearances for quite a number of years now, combine that with success and clever marketing and voila!

I imagine that Perth would be more than willing to hold a reasonably "tell-all" meeting with other clubs and reveal what they believe are their methods to success.

They need other teams to survive or the league dies, and that includes Perth.

However, Sydney and Melbourne will never offer what Perth can. Cost of living, training facilities, closeness to all promos and activities and the support groups that Perth have in operation. Who lives over an hour and a half from training in Perth? Everyone wants to be involved, be a part of it. Compare the numbers of people who actually have a role(volunteer or paid) for the Wildcats to Tigers or Kings.

How do you get that happening in Sydney and Melbourne? Qualified and experienced admin people are a big start.

what else is there to do in Perth?

are they any good at anything else?

^
This whole nothing ever happens in Perth meme always gets stretched way too far. It's a city closing on 2m people with a metric tonne of beaches.

Yes, there are other things to do.

I visited for a couple of months when I was a kid and thought it was a nice place.
I more meant, other pro sports and entertainment sorry Nathan,
In Auckland we have NZNBL, our domestic rugby comp, Super Rugby, NRL, ANZ Netball Championship and such that the NBL has to compete with along with the festivals, concerts etc.

Nathan, a raw nerve there!


My take on it is pretty simple. Advertising and marketing is paramount. PR is the key and sounds like Perth are doing a fair bit off court. (Nathan confirm?)

Perth are pretty proactive on social media which is the rage this day and age. The AFL clubs do this to perfection. Every day there is a puff piece on something. For example, on Adelaide Now today "Power's Jay Schulz shows sharpshooting skills in Dubai" - and this news how? On Perth Now they have some story about Freo starting training again and a photo of some player with his top off. These puff pieces are every day occurrences with the AFL. On C7 news tonight, I expect they'll have a story talking about some rookie's mum knitting tea cosies for underprivileged orphan kids in some remote African nation we haven't heard of.

We have spoken about how much an NBL clubs costs to run. Perth is a very interesting place to do business. Melbourne is where the big, olde money is in Australia, Sydney is the finance centre of Australia, Brisbane is the glamour capital, and Adelaide is the sub-branch to Melbourne/Sydney. Perth has always been difficult to do business with and quite parochial. To get sponsorship out of a Perth company, just tell them their competitor has chipped in double and they don't like to be outdone. In Adelaide, the State Manager has to put a proposal to their manager in Melbourne and it all gets lots. Therefore, having good corporate support helps fund marketing. In SA, the top 10 local businesses? I think they are Santos, Elders, Hills, Adelaide Brighton, Shahin Enterprises, T & R Pastoral, Scott Group of Companies,
Commercial Motor Vehicle Group, Drake Supermarkets, K & S Corporation. In WA how many more options do sponsorship managers have?

Success is the key too. On court success stirs up interest and people want to watch the games etc.

Ticket Cost is a factor. There would be a break-even point as well with ticket prices. It is seen by many as a luxury item so could be the first to go in a budget squeeze. In WA, how many cashed up bogans are there? It's also linked with sponsors, more sponsors, cheaper prices.

I would be interested to compare the demographics of the crowds of the 8 clubs. How do they differ? Is the Perth crowd just families, or are they corporate boffins doing mine deals at the half time break?

Public transport is too. Good Public Transport can help getting to and from stadiums. Car parking etc all factors.

I think all teams have the capability to fill stadiums, its about creating reasons to fill them.

There's a corporate brochure floating around online somewhere that presents the Wildcat's pitch... Had a bunch of demographic information from their surveys (they have a 3rd party mob that does a lot of surveys of both the supporter base and non-supporter cross-sections).

Let me see if I can find it.

Meh, the current one doesn't have the extra detail the last one did, but the gist was that the Wildcats crowd was largely white collar professional; in particular twin-income couples and families. A 53% Male/47% female breakdown, 57% of attendees are with their partner, 39% with their families. Which ties into having the unsexiest cheerleaders ever, no doubt.

Which matches up with what I've seen; many a singlet at the Arena is being worn over a business shirt.

The major sponsors tend to fall into the categories of banks, mining support companies, construction companies and sports companies.

Ticket prices are no joke, hop on to Ticketek and check the prices and how big the allocations at that price are. Worth noting that gold $90 tickets, i.e., majority of the lower bowl, are almost entirely pre-sold via memberships.



Has to be pointed out that an undeniable part of staying above 10k for all crowds has been James Ennis. A lot of hype has been courtesy of him, to the extent that the Wildcats are probably already trying to figure out how to get an equal replacement.

Yep, sign up a star and they will come!

Finally figuring out how to shoot in that building has also helped the attractiveness of the event...

Perth Arena and it's location is a big help because thousands of people go past it each day. Apart from basketball people, who goes down Crittenden Road and knows where the stadium is? You can't see it! If we played at AEC which would see thousands of people go past it each day and had use of their electronic ad screens, we would see a lift in crowds too.

West Coast with a 4 year waiting list? My next year will be my 6th, and I'm still well off getting membership...

Also, Glory is 5k+ members now.

The problem with Glory has always been the club more than the supporter base. Up until the last year or so has seemingly spent more effort driving people away than bringing them in.

Dragons pumped plenty of dollars and exposure on advertising and marketing in their short tenure and they didn't get massive crowds except for finals and local derby.

Dragons dropped away badly in community engagement and promotion after their first year, which was their best crowds wise not surprisingly.

WA has the leading economy in Aus,
as well Perth has a massive population.

plenty of peeps with cash to spend.

Yeah we love basketball in Perth.

Men's basketball anyway.

:/

Not a big fan of Anon #448170's idea of moving the 36ers from Adelaide Arena to the Entertainment Centre.

Sure the AEC can hold about 10,000 for basketball or netball, and yes it is in a much better place than the AA in terms of public transport with both bus and tram services stopping right outside the front door. But it would also mean a fair amount of lost revenue for both the 36ers/Lightning and Basketball SA, revenue that would go back to AEC management (the State Government) and their own contractors.

Not to mention the logistics of having to put in a temporary court and scoreboard for each game. And can you imagine how bad traffic would be for Friday night games like the one we had against Perth a couple of weeks ago? The Port Rd/Park Tce intersection where the AEC is located is bad enough in peak hour at the best of times. And if there also happens to be an A-League game at Hindmarsh on the same day then it would be an absolute nightmare (for those here who don't live in Adelaide, Hindmarsh Stadium is located less than 500 metres from the AEC and there is next to no parking for one venue, let alone both).

But as to marketing of the games here in Adelaide.....for that game against the Wildcats there was next to no media advertising of the game. TV sports bulletins that week were dominated by the AFL draft, the Power's Football Manager signing to coach Richmond, the Ashes and the A-League. Other than the game being promoted on Fresh FM, the only time it was even mentioned on TV or radio was the day after saying the 36ers had won. Ten didn't even mention the game was on despite being the official broadcaster. Yet despite that the attendance was only 1,415 off AA's 8,000 capacity (though I think its a bit less than that).

Other than Fresh FM, the games are promoted online through social media sites, the 36ers and NBL websites, forums like Hoops and in The Advertiser through Boti's articles.....but that is about it. Ten doesn't promote their own product (they do more promoting of the T20 Big Bash), Seven can't see past the Crows, Power and AFL, and although Nein are kinda neutral they are also dominated by the AFL and cricket.

Its about time basketball (outside of Perth at least) got pro active with their advertising of the NBL and WNBL. Getting the same die hard fans at every game is all well and good, but if others don't know the leagues exist, the fan base is never going to grow and neither are attendances.

The Australian sporting world doesn't revolve around the AFL, its just promoted that way.

I suspect a lot of the occasionals or old 36ers fans keep in touch via Boti's column in the absence of other media support. If that disappeared, I think the ability to go from the regular 4-5k to 6-8k would be very much restricted.

The 36ers (and to a much lesser extent the Lightning) only get results mentioned on 7 and 9 in their sports bulletins, and even then we're lucky to see much more than a 20 second piece. Actually letting people know when games are played seems to be a big no-no with them. I know they don't broadcast either the NBL or WNBL, but letting local fans know there is a game being played wouldn't harm anyone.

Ten seem intent on getting rid of the NBL and as such rarely if ever promote the fact that they actually broadcast the league.

One of the 36ers official media partners, AM radio station 5AA tends to ignore basketball, even though they pay to get their name up in lights at the Arena. Not once this season have I heard any of their afternoon or weekend sports shows even mention the NBL or WNBL other than giving the results of games. If its not AFL, A-League or cricket, it simply doesn't get a mention (which says to me that the A-League are doing it right by getting themselves exposure in an AFL dominated market, something the NBL and WNBL should be doing but aren't).

If the league, its clubs AND its official broadcaster actually got out there like Perth does and promote basketball and when games are played, then attendances and TV ratings could well be higher than they currently are. Leaving it to social media and newspaper articles tucked away behind pages of AFL, cricket and A-League news just isn't going to cut it.

Attendances may be slowly building in the NBL, but I wouldn't be patting myself on the back if I was their marketing department. They need to remember that in the past season and a half, attendances have risen mostly because Perth are attracting 10k crowds where they were previously getting less than half that. Most other teams are still getting the same amount through the door as they were 2-3 years ago.

Was commuting this morning and I switched from Greg Hire talking on 92.9FM to Jesse Wagstaff talking on 96.1FM, so they are hammering the airwaves. Will regularly have people on the commercial stations during commuter hours. It all helps!

And speaking of engagement, Redhage is in the middle of a live chat on The West Australian's website