Not going to happen

2024-2028
1-Canberra - ais upgrade
2-Wellington - TSB upgrade + (nz breakers>Auckland breakers)

2028-2032
3-Townsville - entertainment centre upgrade
4-Newcastle - entertainmentt centre upgrade

2032-2036
5-Geelong - new stadium
6-Darwin - new stadium

2036-2040
7-Western Sydney - new stadium
8-Sunshine Coast - 6,000 seat stadium planned for Olympics

2040-2044
9-Christchurch - Homecastle upgrade
10-Gold coast - leisure centre or convention centre


No to foreign teams except nz.
Phillipines 8hr flight from Sydney....

There are big dreams in some of those cities ever being considered least of all the time frames. But after the Slingers fiasco the likelihood of another Asian team with considerable travel time being added is bugger all and zip.

I really feel like I am in the minority when I think "cant we keep it at the amount of teams we currently have?"

I feel the more teams we add, the more watered down the league gets, and the higher risk of teams dropping out of the league which I think is a bad look for the NBL.

We have 10 teams right now which I feel is a good safe number.

Manilla is a four hour flight from Darwin and a 10 hour flight from Perth or Cairns.

Even Singapore was closer than that. Manny Pacquiao or an ex Prime Minister would have to fork out a motza to cover those costs.

Wellington? Still lots of potential in NZ and would be fierce rivalry with Breakers. No other league has two NZ teams competing against each other in a stronger Australian league.

I think Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast should share a SEQ team.

SEQ Suns

NBL seeks more social media interactions - fixed the headline

Perth - Auckland is 7.25 hours obviously with a lay over game in between

No reason Perth - Manilla couldn't be a road trip

Probably because the league isn't contemplating Perth -> Manilla as a road trip as its criteria.

They're contemplating;

Sydney -> Manilla
Melbourne x2 -> Manilla
Auckland -> Manilla
Adelaide -> Manilla
Hobart -> Manilla

Now... if there is a consideration of the semi-pro days of the 80's, where the 6'ers and Wildcats trip was 'The Doomsday Double"....

and replacing that with a Darwin/Manilla double...

Darwin airport is going to get awfully congested... and you'd pretty much have to admit both teams in an expansion.

I feel that graphic needs a big "not to scale" disclaimer at the bottom, unless the designer has gotten the Philippines confused for Bali.

My two cents re: the "Slingers fiasco" - the main problem with the Slingers in the NBL was that they not only had to pay for their own airfares from S'pore to Aus/NZ every away game, they also had to pay for the opposition's airfares every home game. This was supposed to be covered by a sponsorship deal, but that never eventuated. Manila's even further from Aus than S'pore, so the costs would be eye-watering.

The cap conitinues to go up which is a good sign, it's now almost 1.8 mill.
It was 1 mill in 2015.

We can go to 12 teams within the next 6 years easy imo.

Look at who’s not in the nbl, based overseas, college, nznbl, youth, nba returnees.


Imagine mills coming back as the marquee for Canberra in 24/25 after the Olympics...
Ingles said he would play for one of the Melbourne sides.

Phillipines is there purely for the clicks.

"Philippines is there purely for the clicks."

And just hopefully not the comments that go with it :D

Pie in the sky idea.

We're not too far removed from the whole covid plagued years, why not just put the breaks on and get the model perfect before non necessary expansion.

Just looked up Cairns - Manila flights. There's one via Singapore Airlines that takes about 22 ~ 23 hours with a stop in Singapore. Or you can go Air Niugini and do it in around 10 hours.

I'll stay home, I think.

Hey, at least the Philippines are on the map - NZ isn't!

Would need a Darwin NBL franchise to make a Philippine franchise work.
Plenty support and sponsership fron the filipinos but a Darwin team may struggle in that regard unless the Philippines want to bankroll 2 franchises.

This would be on the front page of Philippine news papers.
They love basketball

Half the clubs are just financially hanging in as it is, it all sounds great but need to consolidate the 10 first.
Quiet a few afl teams only hang in there because of being propped up by the afl and there massive tv deals.
It's all sounds great, dreamworld stuff though.

I would rather have Canberra, Gold Coast and Darwin in the league first. I wish the nbl would have more teams then just 10 teams though.

They need to get to at least 12 teams so then the nbl can bring the top-8 finals system with the quarterfinals (best of 3), semifinals (best of 3) and NBL Finals (best of 5).

The nbl hasn't had a 4 matchup of quarterfinals of a best of 3 format since 1996! The nbl stuffed up in 2004 with the double sudden death finals. They really needed to 1992-1996 finals format because then the away seeds at least get one home final. It made sense why so many teams went bust between the early 2000’s.

The last thing we need is a team based in The Philippines. They just suggested it for the likes and comments.

They will also be so bad that even the 1988 Geelong Supercats would beat them.

Agree, Statman.

And how are they going to call their games- the Asian way or the Australian way? Big difference in the physicality and hands-on defence allowed, from what I've heard.

You would expect they would use Australian referees and not locals. But having said that initially the NBL flew 3 Australian referees into Singapore but by the end of the experiment they were using a local as the 3rd who was well below standard.

Would love to see a team there, with Thon Maker as the franchise player

Thin Maker vs 1988 Geelong Supercats

Who would win?

My moneys on Thin