Seamus McPeake has no respect for the NBL

Too right.
He's a fullblown hipocrit and a steaming pile of poo.

Is that you Mal?

Quite ironic considering he is the Owners rep on the new NBL Board

Is 1.8 Million the salary cap price for a team (legally that is)? Is there a max a player can get?

Who cares.
There is no way that's legit or the Dragons for that matter either.
Everybody spends over the cap but this Tigers team and even Dragond team this year is an absolute joke.
The league couldn't be in a worse position if it tried and McPeake thinks he's above everything.
Clearly there is NOBODY around to police guys like him, so why should the rest of us even be here- it's insulting to every other team in the league and insulting to the fans that bring their money to watch a bunch of friggin cheats!

KJ, salary cap is around $800-900k. Maximum for one player was recently $175k, but not sure if that's changed since.

The cap may be true, but you cant tell me that these players continue to play here for that kind of cash. The cap is a joke, They pay way more under the table.

Cheers Issac.

It is pretty clear that the Tigers would be over the salary cap and that no policing of it is going on. I guess on the other hand if this wasn't the case would all of the quality Australian players and imports not even consider coming here? Unfortunately there will be some powerhouse teams due to this but the league will be stronger from this competition. So does that Justify it? Possibly not but it helps to. The league would raise the salary cap if it was possible but cant due to the financial situations of clubs.

I guess the way the rest of the league can look at as a challenge to knock off the tigers and stop the tigers winning the title, stacked line ups dont always work well or win, so its no guarantee, and then i guess it could turn the tigers into a joke if they dont win it all or atleast make the GF

Would u respect the NBL the way its going? Id be trying to win the last NBL championship there will be...08/09.

Here's an idea, put 10 bucks on the tigers to get the wooden spoon due to getting points taken off after being found of being over the salary cap, then put 10 bucks on the 36ers and dragons for the same reason.

Put 10 bucks on 3 different teams to all finish last? I think you might be making 2 pretty stupid bets there curtley...

Have a cry Dragon's fans...
hahahaha

Seamus McPeake? How about Ebi Ere, and the dirty he's pulled on the Dragons. I have no love for the Dragons what-so-ever, but what a f***ing jerk move!

I think its funny that so much money can be spent on one team and yet they can't even showcase it to more that 3,000. You can win championships, but you wont win the support of the fans.

Yes they will, they just won't be able to fit that many in the stadium.

Until the NBL can afford to police the salary cap properly they should just can it and save everyone a lot of trouble. The entire thing is as pointless as the daily point scoring by politicians in the media and parliament.

Honestly, this is ridiculous!!!!!

So would you all prefer that those players didnt play in the nbl at all.....you should all be rejoicing that there will a couple of great nbl teams this year a a few really good teams, not bagging it.

As for Seamus, we should all be thanking the bloke for helping keep the league going, the same for cowan and bendat.

I would have thought that the objective of any team owner is to have the best team and win the nbl title. Sydney wasnt under the salary cap in the last 5 years.

Radar,

Sorry but this guy is the highest spending owner in the league, by a mile.

He has caused other teams need to spend money (quite often mney that they don't have) just to compete.

He has had at least a few questionable judgements about points ratings go his way.

He also sits on the board that GOVERNS the league in one of the worst cases of confict of interest in sporting history.

He is selfish, dictatorial, acts like he owns the league but does nothing to help anyone but his own team.

Cowan will not continue to lose money whilst McPeake goes about his merry way. Neither will the likes of Bendat.

He is the ONLY owner making money even with his stupid spending habits and he maintains a monopoly on the only stadium in Melbourne where the Dragons could make money and survive long term.

He is NOT good for the league. He will be the death of the NBL if he is not stopped and that is no over-reaction.

I swear the bloke would be happy if they just handed the trophy to the Tiegrs every season because there's no other teams left.

Seamus could spend the money on advertising instead...

Now THAT deserves a ball. Funniest thing I've read in ages.

Love this quote on nbl.com.au

"We're ecstatic to have a player of his caliber join the Tigers, it's a huge coup for the Club," McPeake said.
"Ere's agent came to us at the start of the off-season but he was outside our price range. When his NBA contract fell through we were in a position to negotiate the salary to fit within our budget."

The Tigers budget, not the budget of the NBL salary cap.

Another Interesting point is that Daniel Johnson who was rated a 3 seems to be mysteriously a 1 now.

It has cleared just enough points under the cap for the Tigers to sign Ebi Ere.

Man, how lucky are they that the NBL just decided to review it and change it off their own bat? And just in time too.

Radar - you are correct in saying every club's objective is to put the best team on the floor and win a title, but it should be the league's objective to create a league with wide ranging fan interest and long-term viability.

Tigers/Brisbane/Sydney (maybe Dragons?), and even Cairns are ruining the league, but only because the league lets them do it.

Can't be that difficult to find out what undeclared payments players are getting. I'm sure the ATO will be looking in to it.

You blokes are kidding arnt you, to say Seamus McPeake is wrecking the league is crapola, every one accepted it a few years ago when eddy and tim 'firepower' stacked their teams. The kings paid sav $400k last year and the bullets paid cj the same and they still didnt win, and if it wasnt for the credit crunch eddy would still be doing it.

The league will build because of this you clowns, people will go and see the tigers and the dragons play because they have good teams and if you asked the players they would be looking forward to playing these two teams as as a player you want to play against the best. Read JR's blog today.

The death of the nbl indeed, what an outlandish statement, so when clubs started investing money into players in the 80's and 90's was that the death of basketball, no, it made it better and this is the same thing. Honestly could you be more dramatic!!! Next you will say Seamus is the cause of global warming, Dicko!!

Good teams will lead to more fans and more sponsors and ultimately more money for players and coaches so will actually lead to better players all round. if you clowns out there cant see that then slap yourself across the face and move into the 2000's instead of being stuck in the 60's.

You can bet your bottom dollar that Paul Bauer and the 36ers are rubbing their hands together with glee at the increase in talent in the league because he/they know that now the 6ers will have pretty much a guaranteed sell out for those games against the dragons and tigers. Which is what the sixers need and the league needs. The league needs strong following in vic, sa and wa, with the bullets out that means it falls on townsville and cairns and they sell out every week so no big deal, so better teams will also mean bigger crowds at the hawks and the coast and breakers.

If you cant see that the botton line of every team will be enhanced by the so called super teams of the tigers and dragons, then you dont know anything about business.

Btw Bendat is worth $500 million, he doesnt mind losing a million a year to keep a team going in WA, he has publicly stated that, not that the cats are doing that as they get close to a sell out every game.

bomb - the examples you use are Sydney and Brisbane. Can't wait to play them this season...

Talented players and entertaining teams are great, I'm not disagreeing, but the arms race isn't always good for clubs. It works while the rich owner is interested, but it's not viable when it comes time for someone to run it as an actual business. That's why the Bullets and Kings weren't picked up (or at least not confidently).

As for Johnson, they're running him as a development player (1 point), with Sturt in his place, so they fit under the points cap. Hopefully when he takes an actual roster spot in the future, he starts at 3 points due to his having served two years at the AIS.

Isaac, do you have any factual numbers on how many are turned away from the Tiger's home games because they can't fit them all in. If the numbers are substantial, why not use a larger venue? Surely it would have to be the pits to have fans wanting to support your team but the club not making an effort to accommodate them.

Bomb.

Show me one "stacked" team where they got a single member more? Or where their average attendances actually went up?

The 80's and 90's had bums on seats.....in the 00's we don't.

Bendat (and Cowan, etc) might say that they're happy to lose some money for the long term gain, but wen it doesn't run around and 10 years from now they've lost $20 million dollars, do you really think they'll keep going?

I love the fact that the quality of our league is strong. I love the fact that our players are challenged by playing the best opposition, but the quality of our game has NEVER been an issue. As a product, we would rank right up there with some of the best leagues in the world.

I agree that LiarPower and Eddy started it, but now they're gone and Seamus continues to drive costs up and up for teams that just can't afford it. Ignore Bendat and Cowan.....what about Wollongong? What about the Sydney team? They could EASILY be out next season and we're down to 8 teams.

If Seamus wants to continue with the quality of the league and drive it up, great. But if he wants it to survive, long term, the "Catch me if you can" is not going to do it.

Bomb - Sydney has the best record over the last 5 years and one of the worst attendances.

I dont agree with McPeakes methods, but i also dont think they will work for this season, i actually think teams like Dragons, Perth, Taipans and 36ers have better and more balanced line ups than the tigers do.
Im hoping with the tigers not winning it and possibly not even making the GF (which IMO is what will occur) will achieve 2 things, show clubs like the 36ers,etc you dont have to go quite as crazy on spending as the tigers to win it, hence stopping the race occuring, and also show McPeake its not about spending the most money its about building a talented, well balanced team.
The reason i dont think the tigers will win it as i honestly cant see a team with Barlow as there starting PG winning the title, yes he is a good SF/SG but no PG, and the same goes for Ebi or Mackinnon, i also dont think Crosswell is good enough for that major role without McDonald there to split the minutes with.
I also think its basically a team of outside jumpshooters, and not very strong defensively, mackinnon can play defense but is injured, and also they have no real inside presence, they used to have guys like McDonald, Tucker, Thomas who could take it inside and allow anstey to play on the outside, but they have replaced them in the starting 5 with Barlow, Ere and Grizzard who are mainly perimeter jumpshooters and not as good defenders as D-mac, DT and Tuck. Sure they are very talented but they have poor balance and teams like the Dragons, Wildcats, Taipans and 36ers have talented enough teams that the tigers with poor balance wont just be able to 'out talent' everyone, especially in playoff series.
I also dont rate there bench that highly other than Hoare. Corletto IMO is no real better than a Brad Hill and id rather have Winitna than Corletto, Crosswell is no better (and IMO is worse) than Bruce or Davidson one of which will be our back up PG, and the rest of the bench is quite young and inexperienced,even though they do appear talented, so yea i dont think they have great depth,IMO which will be a issue with Mackinnon still recoverin from injury.
So yea personally i think the tigers will be around the top 4, due to there talent but i dont think they will actually win the title and i hope other teams and owners and even McPeake learns you dont have to spend the most to win, many stacked line ups have not won it, i reckon some of the kings line ups under brett brown were as stacked if not more so than this tigers team and half the time they didnt even make the play offs.
Not excusing McPeake i think what he has done is a disgrace and he is clearly exploiting his power within the league and spending way more than the cap, but yea i just dont think thats gonna result in a title this season anyway.

EC, they don't sell out all games. Ticket prices are quite high. McPeake has made the 'safe' decision to use a cheap venue to keep costs down.

My point was that fans will support them, they just won't all be able to fit in the venue. They might (as many people do with the 36ers) follow the side's progress via the newspaper, TV, website, etc.

Great that he's reportedly (not sure that I believe it, to be honest) making a profit, but one criticism is that it's not furthering the sport and the league's brand if one of the big teams is not out there marketing itself.

Dicko, if the Spirit and Hawks drop out, I think Brisbane and the Kings would take their spots and suddenly the league has the 10 team league they probably planned before all this crap went down.

It's true though that these teams need to be more viable than they are now and the salaries aren't helping.

Having sat down with 1 of departing Port Power exec. A major problem they have is they have a 50k stadium they are never going to fill. So therefore Power supporters dont need to buy season tickets (we will buy as we go) then reasons come along and they end up attending half if you are lucky. They have looked at closing part of AAMEE stadium to fix the problem even before disaster of this year .
This gives you some idea why McPeake doesnt want a larger stadium and why can keep control of figures .
Doesnt make it right as doesnt need to market the club or NBL and gets extremely very poor number crowds in the sporting capital of Aust.with although illegally Cap or not a very good and exciting team with a new improved Dragons could easy get over 10k to those matches and 6- 8 k on regular base with good marketing . I can remember going to Tigers - Sixers final where the Rod Laver Arena holds 18 k was full or near full. Dicko etc would have gone Tigers vs Titans ( giants ) etc with 18k there .Obviously it is more ego rather than grow his club for buying this team

(Mod: Insightful re Port story.)

"The salary cap is $840,000 this season," interim NBL chief executive Chuck Harmison said, the Tigers apparently, remarkably, still under it."

Quoted from Boti Nagy's story in today's Advertiser. Don't know who is being fooled more here, Harmison or Nagy.

Isaac, if they don't sell out every game, then there is no need to move to a larger venue. If more fans wanted to go to the games than what they could accommodate, then it would warrant it to move to a larger venue. I don't understand how fans that only follow their progress through newspapers, TV etc can be beneficial to the club or the league. I have a passing interest in Port Power but only attend one or 2 games a year. I don't consider myself helping the club at all.

The crowds are kept fairly average because the pricing is high.

As I've said, the criticism usually levelled at the Tigers is that they barely market themselves (and subsequently don't really promote the league). Seamus would have plans for an elite league, but playing a 3k shed doesn't really match that concept.