curtley
Years ago

AustralAsian Premier Basketball League

My idea which i will be submitting in powerpoint form to BA.

What people don't realise is that basketball has actual advantages over soccer in this country - Australia has and could consistently compete for a top 5 spot in the world of bball, soccer can't do this. Also with the A-league, soccer's ethnic fans were ignored (yes it wasn't ideal in the NSL but they were the passionate ones). My idea involves turning the NBL into a league whereby 2-3 players a year are drafted into the NBA and could field teams that could compete with European and NBA teams on the court.

How this is done is relatively simple and with government funding will happen. Firstly we need to open import restrictions to include all Asian and Southern Hemisphere players so that the new Aussie League has a monopoly on these types of players which are the best outside of Europe and the USA hands down. Countries from which players would come would be: China, Argentina, Brazil, Japan, Angola, Korea, Congo, Phillipines just to name the stronger ones. Not to mention players like Fadi El Khatib from Lebanon and 7ft 5 Jaber Rouzbahani and 7ft 3 Hamed Hadadi from Iran.

If 16 teams were agreed on (obviously ideal number), dividing them in divisions would be best to enhance local rivalry and a second team in Asia (ideally Jakarta - pop' 9 million) would make it a truly international competition. Singapore would join Jakarta, Darwin and Perth, making travelling more realistic and roadtrips cost effective.

With two teams advancing out of a four team group. Other teams added would include Tassy (with 2 Vic clubs and 36ers in their division) and an AIS team based in Canberra comprising the best Aussie players under 21 - building a strong national team for the future. The TV rights could be sold for millions in Asia and Sth America, perhaps moreso than the current NRL and AFL deals.

If each team had 5 Aussie/Kiwi players, 5 regional players (Southern Hemisphere, Asia) and 2 imports from outside of these regions (USA players) the pool of Australian talent would drop from its current number whereby there are some players who probably shouldn't be there or get as much playing time as they do (d.joyce). This leaves around 80 spaces for the best players across the Asian/Southern Hemisphere region which just quietly includes over 60 nations including the strong basketball nations mentioned above.

The multicultural nature of particularly Melbourne and Sydney would in my opinion ensures that 2 franchises in each of these markets is plausable.

Other ideas include putting the national flag of each player on their jersey, making each division have a zone - e.g. Queensland division gets monopoly on South American talent, Vic, SA Tas get Africa, Southern Asia, NSW - Northern Asia/Pacific etc etc. I'm no expert on creating fixtures so i won't even try. Option involving All Star games would obviously be immeasurable with amount of countries competing.

I will repost this post under another topic simply because i think it deserves its own topic.

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Kent Brockman  
Years ago

I would cut out the South American option as they have a very strong basketball community already.

Remember i posted something similar a few weeks back when i read about Frank Lowy getting 30mill out of the givernmnet for soccer as he showed them how good it would be for business relations between asia and australia.

Works for them and the carrot that is China and basketball should surely be enough to make them happy

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billo  
Years ago

Are you proposing that each division only plays themselves throughout the season until the top 2 teams come up against the other in the finals? If so then I don't think this is feasible, I certainly wouldn't become a season ticket holder if my team only had 3 opponents. If this isn't what you meant who do you propose the divisions will work?

Agree with Kent about Sth America not being the way forward, it might seem logical to get our Southern Hemisphere bretheren on board, but it's actually a lot less convenient for them to get to Australia than to the states (if they wanted to go international).

I think for this to work there would need to be a real incentive for people to come to our league. Some sort of official affiliation with the NBA to make us a recognised pathway could do it (although I suspect something like that might be hard to wangle), or if we started paying players similar to what Europe offers and they choose us due to lifestyle benefits. The sport simply isn't big enough to justify these increased wages so I can't see that option happening either.

Good to see someone's thinking about possibilities for improvement though, kudos.

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David  
Years ago

sounds pretty good like to see a proper format though so i get the full picture agree with billo i would not pay for 3 opponents a year thats crap

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curtley  
Years ago

No i was implying that the divisional teams play each other morseo in order to build rivalries regionally but that all teams play each other at least once home and away. I believe with a suitable salary cap, the better players from South America could be coaxed over here, especially if they were grouped in teams. Surely Brazilians and Argys playing pro over there would be on lower salarys than here. The best league in Sth America is in venezuela and they pick up nbl rejects.










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Anonymous  
Years ago

I'm not sure with it all above. but had something similar in mind a few weeks ago and that is to combine NBL with China's CBA. This will get the Asian markets in Australia (especially Melbourne and Sydney) lot more inolved which means dollars.

And combining with CBA will also make a ~20 teams league which in my opinion will be a lot more exciting as this way we can also allow perhaps 3 imports per team? So the basic idea is simply joint force with exisitng league as oppose to branching out as a form of expansion.

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MoneyTalks  
Years ago

I think you will find this will happen within 2 yrs anyway Curtley. All owners have been advised this week that the NBL will fold in the coming yrs and merge with an Asian League.

I hope that games are still played in Australia and teams are based here. If that happens the concept would be great. It would be great to get Newley, Anderson, Nielson etc. back with cashed up Aussie teams drawing in mega sponsorship in the massive Asian market.

Expect Gold Coast and Illawarra to be moved on at the end of next year and the league to move to a very strong 8 team competition in preparation for its merger with the Asian league.

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