Isaac
Years ago
NBL Players' Assoc: NBL not doing enough
Mat Campbell, veteran of the NBL, player for the Wollongong Hawks and a representative of the NBL Players' Association says the league must not forget the 2008/09 season.
"All this new stuff's coming out and they're worried about what's going to happen next year, and they should put more effort into focusing on now.He correctly notes that it will make for an easier transition if fans from the current NBL do not fall away and make for a bigger deficit that a new league needs to make up.
"How do we generate some support?
How do we generate some enthusiasm media-wise, on the bigger scale for the NBL?"
He also expresses frustration at feeling kept in the dark on some matters relating to the future of the league.
Campbell said the NBL wasn't sufficiently keeping players up to date with the latest developments.It might, however, be a case of the league not being able to say much at this stage.
"There are questions I passed on to the NBL myself, and they don't have any answers for that at the moment, and that's sort of the problem," he said.
"They're going to have us in on the talks when they actually have them, but they need to start feeding those kinds of things through now, and reassure people out there that we're going to have jobs. You've got guys with mortgages and kids that are worried now because we don't know how many teams are going to be there.
"You don't want to have guys playing professional basketball at the top level in Australia worrying about what's happening next year. For the competition to survive, you need people focusing on playing hard and giving the best spectacle we can for the fans so they keep coming back and the sponsors come."
A vote by stakeholders, scheduled for sometime in October, has been pushed back to November 8.
The Illawarra Mercury has more comments from Campbell.
