May make it more attractive to a media deal though? Can get a game done and dusted within 2 hours that way.

Games may not be high scoring statistically but doesn't mean teams won't play in an offensive minded manner just because the quarters are 2 mins less in length...

Heard Gaze say, in the media , that he'd like to see 10min qtrs. I'm pretty sure it will be.
Maybe suits FOX rather than basketball fans, travelling to game, getting a park, getting in, buying some food. Then leaving feeling flat......
thinking FOX is better than attending.

It's all about Fox!

It works for TV period.

Does anyone think the NBL is being run by FOX as of season 09/10?

Same charge for less product. Seems in line with current marketing methods.

hold on is this NJBL we're talking about? name me one pro league with 10min qtrs...

10min quarters would be a tragedy! All stats become non void and for F*%ks sake dont tamper with the product....its the only thing that has given the nbl a heartbeat for a while now.

Not a rumor at all.
Haha posted this about a month ago in passing?
Supposedly to be in line with international rules?

anon so you are saying that the likely hood of players scoring 40 points in a game is the same with 20% less playing time?

The NBL has not played 20 minute halves in how long? 1986?

i cant wait for the style of game to come here were players scoring 15 points is considered a huge night out

"name me one pro league with 10min qtrs..."

How about EVERY pro league in Europe?

You're right - THERE ISN'T MUCH WRONG WITH THE PRODUCT NOW

Presentation of the product is poor

The way coaches rotate all 10 players EVERY game already shits me - surely if this comes in they will have to priamrily play 8 players.

Maybe teams will buy 8 big time players and 2 low value players... we might see the best of the best???

with reduced quarters you get reduced stats. this wont do the league any good for attracting imports with a desire to go back to the nba. why would imports come here when there stats wont look as good as a 48 minute game? also reduces the roles of bench players and there importance, eventually costing many fringe players jobs in the future. dont like this one bit.

NBL needs to stop playing the blame game and work harder on themselves, where it really seems like the admin side of things are where things are going wrong...

Also DJRod, I fully agree with you on the whole 10 man rotation thing; never understand the reasoning behind that. I know a very good team this season has got nobody happy although they're winning.

I don't understand why the league would consider it. The players aren't fit enough to play 48min? Get a personal trainer!

Everything about the NBL of the past 10 years has sucked - EXCEPT THE BASKETBALL!!! So What's the first move? - Change the way the Basketball is played.

I am now grumpy.

Euroleague isn't 4 X 10 is it?

Don't like it, for all the reasons stated.

yeah he's right, Euro plays international rules, but their games are low scoring, rarely do teams score over 100 also on a more intersting note, Josh Childress is only averaging 26:15minutes and 10.7pts

Sorry about the previous mistake my opinion is that 12 minutes is ideal . It gives a chance for the bench players to contribute more also and a development player would find opportunities rare .However I agree it is all about FOXTEL they would have a strong case for the 10 min as has been mentioned.

Is the highest score in the NBL from a 2 x 20 game?

So true, players looking to come here to get exposure wont do so with 20% less court time to plead their case for a NBA type gig.

4 x 10 is best. Bring it on. Cuts out un-necessary bullshit. Get in, get out.

Do you realise how crap 48 minute ball is compared to 40 minute ball?

Lindsay Gaze has long argued that the 12 minute quarter is 9 minutes of ball and 3 minutes of exhausted garbage.

Europe thrives on the 40 minute game, so does College...its more intense, provides more tight finishes. The fact that it fits better for TV is just a huge bonus.

The argument about length of game and paying more for less is just sheer nonsense...is that why cricket fans have NOT accepted the 20-20 version? Rhetorical....

BA's desire for the 40 minute game might be supported by Fox, but its not the core reason, the core reason is so that our players and coaches are prepared for that intensity internationally...be that the new asian champions league, FIBA's new world club championship or world championship and olympic competition.

And to answer LA Boys early question with another question....here's another question. Outside of the NBA and NBL, name one pro league that actually plays 12 minute quarters?

Lets just hope the rumours are correct and we do end up with a version of the game that gives us the physicallity and intensity we see night in and night our in European style leagues, including the worlds BEST club based competition...the Euroleague.

ok...Chinese Basetball Association,Super Basketball League,Phillipines Basketball League (Asian leagues)

HO has changed my mind a bit, the closer more intense games are definately an advantage and if it helps with TV coverage then that's also good, however it's the NBL records of the last 23 years which i guess will fade into obscurity that is possibly the most upsetting. And the 10th-12th players would get almost no game time to develop.

I like my 48 min NBL..but, if there isnt significant TV support next year..i will have 0 minute NBL.

So..if it means i see quality players in a quality competition..and i get to watch ALL games, then im up for 40 minute games.

LA Boy...there are a couple more (Japan used to play 4 x 12 but not sure if they have changed) .... but I think you've answered your own question. 48 minutes is by far the exception not the norm. Europe are all 40 mins, as are all of America's outside of USA and the few professional leagues in Africa.

And another piece of nonsense for you all....the idea that US players try to break back into the NBA needing to play in 4 x 12 format is as frivolous as the shorter time = less value for money argument. Any player with deep playing time, solid numbers and a list of achievements in Spain, Italy, Greece, Russia etc etc will be well regarded. I am sure most of the scouts realise that college is played at 40 mins and can reconcile the differential in the stats...along with the fact that stats are interpreted differently in different parts of the world.

Dragons-Tigers finals games will have results like 65-50...

Can appreciate that it works for TV and matches up with international rules but don't like that this could mean fewer minutes for young players and boring statlines. We'll struggle to see double-doubles and triple-doubles now - those numbers are headlines.

20% less court time better equate to 20% less cost in , walk up tickets, season tickets etc... unless they are going to increase the season length

No-one likes change man and i hate the idea, but what did we expect?

The sport is all but dead, maybe we gotta just give a little to get a little....

Lets just hope that the L figures they owe us more games per season as a way of making up for lost time????

HO I agree with you on that one, of course scouts will be assessing player's capabilities more so than seeing the game is played in whatever minutes...

I'm still more keen on 48min game though plus, if NBL wants to sometime hit Asian market again, then 48min will no doubt be the way to go

LA Boy ... the new Asian champions league will probably be played in 40 minute format ... that is the international standard for the game.

And Quagmire, if you want the game to thrive, I'd be going the other way and decreasing the games played....current number is simply over supply in a market where demand needs to be stimulated.

The league is better off reducing the games played in the "regular" season and then adopting some form of knock-out competition that runs alongside it...in much the same way as Spain and other countries offer both regular league play and cup style knockout tournaments integrated.

Isaac has made a good point about our game style though...60-55 is a likely score in any game goorj coaches and that is actually a negative...we have very few coaches willing to deviate from Goorj's style because he is the benchmark.

HO if you reduce the number of games, tickets prices will go up to the point where most fans would not be able to go.

their needs to be more games to spread the operational costs out

ben fitz maybe your right but the biggest single variable for clubs, and for some clubs it is an enormous overhead, is venue costs.

If you are paying 40k per night for a venue, (eg hisense would be around this range, as would SEC if Sydney play) and you pay that 15 times it costs you 600k for the year.

If you play 10 times it costs you 400k.

The immovable in the league over many years has been that no matter how many games you play, your aggregate crowd is pretty much stable. So, drawing 50,000 people over 10 games probably makes more sense than 50,000 over 15 when you save 200,000 k in venue (operational) costs. Of course the variable is different for different clubs but its a pretty solid reflection of venue economics.

Reducing the number of games also improves your chances of getting marquee nights - eg more Saturdays which gives you a chance of maximising your crowd even more. What punishes clubs is crap games close together on strange nights. 15 homes games in 22 rounds is just plain stupid - its oversupply, so the punter places no value in the product.

It suits Seamus, and probably Perth, and it used to suit Townsville, but for everyone else its pretty poor economics. Better to have 10 games, three of them sellouts and the other seven with a 10-12% better average than last year, than 15 games with an average crowd.

It would also suit Adelaide and New Zealand. Maybe Wollongong?

I think if you reduced the number of games, fans would expect season prices to drop.

Dragons are the only club that are pushing for less games as they cant work out that HiSense's rent cost is what is killing them.

Why do the tigers play where they do? Cost. They could play at a larger venue like hisense but will be guaranteed to lose money, maybe time for Cowan to have a think about that.

Simple maths HO if the salary cap is 1.2m and there are only 10 games then you need to generate a lot of income from those 10 games. Less exposure for sponsors as well. Less coverage on TV ( volume wise) therefore less incentive for sponsors to get involved.

If the average NBL crowd is 4000 that is 40,000 seats that need to cover the salary cap plus operation cost. If it cost 2mill to run a team then that means you need to sell either a lot of sponsorship ( in this climate how likely is that?) or hit the fans in their hip pocket.

The league stats i have seen dont back up your aggregate theory of ticket sales.

Why doesn't the new NBL have a rule that every team has to own their arena, that's a better means of ensuring financial stability and longevity than what is suggested by BA right now.

Yeh it aint gonna happen but teams who own their own arena should get recognition as having as good a financial situation as those who have owners willing to cough up a million bucks to enter the league.

If there are about 14 EOIs... I wonder if you could have a D-League running along side ?

what a joke. 95% of current games easily fit within the current 2 hr timeslot anyways. It's only when theres a crazy amount of ft attempts that games run over the 2hr mark. And if they do, WHO CARES? The NBL is hardly the only sport that runs over its alloted foxtel timespot. I don't see people complaining that an NBA or NFL game has gone into overtime and as a result has run over its timeslot. Geez, when will BA learn its ALL ABOUT PRESENTATION. There is nothing wrong with the current, on-court product!

curtley, which teams can afford to own their own arena? Not going to happen.

Ben... a short history lesson, you may know all this but others will not.

Back in the late 90's then CEO John Rymarz moved aggressively to increase the number of home games per club. It was a terrible move, brought on by the clamouring of townsville and one or two more clubs and to some extent the players, who wanted a more europe/nba type schedule.

At the time the numbers (aggregate vs average) did not support the move except for a couple of clubs. My data is old data, but its all we have as the 15 game season has been constant for a long time now.

It was as stupid as airlines thinking they can add more flights and therefore generate more revenue/profit. Can't happen because the airline business is actually driven by seat yield. Intertesting comparisons for the NBL here.

As a result of Rymarz's move the league got TITTS games (remember them?). So we had games at Ballarat and Bunbury etc. Did the clubs really put the games at Ballarat and Bunbury because they wanted to "take it to the streets"?...no. They did it because they were already losing money on home games and did not want to add to the schedule in their home venues - better to get no return on a TITTS game in a regional venue than lose cash on a home game in your venue.

At the time Townsville and Adelaide were flourishing and you may remember they actually played TITTS games at home or purchased home games from other clubs ...because they were making $ on home games unlike most games in the league.

Now the situation is very different. I would suggest that in the past season South, Cairns, Sydney, Wollongong and Gold Coast have lost money on almost every home game... Townsville have long not been a sell-out certainty and Adelaide operate on a 65% sales to venue capacity.

Can't speak for New Zealand but would put them closer to the Cairns/Gold Coast group. Melbourne have an impressive seat yield strategy despite average crowds of about 85% of capacity and Adelaide have long had a generous venue deal which makes the break even point much lower than most - although that may change with the venue changing hands.

But, with lots of clubs operating at 50-65% of capacity at best, and with a declining return from box sales for every club (pricing of boxes has not grown as rapidly as costs of servicing) then seat yield is poor.

I don't think the maths is that simple, and i am not advocating a specific number of games (I've used ten as the maths is "simple' compared to 15). What i am saying is that unless you are selling out on 50% of your home games then you are playing too many games, the product is in oversupply and you are just adding to your cost base.

The NFL is the antithesis....as someone in melbourne recently said to me "the most in demand sporting product in the USA, if not the world" plays just eight home games in their season. Demand is never satisfied.

The current mix of 15 home games in a compacted season makes it too easy to miss 5 games and still see your team enough times to satisfy your interest and passion. Its a poorly constructed schedule largely because the home game requirements create an awful set of 'runs" of home games against so-so opponents. From a marketing point of view, to fix the league, generate demand, make tv compelling etc etc I would start with the home game count.

Great argument, Would player payments per year have to drop also? as well as season tickets?

HO, "you are just adding to your cost base" - you mean like pushing the official cap to $1.2m? Or requiring a $1m surety or extra working capital?

If the overall crowd figure is going to be fairly consistent regardless of the number of games, where's the potential (bar venue savings for those teams that lose money there) to cover these additional costs?

Will sponsors, during the pre-season, buy into that "Fewer games, but same number of eyeballs, trust us - we have data from 15 years ago" spiel or will they be harder to bargain with?

Will season ticket buyers hold off unless prices drop?

NFL also has one of if not the biggest TV deal in the world propping it up. If it was not for that there is no way such few home games would cover the operational cost.

NBL doesn't have a tv deal that pays in cash so it does need more opportunities to recover costs.

I dont buy into the argument that fewer games works.

Fewer games means a higher cost for those to attend ( as you mentioned higher yield) What will happen and what seems to be happening with the tigers is that the higher cost to attend means that you lose fans in the long term.

If you price the entertainment so high that only a few people go then what is the point? There has been many a thread on here about how important atmosphere is as part of the basketball attraction.


Why do the Mavs in the NBA continually have sell outs? because they cater to all the fans financial capabilities. They offer cheap seats and expensive ones.

Again this quest for fewer home games seems to be driven by the dragons and their inability to sell tickets to their games.

What is the attraction for fans , reducing the number of home games and reducing the amount of playing time yet at the same time the salary cap is going up. So the players are expecting to be paid more for doing much less work. I wish my boss thought like the NBL.

Less games also means less value for sponsors. Less games means less media exposure.

if you took your argument to the extreme you could end up have a weekend tournament over easter and get the whole season done in a few days.

V8 Supercars are putting more and more events on the calender, why? because it gives better value to the sponsors who are paying for the whole shebang, it also gives greater value to their TV deal.

Formula 1 is looking to do the same.

The sport needs to grow not shrink IMO. There is nothing wrong with the product as it is, as an event the league has never been better.

The marketing and touch points with the fans is where the NBL has fallen down. These are the areas that need addressing not screwing around with schedules and game structure.

This is a fun debate, its good to discuss something without being abused for your point of view!

TV are not screaming for more NFL games. They know the product is cooking at its current supply level and are leveraging that. As are sponsors etc etc.

You make the point that less games = less opportunities for sponsors. I am not convinced it does. Ask any club, and they will tell you that sponsors struggle to use their ticket allocations, and struggle to use their hospitallity if they buy a full season package. Games come around too often, they are not a special occasion etc etc. basically....the product is not in demand... many times over the years I have heard of a sponsor downgrading their package etc because they could not make full use of it. Its easy to get box seats for an NBL game....its easy to get an invite to a box.

Back to oversupply. I would suggest to you that a root cause of the lack of TV coverage, of the falling sponsorship numbers etc etc is oversupply.

IF FTA were seeing sold out venues every week in the NBL then it becomes a persuasive reason to look at the product seriously. If venues were sold out every week then sponsors would be attracted to that.

But having 2-3 sell-outs across the whole NBL season and across all venues is just a disaster, even at the significantly downsized venues some clubs are playing in.

And while you can take my argument to the extreme I am not suggesting that ...i am saying that you need to get to a point where all home games are a break even proposition, and some are sell-outs or close to, before you can get to media and tv and sponsors and start to demand some real value back into the sport.

The proofs in the pudding, the strategy of moving to an increased number of games across a 22 week schedule has simply not worked....its been a disaster in terms of average crowds, and it has led to downsizing stadiums (melbourne) and crap stadiums (west sydney et al).

If you are losing money on a home game what are you running it for? ok, so I just took 32k, but it cost me 40k to run the event. Do that eight or nine times a year and the hole gets bigger and bigger. Its not just dragons, its cairns, and wollongong and the old Kings etc etc.

Overall i base this on a quality versus quantity argument. I would rather have 12 home games appropriately spaced, with a better selection of game nights, than 15 home games where you end up playing 4 weeks in a row at home and the "event" nature of the thing disappears to be replaced by the "chore" of needing to get to the game.

Sorry, but i think the season schedule and the game style are core marketing decisions - they are about the product as a package. marketing is all about supply and demand. It's all about yields and price points.

really 10 minute or 12 minute quaters it doesnt make a hell of a difference to me. As long as Basketball in Australia is once again a valid product im happy we just need more people going to games.

And being a Sydney sider myself i would be happy to go watch a team play for 40 rather than 48 who cares juts make sure we gotta team in the harbour citaiiii

please

really 10 minute or 12 minute quaters it doesnt make a hell of a difference to me. As long as Basketball in Australia is once again a valid product im happy we just need more people going to games.

And being a Sydney sider myself i would be happy to go watch a team play for 40 rather than 48 who cares juts make sure we gotta team in the harbour citaiiii

please

i hear where you are coming from and think there is some validity there however i just cant come at the less is more theory in this case.

Rugby is struggling, AFL teams need government bail outs and TV cash to support them. A league ain't what it is cracked up to be and basketball is also in the same sporting boat.

These leagues all have roughly the same amount of running time as what we do now. Could you imagine what would happen if the AFL said right we are going to help clubs that are losing money by reducing the number of games that are played.

Not the answer, the answer is to treat the league like a family and that and all for one attitide for the greater good. Why should Perth be penalised because it has a working formula and Dragons dont.

HO i think you need to look at it more from a sponsors point of view, how many times will my business logo get viewed and over what period.

Sponsors are what helps hold teams together unless the owners are prepared to drop bundles of cash on their toy.

I guess what you are saying is that the Olympics are special because they are on every 4 years. Put them on every year and people will get bored with it? Fair to say that represents your argument?

So I guess it comes down to what the sponsor wants, do they want a long term drawn out campaign or do they want a hard and fast approach.

The facts are that they main cost that could be curtailed are players salaries.

Take Westovers latest comment about how Anstey should be allowed to do what ever he wants otherwise he could leave the competition.

I think that is exactly the problem with the league. Players think they are worth a lot more than what they are.

The average D League players wage is $250 per game. That same player comes here as an import and could be getting 40k USD per month. Is that a problem?

I bet you i could get 10 D league players to move out here and play for less than what the salary cap is.

This is where the cost saving should be focused.

Good arguments on both sides.

I have to agree that we have too many home games. More time between home games would allow clubs to better market and promote the next event, build up some anticipation with the general public. Admittedly the mareketing this year has been invisible but trying to promote a Sunday arvo game when you are already playing on a Friday is pretty hard no matter how much you spend on marketing. Same with the finals series, why are we rushing so much to get it over? The elimination rounds and semis were just bang bang bang and over. No chance to get the public fired up or even give the players a decent rest before they are at it again, and finals is suppoosed to be the best games of the season and all the players are exhausted!

Ben - with regards to your comments on sponsors seeing their logo less times if game numbers are cut I'd disagree. I dont feel sponsors are paying the big bucks for a box with say 6 seats to get their logo on the tv, rather they are using the games as an event to entertain clients. If invites to a box are as easy to get as they were this season then the 'wow' factor a company gets in inviting clients to a game is diminished. On the other hand if its hard to get into a box you get a lot more mileage with your clients as they feel they are getting something special when they get an invite.

i guess as a simple holder of multiple season tickets,

if for arguments sake, it went from 15 home games to 10 home games a year thats a 33% drop in value of my ticket, IF this was not to be replicated in a pricing drop of similar financial proportion,

i would seriously question the value of my tickets, and would personally look at relinquising them and purchasing a walk up ticket to a high profile match,

so maybe 1-3 matches a season vs 15 therefore the club would lose 70-80% revenue per season ticket, as im sure im not in the minority who would feel this way

and for those who read my dribble you would understand how much of a staunt advocate for season tickets i have been

The NBL is changing its courts in the next decade to like the NBA why not just change all the rules to the NBA rules including 12 min 1/4's

FIBA is going to change the rules to the NBA rules

Similar to Thomo above I have bought multiple season tickets(two for the last 10+ years and prior to that one since 1986). If the number of home games played reduced I would be looking for some reduction in ticket cost on a pro rata basis. Would probably accept 10 min quarters easier than reduced games at same cost though.

Simple value for money analysis.

FTA tv interests me for away games, particularly OneHD. I have enjoyed the NBA games I've watched.

The other considerations regarding sponsors etc. really do not interet me providing they do not detract from the over all product. I know they are needed to support the team and I'm happy to consider purchaisng thier products as a result of sponsorship. I do preference Pura milk products for example.

Of greater interest at the moment is the structure of the new league. Needs to be done in time to allow teams to recruit players and not some stop gap product until the real one comes along. We've had this for a while at Adelaide, what with the financial collapse and sale, imports being axed etc. leading to an unstable product. However my enjoyment increased last season. Happy to rebuy season tickets next season but it depends on changes.

My 2cents worth.