It would be a great shame if the 36ers were not in the comp next season and seasons to come due to financials. Just putting it out there maybe the Crows should team up with the 6ers and buy them....
Port and the Thunderbirds have some sort of partnership.

Thoughts?

It's not a starter's fee, it's a bank guarantee to cover salaries should the team fold mid season.

And it's been recommended, not to deal with teams because they are new or have had problems in the past, but because they could have problems in the future.

As Hemmerling has indicated, the 36ers have cashflow problems and cannot afford the bank guarantee - exactly the sort of indicators that suggest the guarantee would be a good idea.

Please, we have enough threads on this issue already for you to choose from. In the future, preference choosing from an existing topic where possible.

Last time someone with the alias "baller" started a topic, it was "Sixers owner a disgrace!!!" - have to wonder if you're a little prone to jumping to extremes...

good points isaac,i cant figure out why people are saying that b/a are the ones at fault here.
the amount of people who lose out when a team collapses mid season is enormous.
b/a is trying to protect the league from that.

i understand 36er fans are angry,and rightly so,but please aim your anger at the right people....

This might seem a bit silly - but If I had enought money - the 6ers appear to be a great buy...

Great venue, great support, great history, great roster & coach.

If you had a good business model, it SHOULD succeed.

this is part of the reason why I've disagreed with $1m bank guarrantee...It won't do nothing but only act as an insurance so the league won't get embarrased again like last season when some teams almost folded and the league was going to have problem to continue the season.

Ah LA Boy, i'm pretty sure that's the whole reason for the bank guarantee. To stop having financially unstable teams in the league. To stop teams falling over mid season, or even at the end of a season.
History means nothing now if you're not financially viable.
And to say "It won't do nothing but only act as an insurance so the league won't get embarrased" is absolutely ridiculous.
What it will do is protect the players, coaches and staff so that if the team goes under they're not left without an income (ala sydney kings, spirit, taipans).
It's absolutely 100% required in this league, esp with the financial instability worldwide and the struggles of teams owners.
As much as it suck if the 6ers owners, or any other team's owners for that matter, can't afford to meet the requirements then they should be putting up a big FOR SALE sign to get someone in who can or pull out of the comp.
The last thing the newNBL needs is the same old crap that's gone on for the last 10 years with teams coming in and out of the league and players getting screwed.

yo Falkman- how about if the league actually put more effort into correct marketing strategies to ensure bums on seat and securing major sponsorship deals so teams won't be in the situation of folding.

Option 1:
Good marketing => bums on seat/sponsorship/merchandise => $s => league security => league success in future

Option 2:
$1m => a) team still in financial struggle or b) teams satisfy requirement => team still struggle with bum on seat => folding in 2010~2011 season

Ideally LA Boy, they need both the guarantee and the pool of marketing cash, and I think that's exactly their plan.

I think the $1m is steep, but can't see another way to protect both the players/coaches and insulate the rest of the league from damage. If they, say, put $500k each into an emergency fund (not dissimilar to the past) to protect against 2-3 clubs folding, one falling over impacts the rest and that's not entirely fair.

The only way to protect the employees (and have the team finish off the season) and insulate each club from the next, is to put the responsibility onto the clubs themselves.

How disaterous would it be to the sixers faithful if they did sit out the entire year

Would you still be able to come back if they re-entered the comp next year or would you feel 'burned' and spend your 'hard earned' on other entertainment options

Not sure if this is in another thread, but here's today's Boti:

http://linky.com.au/i2mqe

He seems to take the line that the joke here is the 36ers management, not BA.

Issac- you certainly have a good point there, and in fact that's probably the best way to go.

Actually, a new idea I wondered about this morning is this:

- NBL wants teams to put up $1m to cover costs in case they go under
- this would be on top of them having to pay players and coaches

What if, instead, the clubs made a pre-season payment to the NBL to cover player/coach salaries for the duration of the season, let's say a minimum of $1m or preferably $1.5m. That impacts cash flow, but it's no worse than having to lock up funds in a guarantee. The only change is they putting the money up front rather than paying it out over the course of the season.

Then, the NBL would pay player and coach salaries from that pool of funds. If a team went bust, their money would still be available to see out the season.

Another advantage is that the NBL could draw interest on the pooled funds. In a gradually depleting pool, over the course of 12 months, that could (not sure of business investment rates of that level) provide about $200k+ to put towards marketing or cover the GM's wage, etc.

I'm not sure why it wouldn't have been arranged in that fashion, but others might be able to think of flaws.

Issac- once again I think that's a great idea but should be offered as one of the two options. so, you either pay the players over the course of the season with a $1m bank guarrantee or your idea above.

I'd say most teams would hate these type of money lock up since that means they can't finance with this money throughout the year.

Initially I was a fan of the $1M guarantee, but the devil seems to be in the detail as is always the case.

Let's take a step back and see what the point of the whole thing was! The aim of having the guarantee in place is to stop rouges from owning NBL teams, setting up a house of cards, and then letting the club collapse under a mountain of debt while they are driving flash cars, shagging beautiful women and drinking pina coladas. I find it difficult to believe that the NBL would have us accept as true the myth that there are previous owners of defunct clubs gallivanting around in gold coast appartments racking up expensive drink tabs. Surely this is not the case? Surely despite this popular misconception, NBL owners are credible ethical businessmen.

Any club in the NBL must be financial viable to survive. That is a given. If you want to own a club, you must accept that you need to put something on the line, either financial assets, or other physical assets. You need an exceptional business plan to attract investors, and yes, you do need certainty that your club is going to be part of the league in the new structure so you can attract sponsors and supporters.

What can the owners do? Well, I think they need to present a viable, auditable business plan to the NBL. What can the NBL do? For one, they can develop a clear plan for the league, but more importantly AUDIT each club to ensure financial viability and to check the salary cap. As a supporter, I demand a guarantee that all clubs are playing on the same level playing field, currently I am less than satisfied.

When you step back into the room of mirrors and ask why clubs have folded, I think you'll find major contributing factors include a lack of a business plan and lack of adherance to the salary cap as to the major problems confronting the clubs. Offering a guarantee of $1M is one way of achieving proof of financial stability, there are many other ways as well.

Jack Toft- I understand what you're saying and where you're coming from, but with the $1m guarrantee many teams will continue to lose money if NBL don't make quick changes. So it'll just treat pain site but not the source. It'll be the matter of time when it all collapses. When you look at the decisions NBL are making now it really is to make temporary money (eg. Foxtel long term deal) but won't set the league up for future. Especially with current state of economy I'm thinking less and less family will even keep Foxtel subscription.

By securing a similar deal with OneHD with less money will almost guarrantee to increase popularity while attracting more sponsors. But this doesn't seem to be part of their plan.

Jack, auditing will cost and won't uncover much. Any team looking to rort a cap will still manage to do so.

yes, the bottom line is that we want all clubs to be financially viable. It is unreasonable to expect clubs to operate unfinancially and it is unreasonable to expect owners to operate a non profitable business.

With a investment of around $3M, an investor expects a return of 8% (say) as this could be achieved elsewhere. As an investor, why would you invest in something yielding a -20% return. Something has to give. Either costs are too high or prices too low. Something's gotta give.

I am particularly concerned that the salary cap is not policed effectively and as a result adds to potential non-conformances that ripple through the club system.

I'd like to know what the NBL's commitment is here. I'm aware that every organisation has to have a governing body, but I would have thought that the responsibility for promoting & marketing (INCLUDING FREE TO AIR TV) would have been with them. I've seen very little to indicate that this has been done over the last few years. Larry , best of luck.

I want this league to succeed, but what concerns me most is the fact that the season past, the nbl stated they had no idea how to control the cap....this is the reason why they failed as a competition...the $1M buy in is a bail out, but this should never be used if the cap is controlled..

caps broken, fine them..and hard... then see what the league turns out to be...

maybe this is why seamus is out right now...tigers have long been over and there is an implementation for catching them...