The actual text:

"DOING the rounds is a rumour that has someone buying the 36ers soon. And why not? It would be a sound business decision. Try this hypothetical. Charge $20 a ticket, draw 5000 fans on average and that's $100,000 through the gate per game. At 16 games that's $1.6m which covers salaries and travel costs. The naming rights, corporate suite sales etc are all gravy. That is, of course, if you're not paying off the stadium. The rumour has a certain local tennis player who loves the team thinking about buying the Distinctive Homes Dome. No truth in it or that the venue then would be renamed Lleyton Place."

Nothing wrong with what Boti wrote, I think its an interesting option for South Austalian Basketball!

Considering the rumour has been on here for nearly a week now, and has been doing the traps around the basketball scene for a few weeks, it's hardly earth shattering.

The Lleyton Place comments was one of Boti's obvious jokes.

If it gets posters of Bec Cartwright up in the stadium, I'm all for it.

[Damn, hope the wife doesn't read this!]

Anyone know what they owe on the stadium. I heard they are struggling just to pay the interest

The debt, AFAIK and as I've posted in another thread, is $10.45m. The government has waived interest payments for a five year period (two years to go I think). After that, the interest reverts to $750 000/year or something like that (might be $730k?).

The full payment is due by 2020.

The situation, as I understand it, is very tough. From BASA's perspective, the looming interest payments are a massive burden to bear. From the government's perspective, basketball is not the only sport needing financial support.

A critical issue for the government is that if they don't support BASA and they go under, they have an unpaid loan of $10m+, a specialised facility (that they don't want competing with the Entertainment Centre, so what else can they do with it?), a sudden need to sell off a NBL and WNBL team (where would you house them?) and however many thousands of children without support for their sport.

I believe that the government has postponed any real decision on the BASA situation until 2006/07 and are looking at the needs of sports overall before they commit to anything.

(I'm not directly involved with a club or with BASA so what I've posted is based on what I've read or been told. Anyone looking for extensive information on all of this could have a look at the audit/report released last year.)

Getting back to some serious basketball talk instead of that public slanging match

Isaac,

You seem to have a vested interest in the Sixers management and consequently have information that the general run of the mill supporters doesn't have access to so I will direct my question to you.

What is the likelihood of the Sixers being sold, to Layton Hewitt or any other group of corporations that may be interested in buying the Adelaide 36ers? Would the 36ers be a separate organization or would they package the Lightning together? And the most important part of the question is $$ how much would someone expect to have to pay for a NBL franchise, I would expect someone would have to pay about $25 Million dollars for the Adelaide Crows or about $17.5 M for Port Power just going on Market value.


Is BASA interested in selling of it largest asset? Would it be a wise business move or would it be a wise business move to take on a debt of their magnitude for any interested buyer?

I have an interest in the sport as a fan and an interest in the profitability of the club as they are my brother's employer. (They're also an ex-client, which is why I might come across as frustrated from time to time!) I also think I know what they should be doing from a marketing perspective and I won't shut up about it.

There is a lot I don't know about so I'm not of much use with regard to your specific questions. Some readers of this forum would know more, but may choose not to post. I wish they would so I didn't have to guess.

Anyway, I would guess the 36ERS to be worth under $5m, but that would be a stab in the dark, and a high stab at that. It's based on the one time only that I have heard someone put an estimate on the value of the license, and that will be my assumption until I hear otherwise from someone with better info!

I have heard rumours of the license being sold soon, so I would guess that it could happen. We have some successful families in SA (Gerard being one), but Lleyton has had a seat on the team bench in the past and if I had the money to buy a $0.5m car, I'd look to buy a sporting club next were I in his shoes.

The Lightning lose money each year -- around $150 000 (check auditor's report). I couldn't say if that was because they are being run poorly or if it was because it is just very difficult to make a profit out of a WNBL club (I suspect the latter). I would hope that they are packaged because I'd like to see the Lightning continue even if it requires a charitable gesture or whatever.

I'd guess (sorry, a lot of guesses!) that BASA could well sell whatever is in the best interest of the sport. People with a deeper involvement in the sport than I have long suggested that BASA and the 36ERS should be divided somehow, so I'm leaning on that too.

BASA is, as I understand it, a not-for-profit entity. If selling the 36ERS would help them improve their financial position and focus on the development of basketball, then I don't see why they wouldn't do it.

The issue of it being a wise move for a potential buyer would be impacted by the venue -- would BASA cover the loan by leasing it to a new owner? Would the new owner purchase it and lease it to BASA? No idea regarding the issues here (and I'd defer to someone with the knowledge here, but no one really says anything about it) but I think the former (though definitely complicating things for a buyer) would be in the interest of the sport.

I think the Crows and Power are undervalued in the above posts

The Power have $6m in assets and had a profit of $300k+ in 2004. I don't know if that asset count includes the AFL license which is about $4m.

The Crows had a profit of $1m (if you exclude the SANFL sub-licence agreement I left off the Power figures above). Not sure re assets.

Got a rule of thumb for estimating business value?

The market vale on the AFC and PAPFC is just speculation, a ballpark figure. The Adelaide Football club could be valued at anywhere between 60 M and 100 M dollars for the SANFL but something is only has a value of what a potential investor is willing to pay for it, the wonders of business or property

Back to the Sixers as this is a basketball forum, the powerhouse/DHD or is it BASA management or even the Adelaide 36ers owe the South Australian government $10.5 Million dollars, is that why the board has decided to use the pricing strategy? Well if that is then it isn't working.

First move that has to happen is the Adelaide 36ers and Basketball Association of South Australia have to separate their own interest and then after each financial year a dividend be send back to BASA (re the AFL agreement between the PAFC/ AFC and SANFL) and a certain percentage be payed to the treasures office to cover the loan for the DHD.

The second move that has to happen is that the ABA clubs stand on their own two feet and stop sending un payed bills to either the 36ers board or BASA, there has been understanding between local junior clubs and BASA for years that half of the JDO salaries and training venues cost be covered by the Basketball Association of SA with the ever increasing debt to the State Government, basketball somehow has become a debt ridden society instead of a thriving metropolis it could potentially become.