Thats disapointing.

Not happy Larry

Hopefully now ALL groups looking at putting in a new team in Melb and Bris will be given the same opportunity to put a case forward. Not just mates handing licenses to mates as ALLEGEDLY happened.

Good move. If they're not ready, don't force it. Sure it's disappointing, but i'd rather wait than see another team come in the league and fade out in three years time.

Can't believe the group from Newcastle
http://www.theherald.com.au/news/local/sport/basketball/nbl-hopes-fade-as-tinkler-burnt-by-ffa-trouble/2523230.aspx

Supposedly had a great offer for the NBL in order to get a NBL team back in Newcastle but it didn't happen and the group behind it were "frustrated by the NBL's continued push to establish a second Melbourne team and attempts to relaunch the Brisbane Bullets while keeping him at arm’s length and as good as rejecting his interest in backing a Newcastle team."

New teams in Melbourne/Brisbane is great, but if they're not ready and Newcastle is, why not?

www.AussieHoopla.com

It's sad because we desperately need new teams, but it's a good decision if a) they arent ready or b) the submission process was tainted.

Better having 9 teams and stability. Good decision.

what a joke, perfect opportunity blown by some who cant see past themselves!

Good for the long term...

the player point system in the NBL needs to go. the whole equal team thing is ridiculous. i wonder if they'll get rid of the scoreboard and just tell everyone they win for competing.

until then it will always be a backwards league

I'll give the NBL this - they are refusing to make the same mistakes that they have in the past. We have to have sustainable teams, if a team doesn't look like it can be sustainable in the future, it's not a very strong founding basis for an expansion club.

Agreed right call has been made real shame though. from what you hear it didnt have to be this way. yet again jobs for boys, looking after mates and need for control APPEARS to have foiled a real opportunity for the sport to move forward.

truther - and your system would be to replace the whole season with an auction - biggest bidder wins the Dr John Raschke Trophy?

Expanding the nbl is not what is needed. The talent gets spread out too far. An 8 team comp with top 4 is probably ideal for nbl. Less teams makes the talent in the teams better, thus a better product. Not enough commercial sponsors for more teams. With the nbl less is more. When the nbl expanded last time with Singapore, South Dragons, Hunter Pirates it virtually killed the game. More teams means more money needed to run the sport.

This is great news for the league.

No more rushed bids please. Slow, sustainable growth instead.

For once BA/NBL don't lower the bar just so the next mob of monkeys can jump over it.

Well said Mick. Maybe some of these monkeys need to get their junior and senior programs on the right track before they try and take on something thats beyond them. Word has it a certain club continues to lose quality juniors and more are set to go next season unless change is made. throw the crap out the window along with the jobs for mates/ gigs for so called talent that has long been surpassed. Start looking outside the bubble that has existed for too long.On the downard slide- absolutely- thats the talk far and wide has to be something in it?????????????

Now to the silly people who think its good to have Newcastle because we do not have Brisbane / Melbourne.

It is not a strategic imperative to have a Newcastle team in the league.

Newcastle is a small market team. The league has enough of them already.

TV and sponsorships is driven by big markets. Your best chance of improving TV coverage are by bringing in big market teams. Melbourne and Brisbane bring that, Newcastle do not.

The a-league made an horrendous error bringing Townsville in to their league as a small market team and have paid the price.

The NBL already has 4 (5 if you include GC) small market teams in Townsville, Cairns, NZ and Wollongong out of 9 teams, it does not need another ahead of major city growth.

Why did you think the AFL has so blatantly dismissed a Tassie/Hobart bid?

I wouldnt call NZ a small market team.

Greater Auckland has 1.4 million people and the Breakers also draw tv viewers and media coverage from around the country. They probably get as much exposure as the rest of the teams combined.

Your overall point is a good one though, and even though I think the NBL desperately needs more teams to cater for the number of young players who cant get a job, there would have to be something extremely good about a Newcastle bid to win me over at this point.

NZ are, in every Australian context, a small market team. It's not about population. Perth by virtue of its isolation and time difference are also "almost" a small market team.

Sydney and Melbourne are compelling irresistible markets, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide important, the rest largely irrelevant when big decisions, the ones that contribute to the fiscal and fan health of the league, are made.

NZ affect no local marketers decisions, and TV do want them as the away team.

they should move cains to newcastle and get a team in canberra.

having another nbl team in the brisbane gold coast area and melbourne area is stupid, why have 2 teams when one team is selling out a 5000 seat stadium, get 1 team to sell out a 10,000 seat stadium, more profitable.

One of the key major backers of second Melbourne franchise has pulled the pin due to slow down in his business!

Part of reason they couldn't get there bid over the line this year

Wait a few more years until expansion.