Where did you get this information? Hope they survive if this is true.

If Townsville goes then I don't know if the league will continue unless they get a Brisbane team in next year and maybe a second Melbourne team.

What do you expect?

In Aust, they cannot afford to pay players decently, because there are not enough paying fans, and the encroachment of AFL and NRL takes all the sponsors money (good TV and media coverage). Also the economic environment means that money is harder to come by (company cutting costs etc.)

Its easy to say its poorly run, but how many juniors actually go to an NBL match when they can? The Eddie Macguire's of the world would have you believe that if its not NBA then its not worth watching as it furthers his agenda of AFL being the only sport worth mentioning.

In 5 years time, all our good to very good players will not even consider the NBL, and as a result it will be on par with the state leagues (VBL etc), not bad for a country that consistently rates in the top 10 nations in the world for the sport? Can soccer say the same hmmmm

#378020

I would put to you that the A-league is the worst run league in this country. Something like 30 million in combined team losses in the season before last is the number I heard.

If the criteria for your conclusion is that teams need bailing out then AFL, NRL etc are all in trouble.

The difference is that in these cases, (and decreasingly in the case of the A-league), the organisations that own the league's can afford to bail their teams out.

Like HO said, the difference between the NBL, AFL, NRL etc is the fact that BA/NBL do not bail out/can not bail out teams. The other major sporting codes prop up struggling teams, sometimes for years and years.

You know how many NRL teams actually make money? Surprisingly not many.

If the NBL could afford to prop up teams and bail them out of trouble then we might have 12-14 teams playing now. The AFL could have let several clubs fold over the years but they have the money and resources to give them financial assistance to keep going.

Also, some NBL teams have died not because of financial problems, but because there is no one willing to buy the franchise. Brisbane Bullets folded because no one wanted to buy the licence off Groves. This has happened a few times in the A-League where there have been clubs for sale, but no buyers. But rather than letting them die, which the NBL did, the A-League took over the licence until a new owner was found (Perth Glory and Adelaide I think?) (this is the main reason why I personally don't like the privately owned system)

This even happens in the NBA with the New Orleans Hornets owned by the NBA last season. It's a huge financial burden for the league to take on, but if they have deep pockets, like the NBA and AFL do, they can support poor teams. NBL can't, and as a result teams fold too regularly and it gives a very poor perception of the league, even though the same problems exist in the AFL!

Why did the first anon poster go straight to "the league is poorly run"? Its not the league's fault that some clubs are managed poorly. Its not great for the league but blaming them is just the easy way out. No one wants to admit their club stuffed up so they blame the governing body.