* washed up bball stars

I would buy a ticket or 4

AI would want atleast twice an NBL salary cap plus private jet and paid for apartment. crying on TV saying he cant afford a cheeseburger but if you gave him one he would complain about the cheese not being made from pure pedigree cows who can do dogtricks

I'd rather Harold Miner and that's saying something... But I've always hated Allen Iverson

Shaq ;)

Id pay triple to see that!

Gilbert Arenas - Yes please!

If Iverson has too much pride to come off the bench in the NBA or play in the D-League. What makes you think he'll come to Australia for anything less than a million dollars?

Moneyball. Lets just challenge your opening statement. Del Piero had an extremely limited impact on A-league crowds in 2012-13, as did Kewell the season before.

Del Piero created a lot of noise, and probably sold a fair bit more merchandise, but in terms of crowd numbers and viewership, a blip rather than a bump.

Also, you have to remember that the NBL teams often play each other up to four times. So Iverson signs for Melbourne, and an extra 800 people turn up the first time he plays in Sydney, but for the second game in Sydney, unless he is destroying the league, those extra 800 will not go again to see him play.

The marquee player thing is truly untested, and the A-league example so far is not extraordinarily successful.

What about Gilbert Arenas he is on 60k a year as that is the CBA salary cap for foreign players. Surely someone could nearly triple that.

wait? Gilbert arenas is playing for 60K? I just dont think NBL clubs are working hard enough to get guys like this

pretty sad when our biggest NBA name is Johnny Flynn... Someone no casual NBA fan would have really been aware of

It is probably the quickest way to lift the NBL profile. I saw the evidence yesterday at Golden Grove village... tables of people watching the NBA finals on screen talking about it. People care about the NBA still... NBL... I think the finals very well could have gone unnoticed on TV in such a situation. I think that there would be an immediate impact if you could say "hey dennis rodman plays for the 36ers this season" ... (maybe hes a bit old now but you get my point)

HO, I agree you have to put it in proportion to the income and crowds.lets not think the NBL can run before it walks but Its more then attendance numbers at home games.

*All away game fixtures that Del Piero played brought in I would roughly say 10-20% more people and interest to city.

*The viewers and interest levels in the A-league went up astronimically because of the introduction of Marquee players (heskey,Ono and Del Piero). This is part because people wanted to see what the fuss was but also because they improved the quality of the game making it more attractive to watch and follow

*Exposure and media to the rest of the world( especially italy who played all Sydney FC games on TV)

Put it this way, when there was a rumor that David Beckham might play A league... even I was considering watching. I am not a soccer fan

Like all us I'm a massive bball fan and just want to see the game grow in Australia. I could not agree more with YouknowME. I thought the same thing about Beckham. NBA "wash-ups" would be really good to amazing for the NBL in ticket sales and merchandise, depending on the wash up. But good no matter who they get.

I'm a junior basketball coach and teacher and I know that these kids follow the NBA and collect cards etc, they know heaps of NBA players past and present but would struggle to name even 1 NBL player. I don't profess to know the financial or television rights side of things but I think the only way our game will grow in this country is to get the NBL and NBA on free to air TV so kids can actually watch the NBL. Pick a team to support, get a favourite player etc. I remember the good old days where Sat TV viewing was NBA action, NBL action an NBA game and NBL game then you turned the channel to watch the WNBL. I know this was the Jordan era but still the coverage was amazing for the game.

I think if we could get 1 awesome NBA washup that would encourage a lot more to come. We just need to get 1!

I live on the QLD/NSW border With no Bullets or Gold Coast to watch a live game I have to travel to Sydney or Townsville. How ridiculous is that?! Basketball is huge on the North Coast of NSW. We just want an NBL team closer than 9 hours drive! A whole other problem I know.

daneo,

i agree the interest created by heskey, del pierro etc was a surge for the A-league in a range of areas.

I'll stand by my comment that they had virtually no impact on crowds.

The a-league average crowd (i hate this statistic but it is the only one we have) climbed by just under 2000 from 2011/12 to 2012/13.

A large part of that increase came from the removal of Gold Coast, who were dragging their crowds down significantly the year before.

To give an indication. The lowest crowd in 2012/13 was about 3k, Wellington versus Melbourne heart. The season before it was 1140, GC vs CC. GC was also a notoriously bad drawer away from home.

The a-league had more noise than ever at the start of last season. Heskey, Del Pierro, Ono, the arrival of WS Wanderers.

There is a massive question mark about how much impact the marquee player thing really has in the a-league. Kewell's impact was probably gone after 5-6 games of the regular season, Del P's after maybe 8-9. I think it is a very short term blip.

I do think that because a single basketballer can dominate a whole league much easier than a single footballer can, that it might have more impact for basketball - but still limited value in my opinion - an attempted easy fix rather than dealing with the real issues of spectatorship and viewership.