Perth made somewhere near $1mill profit in a year, which is insane by any sporting club standards (including AFL). In the right situation, a basketball team could be profitable. The problem we have is, so many teams go bankrupt and come in that we don't establish many real bases. Perth, Adelaide and Melbourne are the only three - Adelaide has been awfully managed for an extended period of time prior to the SOS, and Melbourne has been living out of a small gym called "The Cage" which doesn't do much if you're trying to be the big city team.

There are a number of factors we need to get right in my opinion. Let's start on the basis of 12 teams first. Knowing the NBL, they will be delayed in getting to 16 teams.

New Teams
Brisbane Bullets
South-East Melbourne
Wellington
Tasmania

Player Quality:
» 3 imports allowed per team
» Increase the points cap (if it's to be left in due to not being able to police the salary cap properly)
» Introduce marquee rule with 25% taxed and given to teams who don't use it

There will be +40 player spots with 4 new teams, if each team used 3 imports, that would be +20 spots for Australians. The new reality would be that instead of having 10-deep squads, they will be 8-deep. I think this is better, it will develop Australians better, we will see an emphasis of more court time for the star players and teams can start focusing on putting their salary cap predominantly on a core 6-7 opposed to a spread 8-10. Maybe 8th player is a fringe junky with 9/10 junkies, freeing up more salary cap space to spend on the third import or better imports, or luring back Australians. The marquee rule can also be used for luring back Australians or putting more money into a key import. I think it will actually make for more interesting rosters and better games.

Fixture
Under the assumption that there will be more games, less trainings and therefore games during the week, it will likely be something like 44 games per season per team. Financially this could make the teams better off, if, for each game they can get crowd above "break even". Membership packages would have to be altered, some people probably won't be able to attend 22 games a year...

» 22 home, 22 away
» 264 NBL games total
» 24 rounds, 11 games per week.
» 2x Wednesday, 2x Thursday, 3x Friday, 2x Saturday, 2x Sunday

The NZ teams can keep a Thursday slot each week, as SKY seems to like it...

Rule Change
We need to go back to 12 minute quarters for higher scores and more entertaining games. Although this impacts on TV a bit, if we can get a deal around it, it'd be great.

Television

This is a major area which needs to be dealt with. We need some sort of stable TV deal, maybe with "NBL Media" producing for Channel 7 and 7mate 3-4 matches per week, prime time live, the rest being live on NBLTV.

» Wednesday Night Live on 7mate with pre-game
» Friday Night Live on 7mate
» Saturday Night Live on 7mate
» Sunday Twilight Live on 7mate

For each state, when the home team is being broadcast, it could be broadcast live on Channel 7 (unless there is something more valuable to be broadcast pushing it back to 7mate)

Special games, such as Australia Day Victoria Derby could be broadcast live on Channel 7.

If they want to reduce costs, perhaps instead of one of the Fri-Sun games, a NZ game on Thursday re-broadcasted by Sky is an option.

If Perth is playing at home, there could be a double header with say, a victorian game followed by a western australian game on TV.

The rest of the games, if financially viable, should be on NBL TV. Although this may not be possible with so many games....

Obviously Wed night games won't sell well to the crowds, so those would be key games for broadcast interest, sponsor interest and general television audiences.

Asia Cup Basketball
Top 2 teams from each top level Asian league + NBL could do an Asia Football Cup style thing. This would give Australians the ability to watch some international teams play against our sides. Could get Fox Sports to broadcast, or Channel 7/7mate. Would need to fit around all leagues schedules.


If we can be consistent with keeping the same sides, letting them establish their bases and follow some of Perths methods, the NBL could be viable with 12 teams. Perhaps in a decades time 16 teams.

Great post KET.

Surely it's 10 teams first.

- Relocation of 1 team to Brisbane
- A Melbourne team not called the Tigers
- NZ team

Otherwise we just dilute the talent pool.

I love watching the Cats as they play some pretty decent BBall. If our 9 & 10 are suddenly our 7 & 8 ....we will lose a lot of supporters here.

There are limited funds at BA

Some great ideas there to work to, I'm definitely up for jumping channels to one that is a bit more eager to help push the broadcasting and the scope to air more games, especially favouring local teams in the right areas...

The trick here, since things fall in and out of favour with CEOs and directors, the contracts need to be locked up tight without any loopholes that can be used to screw us over like the Ten deals and the "near live" bullshit...

We can't expand to 12 teams so quickly. Expanding to 10 in 2015/16 and then another two in 2017/18 sounds a lot more realistic... The NBL REALLY needs to push hard on getting the league back in the spot light and work with the teams to get them much higher profile in their respective regions. It shouldn't be a matter of just picking the two best bids and leaving them to their own devices... Need to make a decision on them before the next off-season and use the upcoming season as a way to promote them... they need a ground swell of support leading into the actual teams being announced. They need higher profile local players to their region, if that means letting teams deal with local players that are already playing in other teams (such as Gibbo if a Tassy team gets picked up, or Trigger if a Brissy deal is miraculously viable) being able to be recruited earlier than the normal FA period, I'm not usually a fan of NRL teams etc being able to sign new deals mid-season but I think this is an important once-off need...

If nothing else, they really need to work on the NBL and a lot of the teams, off court management and marketing. If they're going to play mid-week games, they need to target a different audience, especially in places like Sydney. Families aren't going to want to come in on school nights and potentially get home well after 10pm, especially 4 or 5 times a week. Target corporate and city workers, heavily push two-for-1 deals, dinner vouchers with so many dinner-before-games options.

Lots of off court work to be done, I just hope they hire the right people to get it done.

If they need to be at 12 teams in 2015/16 to get a good TV deal then that's what they should get to. That money and exposure would move the goalposts significantly.

I read somewhere that the Brisbane bid was not as advanced as some of the other bids (ie the Tasmania) bid, which is surprising.

Janitor: BA has nothing to do with the NBL. You are perhaps thinking WNBL

Id much prefer the Aussie bids get up over the NZ bids. No offence to NZ but the NBL should first and foremost always look after its own national bases first.

Push for 2nd Melbourne and Brisbane for 15/16 then two more 16/17. Four teams at once is too soon I think

In the end the money will dictate the talent pool...i.e more cash better imports & aussies as some won't go or come back from europe.

The league must expand sooner rather than later as it is becomnig a joke that the NBL only has 8 teams and really is more like a 1/2 games a week league so thee number of games/teams is a key issue to help make the league more legit.

I think that the only broadcaster that will show a respectable amount of games live is FoxSports. I don't think that any other Free to Air stations will want to experiment with the NBL.

Biggest issue in Melbourne is trying to find an owner or owners willing to put up the cash without the backing of a major association.

Plenty of people want to put there hands up but not for the whole kitty and if you have to many owners they all want a say at board level and this can cause major issues when egos and cash are invovled.

Word is Corio Bay are considering entry, they beat Ballarat in a practise match.

Whittlesea next.

Tasmania, 2nd Melbourne and a team from Wellington and then go from there.

Asia Cup not a hope in hell. Aussie teams would kill them. To put it in perspective, an out of shape 29 year old former average district baller (ie me) scrimmages at least once a month with the Malaysian national team. They are SA Div 3 standard at best.

Libertine, that's a glowing endorsement!

I get the CB & Geelong bashing on here, there have been some silly posts on other threads regarding unrealistic and overinflated theories or comparisons recently.

However the cheap shots are unwarranted here, let's attempt some common sense threads shall we? This thread has merit and Ket has presented some reasonable suggestions that could be and should be explored...

Give the man a ball!

The ASEAN League, which is meant to be the bridge league in SE Asia, hasn't run a comp since May last year and been without a CEO for 4 months. The only viable countries for club bball in East Asia are China/Taiwan and Philippines (and maybe a little Korea).

Aussie bball clubs are struggling to make ends meet now, let alone flying 12-14 hours north to play sub-standard teams.

If the comp ever gets off the ground, and it's been talked about plenty, it will be funded by Chinese and Philippines TV money, so NBL clubs probably wouldn't have to worry about airfares!

Bear. Perhaps you could write a guide for Hoops as to when people are allowed to take the piss and when they are not.

Also, I am sure Isaac would appreciate your recommendations on a rating system for each thread. You could give each thread a score based on how seriously it is meant to be taken.

And then Isaac could build a filter so that when someone makes a comment that is not serious in a serious thread it is automatically rejected.

You need to get over yourself, some of the best and most informative threads have had people taking the piss out of each other and themselves.

Thanks again HO for your usual over analysis and diagnostic input mate, I did actually precede my post with acknowledgement that I understand the piss being taken, no issue there I have done so myself in the past.

I am sure you have all the rules and policy Isaac will ever need stored away for the right moment when you will no doubt pounce upon someone posting in the future, just so you can stay on top of your little soap box there buddy!

Bear. That is good stuff. I have no idea what you are getting at, but good stuff, particularly the diagnostic input.

Bring back the SE Magic, Hobart Devils, Brisbane Bullets and a NZ team first. The "returning" teams can hang their banners and retired singlets back up in the rafters and re-connect to the old fan bases, hopefully bringing in new ones with that.

Why cant Australia invite the Champions of the ASEAN leagues for a Tournament post-season ? Im not sure when those leagues finish, even if it were during our season, like the Champions League in Europe...

Shucks HO, and I really thought I was being transparent...

Maybe I should stick to simple and obvious?

simplistic is the word I generally use about your posts, that does not make you simple...

Thanks anon^, I have been called worse... :]

Well this thread deteriorated quickly

Sorry KET, got side tracked...

I like some of those ideas mate, note so sure about Wednesday night, so I would rather see another game on one of the other days, spreading it too far dilutes interest and may bring in complacency for me.

To save money, I have always thought conferences would be a great idea, so if we had those extra teams down the track and the fixture was done well, I don't see any reason why a conference style of fixture wouldn't work and hopefully it would save clubs a $$$!

TV deals and pooling cash like the AFL to distribute among the clubs and keep everyone viable while adopting best practice models and making sure clubs follow these to stay in the black is crucial.

12 minute games are a good idea too, so everyone gets their money's worth and on TV they can get more adds in during time-outs...

Overall you have covered some ground, I would like to see the NBL expand two teams next season and another two the season after. If the sponsors and TV people see basketball growing, at the same time staying viable and clubs not folding, we are in that happy place again!

This time, let's not blow it by being complacent or arrogant in our management of the game, it is a great game and you just have to look around at the number of kids playing hoops to realise its popularity...