I agree that the NBL needs to grow, but i think it should be done in a different way. A national league during winter, with the NBL competing in Summer. Get the big guns in for summer and during winter open the door to more markets.

I would like to see the seabl go national with 2 conferences. Then run the state leagues as a division 3 style comp.

Division 1:

Adelaide, Perth, Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, NZ, 2nd Sydney, 2nd Melbourne, 2nd NZ.

Big Markets, Big Crowds, Bigger Budgets. Everyone plays everyone 4 times for a 32 game season. Make it exciting, fast paced. Each team plays twice a week. Thursday, Saturday or Friday, Sunday.
16 week season, 3 weeks of finals.

Stadiums of atleast 6,000 for each team, 2 imports, marquee rule.

Divison 2:

South:
Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Tasmania, 2nd WA, 3rd WA, 2nd SA, 2nd Vic, 3rd Vic, 4th Vic.

North:
Brisbane, Darwin, Sydney, Canberra, 2nd QLD, 3rd QLD, 4th QLD, 2nd NSW, 3rd NSW, 4th NSW.

Smaller, but not tiny market teams. All capitals field one team still but on a smaller budget. 2 conferences, 10 teams in each. play inter conference once and conference twice. 28 game season over winter, top 4 from each conference play off.

1 import, no marquee rule, stadiums min 1000.

Division 3:

State league basically stay as they are, as the division three competition, bring back some sort of national championship for the state champions to play for.

A second team in Adelaide or Sydney is a long way off and yet we still manage 2 teams in Nth Qld ( how odd is that)

Newcastle
Gold Coast
Brisbane
Hobart
Wellington
Western Sydney

Dispand NBL.

I would rather see all the state leagues turn into conferences like the NCAA. Round of 16 bracket at the end of the year In November.

Play their own season games plus 2 games against other leagues around Australia.

GF teams from
SEABL
SBL
QBL

GF winners from
CABL
BIG V
Waratah
PREMIER

6 more teams from across all leagues based on votes of who is next best.

Televised from the round of 16. Teams get a % of dollars dependent on round of 16, round of 8, round of 4, making championship game, winning the whole thing. Making the round of 16 should cover travelling costs for future rounds, any future dollars can go toward future year signings or operational costs.

Yes I do as you will be asking the media to televise the best teams in the country for 15 games over one month. Currently we ask the media to televised the best teams in the country for 54 games over 27 weeks + finals. Customer/Viewers get board easily. Stretching it out over 27 weeks drains the customers attention.

Under the braket system the Media buy the rights for 500K (not sure what previous rights were worth).
- 25% advertising of round of 15 games (125K)
- 10% split between round of 16 teams (~3.1K each)
- 12.5% split between round of 8 teams (additional ~7.8K)
- 15% split between round of 4 games (additional ~18K)
- 17.5% split between Championships teams (additional ~43K)
- 20% to Winner (additional ~100K)

At the end of this a clubs could take anywhere between 3.1K for one game to 170K for 5 games.

Pipe dreams but at least this would offer more connection to basketball across the country. Imagine a Woodville (CBL) vs Kilsyth (SEABL) or a Corio Bay (Big V) vs South West (SBL) or a Geelong (SEABL) vs Manly (Waratah) or a Cairns (QBL) vs Wests (Premier). Ok maybe not the last game but the connection back to grass roots would be easy to make.

Pipe Dreams....maybe/likely

A lot of this is being re visited, of course it is an interesting topic but more and more i see that we turn towards a model of consolidation and inclusion to foster a perception of growth and expansion.

Taking two steps back if you will to attempt three steps forward.

The ideas have been spoken about many times, and I am not totally against any good ideas of course, but in the end it will demand a high level of cooperation, coordination and leadership, with a fair bit of humble pie thrown in.

This is what is needed before anything else, good luck guys!

If what seems to be the popular opinion of making the NBL a shorter season "super league" and/or disbanding the NBL and merging with SEABL in some capacity to create conferences occurs, It would be very likley Perth would say, no thanks and join an Asian league.

I wouldn't be mad, the Perth haters wouldn't be mad, Perth will have more money to splash at the big Australian names, win win win.

Personally I think it needs to continue on course and treat the hiccups as (large) speed bumps. Get Brisbane and second Melbourne and/or second NZ in the next couple years and lock in a TV deal that can stabilize the weaker teams bank balance through the TV deal itself and increased exposure = increased advertising dollars.

Re A league V NBL comparison I couldn't agree more. Soccer may have the backing of the richest man in the country but theNBL has some big dollar players as well. Maybe the difference is the self interest in each NBL club rather than making big decisions that are best for the overall league.

Re Perth going into an Asian comp - it certainly wouldn't grow their brand in this country. Our TV networks are not going to be interested becasue they know the rest of the country doesn't care about Perth playing against a malaysian team or Chinese team or whatever. If Perth can get sponsors who want the exposure in Asia they might make money there, but Australia won't care about it.

Gees there are some whacko opinions out there...

Firstly, there is no problem with the viability of the NBL organisation. It is the one part of the equation guaranteed to be able to cover its expenses. So it doesn't need to sell out to Kestleman, Tim Johnston, or the next clown to put forward his half-assed proposal.

Whilst expansion is ideal, the LAST thing the league needs is more unviable clubs. So no, they're not going to merge with your kids' under 12's league so that you only have to support one team.

We currently have two teams in financial problems, and the league cannot bail them out, so bringing in a string of teams with even less money would be beyond stupid. Any team must have a strong financial basis. Simple fact is that if you can find a Billionaire to back a team from Leongatha then they can enter the NBL.

We can't even a get a decent TV coverage deal with the major city games we have now. If Ten won't give decent coverage to a Sydney v Melbourne game, how do you think they will feel about a game between podunk and buttf___?

Dazz, I might be alone here but I am missing your point mate!

Dazz

You may not agree with other peoples opinions and that's fine - but their just opinions. I wouldn't rule out a possible major reform in the future which may point in that direction.

You need to not be so aggressive on forums and your response is quite simplistic and lacking in judgement. I also don't agree with your point regarding the Kestleman offer. I think its a good opportunity for the NBL to take if its actually true. Can you elaborate on the half assed proposal bit? Do you know something the rest of us don't?