Plus he says he wants to see the Hawks continue in the Gong. If he gets an offer he can't refuse the new owners might have different plans. Boti's blog post never said this guy planned to move the team to Melbourne.

Pardon my ignorance on this but if James Spenceley has divested his interest in the Illawarra Hawks, who bought said interest and why are they looking to sell again to the right 'ownership structure'?

http://www.illawarramercury.com.au/story/5266730/hawks-wont-be-flying-south-stratford/

If youre a basketball fan in melbourne surely you wouldnt follow the oldest NBL team that has just relocated from.regional NSW. And if youre an AFL fan but dont follow the hawthorn hawks you are gonna hate this new team. Doesnt leave many ppl left.

It isn't happening yet!

due diligence is being done from both sides.

If they wipe the debt and purchase the franchise its a pretty good offer for the current owners to think about.

That plus no more free to air TV games if they stay in Illawarra will hurt the major sponsors!

This seems as shifty as the bullshit that surrounded my Seattle Supersonics before they moved to OKC, this will ultimately hurt and piss off so many people.

But serious question for all. Who benefits from having a single NBL team in NSW? I can't help but think that that's a free kick for the A-League and even BBL that have their intrastate rivalries.

Speak with your wallet hawkheads

Is the Illawarra/Sydney rivalry that big a deal?

Is the Illawarra/Sydney rivalry that big a deal?

It doesn't really seem to get played up all that much. Even the Cairns/Brisbane thing seems to have more behind it than the NSW rivalry.

I haven't traveled to the Gong for a game in years (sounds like a lot of Hawks fans haven't either), but I always like having Hawks fans in the stands at Kings games. With a newborn I missed a ton of home games this year, but even last year it seemed the number of travelling Hawks fans had cooled off a little.

I'd personally hate to lose the Gong, but at the same time if the fans aren't getting out to watch the team... LK wants the league to grow, and if the regional teams aren't drawing crowds, I'm not sure what other options there are. Hawks had a down year, but they were still an entertaining team to watch for the most part this year.

Where there's smoke ...

Doesnt leave many ppl left.

Its not just the NBL that appears to want to phase out underperforming regional teams. All codes are the same.

How many regional AFL clubs are there from 18 teams? Geelong and maybe Gold Coast. Though I wouldnt really call them regional as Geelong play a lot of home games in Melbourne and Gold Coast is a decent sized city.

NRL? I dont follow NRL but from 20 teams they have North Queensland as a regional club. Any others?

A-league only have Central Coast. Would Wellington be regional? Probably not. All other clubs are main capital city clubs.

The NBl from 8 teams has 2 regional clubs. You could also add NZ too. Disagree as much as you want but the NBL needs more visibility from bigger markets. And if long serving regional clubs are struggling to hold on then its hard to help them out.

Oh, absolutely, I know it used to be a big deal. It just hasn't seemed to be recently.

I don't know how many the Hawks are getting to games, but if it's sub-3k

Not going to cut it from here. Won't bring TV viewers either, unfortunately.

Roughy playing in the three. Joe Ingles esque

Finished...

Ouch... I didn't think they were consistently THAT bad... In that case, everyone really makes decent points, stick a fork in them, they're done...

Moving forward though, is a single off season enough to ramp up any interest in a new team? Aren't other codes giving at least a full season to promote and get everything organised? (not that I'm surprised that the NBL would do it half arsed)

I think crows , 36ers in talks...

Haz, the Dragons in the NRL are from Illawarra.

I love having the Hawks in the league but it's in a sorry state of affairs. The team has been consistently good for the last decade, there is no competing codes at the same time (no NRL,AFL, A-League, BBL) in the Gong and the crowds are still poor. maybe Illawarra has given up on them and the NBL should do the same back to the city.

Cheers Timberball, I forgot about the Dragons! Yes agree Illawarra has all but given up on the Hawks it seems. Or at best their support base is too low.

Regional clubs do well if they get good crowds and the town gets behind them (see Cairns). But as soon as the town gives up on them its hard to justify a place for them in a national league that needs sponsors, TV, media coverage etc (see Townsville).

When Spenceley came in, he immediately made moves that were against the Hawks traditional way of doing things... When he cut Dave Whatsisname, who was a big fan favourite and really was the prime example of the workhorse mentality of the Hawks, the lost the fans and never made any moves to get them back...

Some didn't return, but even the long term faithful, who were grateful that they still had a club thanks to him, still resented and disliked him and as the years went on, it just got worse... So combine that with the crazy rent (WEC stubbornly had the attitude of "well, where else are you going to play?" which will now bite them in the arse and now they're likely to get nothing if/when the Hawks relocate) and from that, ticket prices and also a season or two that had games clash with big community events, the indifference really set it...

The crowds for the Kings games are the biggest indication of a massive issue - as pointed out by others, those games in the past were guaranteed to at least get to the 4000 mark but the last couple of seasons the crowd numbers have been a disaster (partly because the Kings have stunk, but still).

Ohh... the Kings Hawks games, righto, I'll cop that... not having a good run on here lately... At least I can spell Anon properly though...

Why would there be a "move"?
Its not like a league where the licences are actually worth something.

If somebody in Melbourne has the money for a team, they'll probably get one. If Hawks can't survive, they will fold.

Only reason the Hawks might buy the Hawks would be to try and circumvent the AFL ban on using their name.

Next level?
You mean bankruptcy?

The League wasn't financially viable before LK took over, and all he has done is raise costs.
The promise was that rich clubs spending over the cap would be taxed and the money given to poorer clubs, and that could have worked. But like so many other promises, he has failed to deliver.
Townsville are gone, Illawarra look to be following suit, and Cairns only need a bad run to be on their arse and out the door. Whilst its also put the kibosh on most expansion plans. No "Wellington, Canberra, or Hobart" team will have the coin necessary to compete at this new level