keep readin other thread i reckon

im keeping the optimistic approach the guy they have brought in has saved every other organisation hes administered ,

started reading the other thread - and too much mucjin around - i want the nitty gritty

so no board - no money - at least foley has committed to some assistance - just a huge vote of no confidence by the look of it.

PR disaster to me.

shall we expect staff cullings? price rises? 36ers sale?

"Without government support, basketball in SA will collapse," Mr Foley said.

"The administrators of basketball have badly let down their sport."

Financial corporate expert Bruce Carter, chairman of WorkCover and the man behind rescue bids for Balfours, Harris Scarfe and the National Wine Centre, will be put in control of restructuring basketball.

"Liberal and Labor governments have given BASA every opportunity to get their house in order," he said.

"The situation has just got worse and enough is enough."

Just heard on 5AA Mike Rann said former AFL chief Wayne Jackson is going to step in as an independant advisor to help Bruce Carter get basketball back on track

Probably worth noting that Foley's line that thousands of players would no longer be able to take part in the sport was in the context of the takeover being rejected by the board, and them facing insolvency. The board, however, met his terms immediately.

Basketball will receive financial support with the government-approved administrator in charge.

Foley: "I have no confidence in their ability to administer basketball, particularly given what I consider to have been a completely inaccurate financial report in our December meeting," he said. "This is the sport's last chance to get it right."

Hmmmm - I think its probbaly going to be a good move - finally someone has stepped in to make a toiugh decision and stop the rot so to speak. We have heard for years that the board couldnt organise a chook raffle so finally someone has stood up and kicked em out lock stock and barrel!

Now the govt needs to make sure they get the right people in to run what should be a good profitable business properly.

As for the Sixers - I thnk if the correct framewiork is put in place at BASA they shouldnt need to be sold. Yes Belly appears to have the passion and the $$$ to take the team over but I still prefer to have BASA owning them - just make sure they run the thing right!

This is the best thing that could happen to Basketball in SA. Finially the control has been taken away from those people who have brought SA to their knees.

I wouldn't be suprised to see the sixers, Fellas and juniors become seperate from each other. The administrator will get this right and Basketball will move in the right direction finially. I beleive there will be a lot of people nervous about their jobs. It will take time but Basketball can only go forward from here.

I think a good thing overall, but has anyone heard of or recieved an offical reply from the other incompetent group, the NBL.

Given the fact that this does involved an NBL franchise surely they, the NBL are impacted in some way.

As of 9:15am, still nothing of note on the NBL website.

The NBL site had no coverage whatsoever of the Hunter board-changes and other reported difficulties despite Rick Burton being quoted in various newspapers.

Hmmm, how come I'm not surprise by anything the those NBL incompetent fools do.

Ok, as it stands a foundation member of the NBL is on shakey grounds, no one really knows what is going on and the outcome, but I think it will be a positive turn.

Given the fact that Hunter is a sinking ship, is it actually time that things go the next step and that the Federal Government calls a commission into the sport and starts asking questions and getting answers from the cats at the top.

Maybe the sports would benefit from a royal commission. It would at least give Burton something to think about....

A rumour from OzHoops:

Wollongong are in deep financial shite owing to the Leagues (Mod: as in Rugby)club that supports them pulling out.

that is seeing wollongong is one of the last foundation clubs left as well,

and sydney are loosing $$ as well

add pirates as they are not getting enough attendance.

This is all comes back to the fact you now have a semi professional sport trying to act like a fully professional sport. This has been the case for years now and unfortunately the chickens are now comin' home to roost! Players/coaches salaries are unstainable in the current climate and once again the salary cap needs to go down.

salary cap goes down, product becomes less attractive to sponsors and potential tv whether pay or fta,

but more importantly if standad drops any more the crowds wont show up , yes financially BB is in a bad way but is the answer to reduce the cap i think not, its and old cliche you have to spend money to make money, just as long as its spent the right way and atm its not

I'm no economist but surely market forces should determine the size of the cap. No bums on seats = little money coming in. No 1 cost to all clubs would be player/coach payments so surely this has to be the first thing looked at for survival of clubs. I'm not talking quality of the product here but survival. It's great to have quality players playing but if they're in an 8 team competition I don't think that's a good proposition.

Can anyone post a link to Boti's article(s) regarding this subject on here please as I cant find it online

After reading articles and thinking about it for the past couple of hours, this can only be a good move for the future of the sport in SA, and maybe across Australia. Things can not get much worse.

I'm still waiting for the NBL to release something, hell, I'll be waiting until a pig flies past my window, I'm still waiting to guess the lucky powerball.

BASA even couldn't live up to its vision:

"To enrich the lives of South Australians by significantly contributing to the recreational and sporting needs of the community through the sport of Basketball"

Fail your vision, then it's goodnight.

Whilst there are clear down sides to this action, not least of which is the negative spin and anxiety it creates for the whole sport, it also has some potentially very positive outcomes.

There has been a litany of issues over many years that the sport has been unable to resolve. The sport was never likely to fix them on its own. The 'hallelujah' piece in the Advertiser suggests much the same sentiment.

The sport at the BASA level has institutionalised problems  many of which have been documented and discussed on this forum previously  such as too much thinking, too little doing, too much politicking, too little direction, too many ideas, too few solutions, too many chiefs, too little leadership etc.

What has also seemed inevitable was that the sport was never going to be able to jump the Government debt hurdle without major reform taking place  so perhaps Government intervention was also inevitable, it was only ever just a matter of when.

Arguably the greatest tragedy of this position, and perhaps the most damning for those involved, is that the sport now appears to have lost control of its own destiny. This must be seen as a last chance for the sport to right its spiritual and financial ship.

does this mean no district for the rest of the season

This in from BASA:

Basketball SA and the SA Government have jointly agreed to engage Mr Bruce Carter of Ferrier Hodgson as Interim Controller of Basketball SA and related associations until 30 April 2006, whilst Mr Peter Macks of PPB undertakes a detailed assessment of the financial and operational performance of the state's peak basketball body.

The result of these appointments will provide control over the organisation while a raft of financial and operational restructuring strategies designed to improve the performance of Basketball SA are considered. Mr Carter and Mr Macks, together with the assistance of new CEO, Mr Mike Daws, will oversee the review and implementation of the above strategies.

For more information, please contact Mr Mike Daws on 8444 6444.

It's business as usual here with lots of positivity about the future.

josh dont worry, district will continue, theyre just sorting out management issues and stuff like that, it wont affect juniors games

I have great faith that Jackson and Carter will be able to help SA Basketball, and agree that this a big step forward for our game.

I'm surprised and even annoyed that the Government has allowed it go on for this long. The problems with the board should have been addressed years ago. When you talk about BASA, the Sixers and Fellas component of it may be business but junior basketball is not. For heaven's sake, basketball is a sport, a popular participation sport amongst children. It is the government's responsibility to provide sport and recreation to the youngsters at whatever additional cost other than those met by parents. You can't take away the opportunities for youngsters to play sports regardless of which sport it is. By the sound of the report handed down by Foley, it sounds like BASA was expected to be a business that should have been run profitably. The board may not have done a good job and therefore had to be sacked to protect basketball, but I refuse to believe it would have cost 100,000 youngsters their opportunity to play the sport. You take that away from them, you have to replace it with something else. Look at the cost to Government for drug rehabilitation (could lead kids to drugs if other recreational activities are not available), the cost of obesity in children because they don't have enough physical acitivity in their lives, the cost of crime also associated with lack of other meaningful activities. the list goes on. Basketball and sport in general is a healthy and worthwhile activity for children, its physical and promotes goal setting and organisation, 2 good qualities to acquire. In all this excitement about the front page of today's paper, don't ever assume that junior participation in basketball was ever at risk.

It is my understanding that governments (both labor and liberal) have thrown money at BASA for those very reasons.

Mr Foley was just on AA and has said that he wants to save basketball in SA but his last point was that he doesn't have a never ending chequebook.

They've earmarked $800k, and suggested that the figure could double.

It will take a lot more than $800k

They don't seem to have a handle on the actual financial position of the organisation or the sport

Who will take over the debt?

There has been no discussion on them capitalising the outstanding loan?

Foley sounded better than the article read - or at least more reasoned, where Dawes seemed much more nervous than would be comfortable for many?

It seems the bottom has yet to be hit in terms of the true cost of the poor governance and management of the sport - I wonder how comfortable the past administrators - general and financial are feeling, and what skeletons may be revealed?

Still feels like great news but an even greater shame

i'm wondering if it all fell through what would the gov do with the powerhouse? no bball team, netball has a good home, would they smash it down for the land?

Anonymous #66020. Please state the position you hold that makes you an authority on the true financial situation of BASA.

Boys no point worrying about it

Look...im a Wildcats boy, born in Melbourne.....ALL my mates were Giants Members, as was I.......yes they folded, BUT......there was them the Tigers, and the Magic

There is ONLY one SA team....the Adelaide 36er's

AND i believe SOMEONE will bail them out

There has to be atleast ONE Sth Aust team in the NBL

And....if you guys go down....trust me....it will be a sad day for the NBL, and SA Basketball

joshuapending, I've heard it said that the Dome was built on landfill and may have limited use in another capacity, or be too expensive to redeem.

It was,

Before the dome was build at Beverly, the site was literally a glorified DUMP

Its on the Sixers DVD that they refer to the site as a dump (IIRC)

Are there any basketball clubs that are doing really well (NBL or local)?

No idea regarding local clubs, but I believe that the Melbourne Tigers are doing pretty well (on track for a profit this year). Skeleton staff run out of a shared office, cheap training facility, small game night venue, but a powerhouse team and decent attendance considering the size of the venue and price of tickets.

Sounds simple doesn't it - don't have as many overheads. So they charge more for their tickets?

DJ will confirm, but I think that they tend to have tickets up around $25, and no options like the Sixers' $15 tickets, etc. Their reasoning would be that they only need 3000 big fans to sell it out. Sixers could sell out 3000 at $25ea too, but we have a lot more seats we need to fill.

This is exactly why playing out of the Dome is a problem. I'm sure we could sell out games at $25 a ticket too if the Dome only held 3000 (=$7500). Problem is we have to sell 5000 @ $15 to make that much. And the stadium still has 3000 spare seats. Maybe the Sixers need a smaller venue where they do sell out each week and the atmosphere is just as good, if not better than the Dome. Sixers tickets would be the hottest ticket in town again. Maybe any new team and/or new owners would consider a smaller venue. Obviously there is still the major issue of what to do with the dome and its 15M debt.

But we had 5300+ for a Wednesday night game against a lowly team just recently. There's potential to get more (e.g., if tickets aren't inflated for the finals).

The Dome is there so we might as well use it! I'd rather see other methods to fill it and increase atmosphere - e.g., every adult season ticket holder gets to bring a guest for free - first 1500 to apply by phone or email. Something different like that to get us a huge crowd.

I think the Pirates or West Sydney have recently been letting kids in free. That's probably not something the Sixers could do without pissing off some existing ticket buyers, but something to really pump up the crowd would be worth trying. Gives more people a taste.

Good points - but for some reason the people running the show seem to think that giving away 1500 tickets is losing money. Where as everyone else can see that if there a 1500 spare seats (which there always is) then it will actually make money thru extra catering, car park, raffle tickets and not to mention the people that want to come pack as paying guests next time.

Until these people realise this then we still have a problem. I think one of the concerns is giving away tickets to free loaders. The key is to target the right people. Even say 10 tickets to 150 different SA businesses for a low profile game where we normally get a small crowd. Nothing to lose - plenty to gain.

My point about the smaller stadium was a bit tongue in cheek. Let's hope that the new crew (whoever that may be) can turn things around wrt tickets, promos and marketing etc.

They could start something like that though next season Isaac. Making kids free gets more adults through the door. Then, have promotions for local clubs (run by proud club volunteers) inside on game night and have deals where memberships to local clubs are at a cheap rate for the first year. We know that once kids (or adults) start playing basketball they will love the game so much parents will pay for their kids to continue. I am no marketing expert but if something like that drew even one new player its one that wasn't there earlier that day. This is only a very general idea, and clubs would have to be in agreeance so that clubs are marketing on an equal footing initially to draw more people in, I know some clubs might not like the in ya face stuff but maybe its time to start thinking about basketball as a whole, not just individual clubs???

Hadn't read this thread for a couple of days, so just repsonding to possible say of the Venue for Land.
BASA don't own the Grass Car Park land, they are given use of it by Charles Sturt Council, BASA only own that land covered by the dome & the Bitumenized Car Park.

That would reduce significantly the amount of money that could be received from land sales.