Hurley
Years ago
Singapore in NBL
Asian influx likely
By ADRIAN WARREN
15mar06
SENIOR Australian basketball officials believe other Asian countries could lobby to join the National Basketball League if the new Singapore franchise enjoys success after being admitted to the competition for the 2006-07 season.
The NBL board last Friday approved a request for the licence of the Hunter Pirates to be transferred to Singapore Basketball Enterprises (SBE).
The ownership group will be headed by NBL Hall of Famer Bob Turner, a former coach of Canberra, Newcastle and Sydney.
The new franchise hopes to announce its inaugural coach on March 23, although it could be longer before other details such as the team's name and colours are revealed.
NBL commissioner Rick Burton said it was a historic day for the NBL, which also has a New Zealand team in its ranks, and he didn't rule out further Asian involvement in the competition.
"I think it will be possible, feasible and certainly what we would hope for, that with the success of this team in Singapore that we would see other countries possibly approach us," Burton said. "But I think right now my approach would be let's make sure we go and do this the right way."
Singapore dream is now team
Peter Kogoy and Ben Pike
March 15, 2006
HUNTER PIRATES 'boss cocky' John O'Brien yesterday emerged as a key backer behind the national league's push into Asia next season.
Until lunchtime yesterday O'Brien was still trying to save the Hunter Pirates from going broke, after the club incurred an operating loss of almost $1million for the 2005-06 season.
O'Brien, a grazier from Coolah, in central NSW, also operates a Hunter Valley veterinary business and revealed himself later in the day as one of the Australian backers behind the NBL's move into Singapore.
John and wife Gwen, along with NBL Hall of Famer Bob Turner emerged as the main group behind the new NBL club.
O'Brien had served as chairman of the Pirates who made the play-offs but folded after the just completed season.
The O'Briens, Turner and former Sydney Kings chairman Tom Wykoff are understood to have bought the Pirates' licence for an undisclosed figure.
"The establishment of an NBL team in Singapore is great for the NBL, the city of Singapore and basketball," said Turner, who had been a coach at Newcastle Falcons, Canberra Cannons and the Sydney Kings.
"The consortium has put considerable time and effort into establishing a relationship with the Singapore Sports Council."
The move into Asia has the full backing of Basketball Australia, along with Oceania Confederation, the administrative international arm of basketball in the Pacific.
The new team will play at an 11,000-seat stadium.
"For a little more than the price of a movie ticket, Singaporeans will be able to catch live world-class basketball action on home soil," Singapore Sports Council chief executive Oon Jin Teik said.
In January last year, Perth took a regular-season game to Singapore and drew an enthusiastic crowd of almost 8000 to its match against Sydney.
The Wildcats returned to Singapore last season and again reaped financial rewards.
Pirates' heart off to Singapore
Email Print Normal font Large font By Stephen Howell, Sydney
March 15, 2006
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AdvertisementBOB Turner, the man behind the National Basketball League's new Singapore team that was announced in Sydney yesterday, was the underbidder for the second licence in Sydney.
That was in 1998, when the now-struggling West Sydney Razorbacks paid $2 million to play in the league. Turner's group got the NBL's latest licence for a reported $300,000 as it was transferred from the defunct Hunter Pirates, with Hunter's major owners John and Gwen O'Brien staying involved.
Joining them are former Sydney Kings chairman Tom Wykoff, John Calurgari and an anonymous "four or five others". Their yet-to-be-named club will be based in Singapore from next season, an arrangement trumpeted by the NBL as a first for Australian sport.
It is also a rare victory over soccer's new A-League, which is restricted by licence terms from expanding for its first three seasons.
The launch, linked by satellite to Singapore, was more a diplomatic announcement than a revelation of who's who and what's what with the new team.
Negotiations were continuing only hours before the announcement, but diplomatic hurdles relating to mixing the Asian and Oceania regions of FIBA (the international basketball federation) were overcome.
In addition to the Australian investors, the Singapore Government, through its Singapore Sports Council and its subsidiary, the Singapore Indoor Stadium, are major backers. Singapore Airlines also is likely to be involved to transport teams, a cost that falls to each new club for its first three seasons.
SSC chief executive Oon Jin Teik said the council had a five-year commitment, but would not say what it was worth. Sources suggested $800,000 a year, with a peppercorn rental at the indoor stadium, which will house the team and its offices.
The 11,000-seat stadium is part of a 40-hectare area that is to be developed as Singapore's Sports Hub by 2011.
In return the new team, possibly to be called the Lions, will help develop the sport in Singapore so that, eventually, Singaporeans are good enough to play in it. For now, any Asian players will be regarded as imports, as Americans are.
Although the coach will not be named until March 23, The Age believes that the Razorbacks' inaugural coach, Gordon McLeod, now in New Zealand, has the job.
Almost certainly key Hunter players such as Ben Melmeth and Brad Davidson will be on board, and other Hunter players, including import Mike Helms, are targets.
Also believed to be in club sights is Sydney guard Luke Kendall, high on the shopping list of Victoria's new team, South Dragons.
Most of Singapore's home games will be played on Wednesday nights, for cultural as well as television reasons. They are expected to be part of Fox Sports' coverage, with the prospect of major Asian pay TV stations getting involved.
The other 11 teams will fly in for single games, whereas Singapore will have two or three games each trip to Australia and New Zealand.
Turner started working on putting a team in Singapore a year ago, with help from NBL director Paul Robertson, of Macquarie Bank.
"There were plenty of times when I thought this is a bit of a hurdle, but overall this is too good a challenge not to have a go at," Turner said. He said "not many" potential investors knocked back his approach.
Turner, who is credited with kick-starting the league's most successful early franchise, the Canberra Cannons, in the 1980s and then, with Mike Wrublewski, driving the Sydney Kings' years of making money in the 1990s, said of the new team: "I'll be running it, I'll be leading it, and I'll be driving it."
Singapore team must boost NBL: Palmer
Email Print Normal font Large font March 15, 2006 - 2:59PM
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AdvertisementFormer Hunter Pirates coach Bruce Palmer says an NBL team in Singapore is "meaningless" unless it's backed by the right groundwork.
And Palmer - who coached the Pirates in their inaugural season of 2003-04 - says the only way the new team can work is if it provides added benefits to the game locally.
"At the end of the day, it's got to be about getting a spillover to the game in Australia, so (the NBL) can start getting bums on seats," Palmer said.
"A successful team in Singapore is, on its own, meaningless to Australian basketball unless there are straight benefits, like from the sale of the licence or the TV revenue, which would be returned to the NBL.
"There's a potentially huge TV market, and enormous dollars in it if the team can establish itself in the short to medium term."
He's warned the NBL must have a strategy in place to make the Singapore team a success, and has pointed to the Cairns and Townsville teams as the prototypes.
He says they disprove the theory that the team may be too expensive.
"People said that about Cairns and Townsville ... but they turned out to be some of the strongest franchises, because they had the money in place," he said.
"The NBL wouldn't - or I hope they wouldn't - enter into this agreement (with Singapore) casually.
"They'd have to be convinced that all that stuff was taken care of.
"I'd be disappointed if they got it that wrong, if it falls over right away."
The NBL and a consortium led by former Sydney Kings coach Bob Turner has announced the inclusion of a Singapore team for the 2006-07 season, after the Pirates folded.
Palmer says it's "terrible" that Newcastle and Canberra - two cities he calls "mainstays" in the NBL since its inception in 1979 - no longer are represented in the competition.
"But I don't see this as a gamble, I see it as an opportunity, with very strong benefits, if it comes off."
Meanwhile, Turner has dismissed concerns the new team won't fill up its 12,000-seat stadium without any native Singaporeans on the books, at least in the beginning.
"When I started at the Sydney Kings, I didn't have any people from Sydney playing on my team, but I did have a lot of Australians and we did work the community very hard and we did represent the city," Turner told Sydney radio 2KY.
"That's the biggest challenge for us, to try and create an interest in a team that will say Singapore on its singlet."
And he says the success of China's Yao Ming, who plays for the Houston Rockets in the NBA, has created a huge Asian basketball market.
"Basketball in the Philippines is huge, Taiwan, China is huge," Turner says.
"There's 1.4 million players there, so the odds are you'll get a good player."
New Zealand Breakers delighted with Aussie NBL's move into Asia, with addition of Singapore-based team
(IRN News Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)The New Zealand Breakers could not be happier with the Australian NBL's move into Asia.
A Singapore-based team will join the league next season, with the Hunter Pirates axed.
Breakers General Manager Richard Clarke says the addition of the Asian team is great news, especially for their major sponsors.
He says it increases exposure, with millions expected to tune into television coverage of the matches.
Richard Clarke says the NBL should already have a reasonable following in Singapore, with the Perth Wildcats having played there in the past.
