Isaac
Years ago
Making money developing talent
A recent post on Mark Cuban's BlogMaverick.com - Making Money in Basketball - talks about how minor league teams should try to profit from developing talent rather than selling tickets like the NBA teams.
I wasn't sure how exactly a relationship could work in the ABL and NBL here to benefit from that thinking. Then on OzHoops, someone mentioned the possibility of the NBL allowing teams to have a third import in certain situations.
Their suggestion was that an import could be eligible to be placed as a third international player if they'd completed two years as an import at the ABL level.
It's a touchy subject (spending local club money on recruiting from elsewhere), but this all made me wonder if ABL clubs couldn't bring in some revenue or at least cover their import-costs by operating as a testing ground and showcase for imports.
So, imagine that Woodville had spent $x on bringing in Eric Bradley or Matt Elder, and then were either good enough for the NBL, the Warriors would receive a payment for having held those players through their two-year period to gain third-import eligibility.
An NBL club could snatch a player without paying the kickback if they were filling either of the first two spots, but not if they were coming in as the third.
You might see it eventuate that an NBL club would subsidise the import with an ABL club.
Obviously this is a half-baked idea and I'm sure there are issues with recruiting from abroad over local talent or flaws in processes, but I thought it might generate some interesting discussion.
Maybe even forget about the import aspect, and say that any NBL rookie has to have played with an ABL club for two years. That removes the theme of foreign players taking spots that might otherwise go to local talent.
Advantages might be that clubs can more easily pay for their senior teams, and it could improve the standard of the league a little?
