A
recent article in the Townsville Bulletin quoted NBL legend and current
Townsville Crocodiles General Manager Pat Reidy as saying that he believed the
league should ultimately be a 10-team competition.
"I would like to see the league get to 10 teams and
just sit back and work on the product for a while rather than rushing into any
expansion," Reidy said.
"Getting to 10 teams, playing each other three times
with a good 30 game season and then really work on the product.
"I think that's a good round number to sit on for a
while and see what the future holds."
Interestingly however the man he replaced at the helm of the
Crocs, former CEO Ian Smythe, advocates a far more cautious approach to
expansion.
“The league is not ready for expansion yet beyond Brisbane,
the league as a whole needs to be humming to expand,” Smythe tweeted recently.
Which raises the question of just when and where the NBL should
expand?
Basketball Australia sent a clear signal that they would not
be rushed into expansion when they recently rejected a formal bid for a second
Melbourne team. Given Melbourne was one
of two priority markets that BA has previously identified publicly, that
rejection came as a surprise to many.
Yet the bid group simply hadn’t secured the financial
backing necessary to convince the BA Board that it was a long-term
proposition.
BA CEO Kristina Keneally made it clear that if anyone was
going to get a new license, they would need to show that they had the sort of
business plan to ensure they would be around for the long haul.
"In the past we've seen clubs fail to survive. There's
not a big margin there," Keneally said in an
interview with AAP.
"I would rather say no to an expansion that might give
us a year or two of excitement, but ultimately would disappoint fans and other
clubs.
"Expansion is critical to the future of the NBL ... but
it requires a team to have a sustainable financial model."
Whilst major metro markets are what BA has publicly said
they will focus on, Board member Andrew Gaze makes it clear that he believes
the NBL shouldn’t just be looking to the bigger markets for future teams.
"Brisbane. Another team in Melbourne ... certainly
Sydney you would expect could be able to sustain two teams," Gaze told AAP.
"But ... places like Newcastle, Geelong, Hobart (could
field teams). Those areas that have had past experiences in the NBL.
"If the model is right and the formula is right, then I
don't know why there can't be teams in those areas as well.
"There's certainly been enough evidence to say cities
and towns of that size can support a team.
"Those towns have got tremendous passion and the
regional teams usually get great exposure - look what happened in Cairns and
Townsville."
Whilst Gaze makes a valuable point in the argument about
expansion by pointing to there being a pre-established fan base in former NBL
markets like Newcastle, Geelong and Hobart, he also ignores one inconvenient
truth. That is that all of those markets
have already failed to sustain their NBL teams, which is why they no longer
have one.
For that matter, the two anointed priority expansion markets
for the NBL – Brisbane and a second Melbourne team – have also previously
hosted failed franchises.
Expansion back into Brisbane is however a no-brainer. It is the third largest city in Australia and
has a population almost twice the size of Adelaide. It has a huge potential viewership market
which can significantly boost NBL audience figures for its broadcast partners,
and is also home to an increasing number of corporate headquarters for major
companies which could be potential sponsors.
Adding Brisbane back into the mix gives the NBL a truly
national footprint once again, so it is going to happen.
It’s also understandable that Melbourne is high on the
agenda. Victoria has by far the highest
number of registered basketball players of any state in Australia and is a
perennial powerhouse at national championships of all levels.
Yet it is worth remembering that no state has had more
failed NBL teams than Victoria.
The traditional argument for a second Victorian team is that
Melbourne needs a second club as a large percentage of the basketball community
simply refuse to support the Melbourne Tigers because they play against them at
the junior level. Yet no one team has managed
to successfully enter the Melbourne market and stay the course, which must
undermine the prevailing logic that the Victorian capital – as the acknowledged
basketball capital of Australia – can support a second Melbourne club.
There are those that will argue that the last ‘other’
Melbourne team – the South Dragons – were a success. After all, they did win the NBL title in
their final season, averaged better crowds than the Tigers and weren’t forced
out of the league due to financial problems like most of their predecessors, but
instead chose to exit.
Yet the Dragons had publicly stated that they had regularly
run at a financial loss. They relied on
the deep pockets of their ownership group to keep operating. If they had been profitable in their title-winning
season you could be fairly confident that they would have reversed their principled
stance and chosen to remain in the league.
So no one has yet found the magic formula for a successful
second Melbourne team. Does that mean it doesn’t exist? Of course not, but
ultimately it doesn’t matter.
Basketball Australia is committed to a second Melbourne
team, just as they are committed to a new Brisbane franchise. The good news is that Keneally, Gaze and co.
won’t fast-track license applications towards that goal, but instead are
committed to the less popular course of waiting until the right business models
are presented with the right financial backing.
That may not be music to the ears of Brisbane Bullets fans
eager to see their team back in the league, but it is absolutely the right
approach if you want the new clubs to have the best possible chance of
long-term success off the court.
Whilst we know the two markets that BA are focusing their
attentions on, things don’t always go to plan.
If they did, the NBL would already be back to a 10-team league with
Brisbane and a second Melbourne team in the fold. Ultimately, any and all license applications
will be considered on their merits by the BA Board.
Which raises the question of just where will the next new
NBL franchises come from? I run the
ruler over all the cities so far thrown up as possible locations of new NBL
teams and rank them in the order that I would admit them to the league, as well
as assessing the likelihood they will actually win a license.
1. Brisbane
BA have put their money where their mouth is towards
reintroducing a team into Australia’s third-largest population centre. They have thrown their support behind the bid
to bring a team back to Brisbane and are actively trying to bring together a
number of interested parties into one, focused bid group. The appointment of former Brisbane Broncos
CEO Bruno Cullen as bid chairman and ex-Queensland Olympic Council executive
director Michael Brierley as the bid's full-time chief executive was designed
to help unite the formerly disparate groups who had previously expressed
interest in reloading the Bullets, and attract the financial backing required
to bankroll an NBL team. BA is also actively
helping to lobby the corporate sector in support of this funding. When this is eventually secured, Brisbane
will once more have a team to support in the NBL. Hopefully this will be sooner
rather than later.
Chances: Definite
2. Canberra
Whilst all the talk of new NBL teams has been centred on
Melbourne and Brisbane, Canberra was a foundation club and three-time league
champion. Canberra also happens to be
the national capital, home of federal politics (and politicians) and the eighth
largest city in Australia in terms of population (420,000). Whilst that population drops significantly
when parliament isn’t sitting, it is still a city with a proud basketball
heritage and sufficient potential fan base to support a team. You also cannot underestimate the potential
benefits of playing regular games in front of government politicians. Certainly, when I suggested Canberra as a
strong location for a potential NBL team on Twitter a few weeks ago, this
benefit was questioned. It was pointed out that playing in Canberra hadn’t
helped the Capitals and the WNBL. Yet
they play in a very different league with far less audience, and I would argue
that the WNBL might not have retained its long-running ABC-TV partnership if
the Caps weren’t in the league. Do I
expect to see a Canberra–based team in the NBL in the next couple of years? No.
Yet I still believe it should be a priority market for the league and could be
extremely successful (with the standard asterisk of having the right model in
place).
Chances: Maybe
3. Melbourne 2
A second Melbourne team seemed ever so close midway through
2012. A bid group, consisting of a good
mix of business-minded corporate professionals and sharp basketball minds, had
drawn up a solid business model and identified a venue to play in (the State
Basketball Centre in Knox). Ultimately
the group were let down by their financial backers. That sent them back to the drawing board, but
the NBL remains committed to a second Victorian team. The Tigers will only have a monopoly in
Melbourne until suitable financial backing can be found. That being said, the
move to reintroduce a second team to Melbourne must be done carefully so as not
to undermine the Melbourne Tigers’ efforts.
It will also need to include a model that will allow fans of all former
Victorian NBL teams to support it against the Tigers. That’s far easier said than done.
Chances: Definite
4. Sydney 2
There has been very little talk of a second Sydney team, yet
the New South Wales is the single largest city in Australia with 4.6 million
people. Whilst the West Sydney
Razorbacks never really managed to achieve the off-court success everyone hoped
for, they did show just how good a cross-city rivalry could be in Sydney. The 2004 NBL Grand Final series between the
Razorbacks and Kings was an all-time classic and brought an amazing buzz to the
Harbour City. The Kings are however
still re-establishing themselves in Sydney and there are many who believe that
a one-team, one-city model is the best option for the NBL. Yet there are some truly massive basketball
centres in western Sydney and if a model could be established that galvanised
the inherent interest in basketball in that area, a second Sydney team would
certainly be of interest.
Chances: Maybe
5. Newcastle
Called by some the spiritual home of basketball in Australia,
Newcastle has had two previous NBL incarnations. First came the Newcastle Falcons, a
foundation club that folded in 1999.
Then followed the Hunter Pirates, who were in the league for three
seasons from 2003 to 2006. Hopes of the
return of an NBL team to Newcastle were raised a few years ago when local
mining magnate Nathan Tinkler indicated an interest in purchasing a license
through his Hunter Sports Group. Those hopes have however suffered a
significant blow following Tinkler’s recent well-publicised financial
setbacks. There is however strong
support from the Newcastle Basketball Association for a license bid, and
certainly, with a population of over half a million people, the market size
should be capable of supporting a pro team.
If Tinkler can engineer a return to his high-flying fortunes, it is not
outside the realms of possibility that the Falcons could fly again.
Chances: Maybe
6. Hobart
Whilst adding Brisbane would, as I said earlier, allow the
NBL to move back to a truly ‘national’ competition, one state still remains
unrepresented – Tasmania. Hobart (population 220,000), Devonport (85,000) and
Launceston (110,000) have previously had NBL teams and Launceston actually won
the NBL title in 1981. Yet since the
Hobart Devils were punted from the NBL in 1996 due to financial difficulties
the Apple Isle has been without representation in the league. There are however currently two Tasmanian
teams in the SEABL – the Hobart Chargers and North West Tasmanian Thunder. Both have had their share of success in that
super-competitive league and have dedicated fan bases. Clearly, Hobart is the largest market and
there is reportedly strong local government support for an NBL license bid
there. The population of Hobart is also
larger than that in both Townsville and Cairns.
Yet to be truly successful, a Tasmanian club would harness the complete
support of the Apple Isle and that is difficult. There is a strong North and South divide in
Tasmania and getting one half of the state to support a team in the other is no
easy task. There is however significant
interest in Tasmania in returning to the national stage in pro sports, and an
NBL team would certainly be a cheaper option than an AFL franchise. If Tasmania is to get an NBL team, it will
need significant investment to be made in infrastructure first. The bid group
would also need to convince BA that there was value in adding what would
effectively be another regional-sized market to the league.
Chances: Maybe
7. Geelong
The Geelong Supercats prowled the NBL from 1982 to 1996
before ultimately handing back their license.
They have however since continued to compete in the SEABL very
successfully and have the infrastructure in place for an NBL bid in the form of
the Geelong Arena. The city of Geelong
has a population of almost 175,000 people, and already hosts a successful pro
sports franchise in the Geelong Cats AFL team.
An NBL team could provide the good folks of Sleepy Hollow a Summer team
to support. Geelong’s Supercats
basketball team also already has strong community and media support in place
and, if they ultimately decide they do want to get back into the league, they
are well placed to put forward a compelling case for inclusion.
Chances: Maybe
8. Gold Coast
The scars from losing the second Gold Coast NBL team are
still raw, but there is a reason most of Australia’s pro leagues have placed a
team on the glitter strip that can’t be ignored. It has a population of just under 515,000,
making it the sixth-largest population centre in Australia and its growing
fast. There is a somewhat seasonal and
transient element to that population given it’s a major tourist destination,
yet it is still a very sizeable market. Restarting
an NBL franchise on the Gold Coast would take a lot of work as there were many
people burnt by the Blaze. It is highly
unlikely to happen in the short term, but if the league does start to
successfully expand, then there is little doubt that a strong bid from a Gold
Coast based group would need to be seriously considered.
Chances: Slim
9. Darwin
The Northern Territory has hosted a number of NBL games over
the years as well as a pair of pre-season tournaments yet there has been little
serious talk of an NBL team there. Its
relative isolation is one factor that has dampened enthusiasm for a Darwin-based
team, yet a case could be made for a Northern Territory side. There are 130,000
people in the city (only slightly less than Townsville and Cairns) and
basketball is a popular sport locally. With
NBL teams as far away as Perth and Auckland already, a team in Darwin should
hold little fear in terms of travel time. The concern really lies around ensuring there
is sufficient corporate support, yet it is not out of the question that the
Northern Territory government could be enticed to be a naming rights sponsor. Getting everyone in the Territory to support a
team based in Darwin will be a challenge.
The Darwin v Alice Springs divide is every bit as strong as Hobart v
Launceston. Yet an NBL team would be the
first major pro team in NT and it fair to expect that whoever does venture
there first will foster significant good will.
Chances: Slim
