Where to from here for Australian basketball?
Roar Guru By Paul Smeaton, 26 Jan 2009 The Crowd is a Roar Guru
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- 1980s, Basketball, Brisbane, Brisbane Bullets, Bullets, Canberra, NBL, Rugby Union, Super Rugby, Sydney Kings
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As the 2008/2009 NBL basketball season draws to a conclusion, many Aussie basketball fans are asking, “who cares!”
The high-flying days of the 1980s seem so long ago, when names like Leroy Loggins, Cal Bruton and Phil Smyth, rolled off the tongue in conversations around the water cooler.
The Canberra Cannons, Brisbane Bullets and Sydney Kings, with nine titles between them in a competition barely 30 years old, no longer exist.
Fast forward to today and we see a national competition with no free-to-air television exposure, limited interest from print media, and, therefore, a product that hardly has the sponsors lining up.
In a country of only 21 million people, the question has to be asked. Can Australia support a professional basketball competition any longer?
AFL, NRL, Super 14 and now the A-League are powerful forces in the highly competitive sponsorship arena of Australian sport. It’s hard to see how the NBL can compete now that the novelty and hype surrounding the game in its formative years has gone.
Many traditional basketball fans in previous strongholds such as Brisbane and Canberra have gone and with the strong possibility of Australia’s largest city Sydney not having a team in any future competition, the future for the NBL looks bleak.
The game remains popular at a grass roots level, with high participation levels in junior competitions, but with a weak national competition and limited media exposure from either local or overseas competitions, even the future is a concern.
As Basketball Australia formulates a new plan and structure for the NBL Aussie basketball fans will have to hold ther collective breath and hope that their team, their competition, will still be there as the new decade dawns.
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- 1980s, Basketball, Brisbane, Brisbane Bullets, Bullets, Canberra, NBL, Rugby Union, Super Rugby, Sydney Kings
January 26th 2009 @ 10:01am
mahony said | January 26th 2009 @ 10:01am | Report comment
The response to this article says it all really…….. No reflection on the writing.
Good night.
January 26th 2009 @ 10:30am
Kelvination said | January 26th 2009 @ 10:30am | Report comment
I’d hardly call the competition weak, the on court product is high. Half of the recent Olympic team (that challenged the USA for half of the match) play in the NBL. How many A-Leaguers will be in the final World Cup squad? How many AFL and NRL players… oh wait only a handful of states in the world care about these sports combined.
Wasn’t Soccer in a similar position a few years ago? A-League is only where it is today thanks to a billionaire bankrolling it and getting it legitimate TV coverage.
Basketball’s problem is not that the novelty and hype has worn off as you put it, more the fact that due to terrible mismanagement, virtually zero marketing from the NBL and most clubs over the past decade nobody knows these games are on. It would be different if Basketball had a billionaire at the helm.
Yeah, Sydney being out is a harsh blow, but Basketball is not alone. How much longer can the Sydney based NRL teams survive with crowd numbers falling?
January 26th 2009 @ 11:24am
Rossco said | January 26th 2009 @ 11:24am | Report comment
Interesting topic. I attended a 30th reunion for the Canberra Cannons on Friday night. Various luminaries from the glory, and not so glory days were there and there was a general catch-cry of getting the Cannons back and in the NBL. I came away with the feeling that the rally call was forlorn though. The reality is as the article says – it’s a league well in decline.
I talked to quite a few long time basketball people, both fans and players, and there was some agreement that the only way forward was back. Back to a semi-pro game, back to a participant based fan group and back to playing in local stadiums aiming at consistent crowds of 1500 – 2000. As with most national league sports, there was a consensus that ticket prices were no where near conducive to rebuilding crowd numbers.
I’d also be curious in participation numbers, particularly at junior level. Canberra experience is that junior numbers are well down on the glory days.
January 26th 2009 @ 2:46pm
Sam said | January 26th 2009 @ 2:46pm | Report comment
I notice basketball people constantly comparing Australian basketball to a-league.
Firstly in terms of participation numbers and registered players, basketball comes nowhere near football (soccer) in Australia. Let’s get the facts right.
Secondly it is no point now comparing it to a-league, as the a-league is still a young competition and has had modest sucess considering where the sport was five years ago. It has taken a professional approach.
This is what basketball needs to do now. Trying to bring the a-league down with it is not going to work anymore, as the the FFA has put a plan in place and is currently competing with the other football codes (not basketball).
Maybe Basketball Australia could learn a thing or two from the FFA. There is still time for basketball to regain its lost ground, however it should perhaps concentrate on itself and its product.
January 26th 2009 @ 3:18pm
mahony said | January 26th 2009 @ 3:18pm | Report comment
I think there is only one comparison with football that makes any sense – and it is more rhetorical than anything. In the minds of many Australian’s, while football is perceived as a local game played by migrants (rather incorrectly I might add) – basketball is seen as a ‘foreign’ game. I think this is at the heart of the games problem. I also think that football benefits from being one of four local variants of a game apparently loved by humanity. The derogatory A-League references in the basketball press in recent days are understood for the absurdity they are.
January 26th 2009 @ 3:48pm
Michael DiFabrizio said | January 26th 2009 @ 3:48pm | Report comment
Sam, what was said in the media by Seamus McPeake about the A-League is pretty much indefensible. Why BA are ignoring what the A-League has done is beyond me.
As for the comparisons, they are not entirely unwarranted. According to ABS stats, basketball had 214,600 organized participants in 05/06. Football (outdoor) had 245,500. Yes, football is ahead, but it’s not the gigantic gap you insinuate it is. The reason they get put in the same category is that both sports have higher numbers than AFL, league or union do.
There are genuine parallels between where football was and where basketball is. The ‘foreign’ perception, as mahony suggested, is another of them. As is mismanagement. And that is a problem which, judging by what McPeake has said and numerous other decisions of late, is still lingering in basketball. But we’ll have to wait and see how this reform plays out.
January 26th 2009 @ 4:04pm
dasilva said | January 26th 2009 @ 4:04pm | Report comment
There also another parallel
EPL overshadows the A-league
NBA overshadows the NBL
January 26th 2009 @ 4:18pm
Sam said | January 26th 2009 @ 4:18pm | Report comment
Michael
I live in Western Sydney and from what I gather of kids playing sport in the region I live, Football (soccer) is miles ahead. I also see a lot of netball courts with young girls playing on them. There is also obviously a fairly good reperesentation of rugby league and cricket being the traditional games. I do admit I have rarely seen basketball courts with people playing. Only really in a social context. That’s not to say the sport does not have any popularity.
It might be different in other states where basketball maybe challenges AFL. I am surprised that basketball has more participants than AFL so maybe it is in the Southern States where the sport thrives a bit more. Kings and Razorbacks were well known here by general sports fans, but to be quite honest the fact that they have perished has kind of killed the sport here.
January 26th 2009 @ 4:18pm
mahony said | January 26th 2009 @ 4:18pm | Report comment
Yes dasilva – but the question is one of cultural ‘fit’ – not the relative size (or available salaries by extension) of two completely unrelated leagues. By your reasoning Serie-A, La Liga, League One and a whole lot of other football leagues are in trouble as the basketball juggernaught stampedes across Europe.
January 26th 2009 @ 4:27pm
dasilva said | January 26th 2009 @ 4:27pm | Report comment
mahony
My point (although I didn’t really elaborate before) is that there are a huge untapped market of Football fans who refused to watch the A-leagues but will watch EPL (and other leagues).
Same thing with Basketball. I used to be a basketball fans and used to follow the Houstan rockets but couldn’t give a stuff about the NBL (although I did jump on the bandwagon when ADelaide 36ers won the NBL) Nowadays I don’t watch NBA either. In any case Basketball has the same problem in trying to get people who are NBA only basketball fans.
Those leagues such as serie-A, la-liga, Ligue 1 may be less powerful but they don’t have the same problems about attracting supporters then Australia has with trying to get eurosnobs to watch the A-league