Basketball Australia (BA) looks set to shelve its planned new NBL for 12 months after the Melbourne Tigers’ withdrawal left the competition without a team in Melbourne, Sydney or Brisbane.
BA chief executive Larry Sengstock will announce on Tuesday whether the revamped league will go ahead.
But the Tigers’ decision to follow fellow Melbourne club South Dragons and not to take part in any remodelled competition this year has left plans for a credible national basketball league in tatters.
Six teams – Perth Wildcats, Gold Coast Blaze, New Zealand Breakers, Townsville Crocodiles, Cairns and Wollongong – are understood to have lodged applications for the new competition by Monday’s deadline.
The Adelaide 36ers’ status remains unknown, with an ownership change still in the pipeline.
Sengstock said he was disappointed with the Tigers’ decision – the club saying on Monday BA’s current model was “clearly unsustainable”.
BA would now have to seriously consider putting any new competition on hold, Sengstock said.
“I honestly felt as of last week we had everybody heading in the same direction, but that’s taken a turn with the Dragons and Tigers,” Sengstock told AAP.
“We have to re-assess and have a look and say ‘what is the market telling us?’
“It’s given us the opportunity and thought process to say ‘let’s now create what we need, what we want’ and not try to mix, match and patch.
“Understand what the market wants, what television wants and take the time to build it.”
But Sengstock was mindful of balancing the needs of the clubs that had applied to be part of the competition, as well as the likely drain of players and coaches overseas, and the financial stress many would face if elite men’s basketball went into a hiatus.
“From a sport point of view, we have to make sure we look after all our constituents – coaches, players, our spectators, and also look at what’s best for our profile.
“If we do take a break, what will it do our game and can we recover from it?
“We need to go back to first principles … a unified model and bringing the grassroots and the elite of basketball together into one.
“We need to work out how we best deliver the elite basketball using that unified model.”
Tigers owner Seamus McPeake said starting a new competition in October was “unsustainable” and the best thing for the sport to do was take a break and get the structure of any new competition right.
That is a similar approach soccer adopted in moving from the friendless NSL to the new A-League – the sport spending 18 months without a national competition until the launch of the A-League.
“We believe it’s in the best interest of the sport to sit out for this year and get this set up properly, get the reform completed, get the proper governance in place and the commerciality of the sport,” McPeake said.
“The time out of the sport to get it right, get the right people involved … will deliver us what we need.”
All current Tigers players will be released from their contracts from June 30.
But head coach Al Westover, who is in the middle of a 10-year deal, is set to be retained if he wants to remain with the club.
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