Comments on: Time for private ownership to become public

By: Mushi

Mushi — Mon, 18 May 2009 07:03:51 +0000

Jub Jub does the A$15m given to start over about 5 or so years back count? Did the NBL get this and everyone is just failing to mention it?

From the way I read it he is not saying other sports don’t get support, just that the level of support from the government to soccer is very substantial and makes it impossible to use as a blue print for another game.

Personally I love basketball but am extremely pessimistic as to a third tier survives as a truly professional league with the limited following.

I share the authors concerns regarding private ownership, but I fail to see where these community groups are going to get the capital required to build a truly professional national league.

By: jub jub

jub jub — Sun, 17 May 2009 11:49:33 +0000

and for the record.. your claim that the government does/has not supported other codes is wrong.

By: jub jub

jub jub — Sun, 17 May 2009 11:48:11 +0000

bozo.. if you’re going to make such claims as the government is supporting the A-League, please provide your source. Otherwise, shut the **** up.

By: bozo

bozo — Sun, 17 May 2009 11:43:10 +0000

The A League can not be used as a model for any other sport. The Federal Government has poured many millions of dollars into soccer, which it has not done with other sports, to get a competition structure in place.

By: AG

AG — Sun, 17 May 2009 11:35:24 +0000

Hemmerliong is a strange one, as he has a fairly deep basketball heritage as both a player and an administrator. I was the last person who thought he would seemingly abrogate his responsibilities when the club and the league were at crisis point.

By: Greg Russell

Greg Russell — Sun, 17 May 2009 00:18:05 +0000

Thanks, Michael, for a very interesting and thought provoking article. Just two comments to perhaps even the ledger a little bit:

1. It’s a very difficult time for private owners right now, because of the state of the world economy. I don’t think that the concept of private ownership should be dismissed on the basis of what is happening now.

2. Not all private owners should be lumped together, as some are very generous people who are not in it to make money. Frank Lowy is an obvious example. Another from the A-League is Terry Serepisos, a millionaire Wellington property developer who stepped in two years ago when professional football in New Zealand was all but dead. Serepisos was not a football fanatic – he said at the time he was forking out the big bucks primarily for philanthropic reasons. He has said that one day he would like the Wellington Phoenix to break even, but after two seasons they are still far from doing that. The payback for Serepisos is that he has gone from being a virtual unknown in New Zealand to being someone who is widely recognized, and I am sure that is worth a lot of money to his property businesses.

It seems to me that the problem with basketball in Australia is not private ownership per se, but that it hasn’t had more private owners like Lowy, Serepisos and Russell Crowe.