NBL.TV: Do or die for Aussie Basketball
Roar Guru As I raced home Friday afternoon to catch the New Zealand Breakers taking on the Perth Wildcats in the opening round of the NBL season, it wasn’t long until the realisation set in that this would not be the night I’d be cheering for my beloved champion winning team.
Was I naive to think that maybe, just maybe Network Ten might be so generous to showcase the opening match in what was a repeat of last year’s grand final?
It appears that yes, I was indeed delusional because as I flicked to ONE HD I was left to find a repeat of M*A*S*H instead of live basketball.
Now to counteract this problem and the previous inaccessibility to live NBL games, we have now been introduced to NBL.TV. The idea is an Australian first, where we as fans have the ability to watch every game of the National Basketball League Championship live and in full over all media platforms.
For a small price, obviously.
For the debatable cost of $19 a month/$79 a season, you can watch all four games a week live (bit irrelevant now though when Network Ten have come to the table and will show one live Sunday game a week).
So theoretically you are paying $19 to view only nine live games a month.
This causes me to frown.
Not that we can even begin to compare, but the NBA gives fans in Australia the option to stream live games for the cost of roughly A$27 a month. The obvious difference is that you get a whopping 40 to 50 games in any given week. 40 to 50 per week!
That’s huge dunk for your buck.
Now I support and love our National Basketball League, but choosing to only air one live game on free-to-air per week is surely a hindrance to an already struggling sport.
In over five years the NBL has gone from 13 teams to only the current eight. This year we witnessed the folding of the Gold Coast Blaze, citing financial difficulties even after declaring they originally had a $500,000 cash injection from a mystery backer.
The sad reality of basketball downunder is that we simply don’t have a strong enough competition, partly due to the fact that any decent player will eventually sign to a team in the US or Europe in the search for an NBA contract.
So why make it even more difficult for fans to keep interested when you take it to online viewing only?
With only the modest four NBL games a week, how could they not have worked out a deal to show them all on TV, even if only two were on free-to-air and the remaining two on pay TV?
Imagine the potential for new fans, not to mention the exposure for the sport itself.
The way the Breakers have been marketed in New Zealand brings enthusiasm to the sport. Now I know New Zealand only have the one NBL team so their fan-base does have an advantage. This was reiterated with a sell-out crowd of 4000 at last week’s game.
SKY Sport have an agreement with Basketball Australia that over these next three years they will show all Breakers home and away games on SKY Sport, including any finals.
I feel as though here in Australia every season the promoters of the NBL get it wrong.
NBL newly appointed CEO Kristina Keneally recently made the following statement on the new digital move.
“This deal truly puts us ahead of the pack: basketball is the first sport in Australia to give fans such comprehensive digital access to live sports content on-the-go.
More Australians than ever will now be able to see the NBL, with access to every game of the iiNet NBL Championship season live across multiple platforms on NBL.TV”.
I disagree, I believe more Australians would be watching if coverage was shown on actual television. I don’t know how many youths with a passion for basketball are going to be able to convince their parents to fork over $79.
Yes it certainly does have the benefit of retaining control of its own product therefore benefiting first hand the revenue generated, but again I ask is this going to be enough to further promote the sport throughout Australia, or just keep the NBL headquarters ticking over?
I’d be interested to know how many subscribers NBL.TV has so far and if it will indeed be viable over the coming years.
Let’s hope for the game’s sake that it survives and starts to really get Australian basketball back on its feet.
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October 9th 2012 @ 7:46am
Topnovil said | October 9th 2012 @ 7:46am | Report comment
This is very misleading.. NBL crowd numbers, tv ratings, merchandise sales and internet traffic has actually gone up every year since 2009.. It’s far from do or die.
October 9th 2012 @ 8:28am
Christo the Daddyo said | October 9th 2012 @ 8:28am | Report comment
“I’d be interested to know how many subscribers NBL.TV has so far and if it will indeed be viable over the coming years.”
Yes, this is the critical question. It’s all very well to trumpet that people now have the opportunity to watch the games, but how many will actually do so in this form?
October 9th 2012 @ 9:26am
Ferdinand said | October 9th 2012 @ 9:26am | Report comment
You make the erroneous assumption that the NBL or BA have in fact been “choosing to only air one live game on free-to-air per week”. You really don’t think that maybe they might have actually tried to get all their games live on free to air if they could have? The NBL has NEVER in its 30-plus seasons had all games covered on FTA TV. The demand from the FTA channels for the product simply isn’t there yet.
Last season their FTA partner One showed all games – even the Grand Final series – on delay. Fans were outraged. Yet just a few years ago, the NBLhad ZERO games on FTA TV (and then fans complained that they had to pay for Foxtel to watch games).
Give credit where credit is due. BA and the NBL have renegotiated their contract with Ten to ensure there are two games a week on FTA (including one live game every Sunday at the decent timeslot of 2pm) as well as launching NBL.TV which allows fans the chance to watch every single game for the entire season on their PC, mobile or tablet. That is a tremendous step forward and any nitpicking like in this article is just plain uninformed and ridiculous.
October 9th 2012 @ 10:39am
Lucan said | October 9th 2012 @ 10:39am | Report comment
Not a fan of this article. Racing home to view a game that was never set to screen on television? I would expect the die hard fans would be the ones most aware of what is being televised this season, and what isn’t.
Agree with Ferdinand, it has been widely reported (even here on The Roar) that this is the best deal BA/NBL could muster, and a better deal than we’ve had in recent years.
October 10th 2012 @ 2:40pm
James said | October 10th 2012 @ 2:40pm | Report comment
hahaha Yeah I like the part about racing home to watch the game when it clearly wasnt going ot be shown, and even last season there was no live Friday games and it took a last minute decision to get the GF beamed live to Perth.
October 9th 2012 @ 11:53am
Siege of Perth said | October 9th 2012 @ 11:53am | Report comment
I think you are putting to much blame on the NBL, its Channel 10/1 that are the culprits here. They can show every game, live if the want. But they choose not to because they think they will make more money showing programs such as mash. The NBL is a weak league but I think the NBL have done a decent job considering to give an option to watch the game, and renegotiate with 10 to make them show at least one game. I agree the price is far too steap. Like I said its a weak league plus to be honest I only really want to watch just the Wildcats so for me I cant justify stumping up the $80 for the season pass.
October 9th 2012 @ 12:03pm
Mookie said | October 9th 2012 @ 12:03pm | Report comment
I’m thrilled with the huge advance that is NBL.TV. Let’s not forget where we’ve come from: we initially had to shell out for pay tv to watch *some* of the games, then got to a situation where we could watch *some* of the games *delayed* on FTA, and now we have a *live* game on FTA and a slightly delayed one, in addition to *every* game available on NBL.TV for the price of a few cups of coffee a month. It sometimes makes me wonder what it’ll do to make people happy.
A couple of other things:
- A quick glance at the NBL site would’ve revealed which game was playing on TV that night.
- NBA TV is actually more than what you listed, at about $44/mth I believe.
October 9th 2012 @ 2:20pm
Nathan of Perth said | October 9th 2012 @ 2:20pm | Report comment
I’d point out there there are only so many games that a person can physically watch in a week and a much smaller amount that a fan would be interested in watching. Having 40-50 games available is all well and good but are they really going to be watching more than five a week anyway?
Gald that NZ Breakers have been ginning up some enthusiasm. Obviously different clubs are getting different results but there are some success stories. With their move to Perth Arena, Wildcats have been absolutely hammering the marketing. TV, radio, billboards, news stories, big social media presence. They even got pretty girls with masses of pamphlets to stake out the path between West Leederville station and Subiaco Oval when the Wallabies and Eagles were playing.
As a result they have gone from 3,000 season memberships to over 6,000. A very strong start to expanding their fanbase. And they still have a bit over a month to their first home game ( :X )
October 9th 2012 @ 2:25pm
Trent said | October 9th 2012 @ 2:25pm | Report comment
I think NBL TV is a great more for a struggling sport to cost effectively produce and provide content to a sport that seems to be on the rise as far as overall awanress and passion of basketball. It would be interesting to see how the NBA TV (american model, of which Aussies can sign up for an international pass) has grown over the years as the NBA despite not being in this country is the clear leader when it comes to the basketbasll product and has the most significant affect on interest and engagement with the general pubic. I for one have signed up for and paid (took the early bird option!) for NBL TV and whilst there appearaed to be a slight issue with the Kings vs Tigers game last Friday night (confusion that you couldn’t watch live despite having a digital subscription as it was being shown on Ten 2 hours later – something that was fixed reasonably quickly) I thorouhgly enjoyed having the capacity to watch despite not being able to head to the game – something that more and more australians face now as disposable income and other factors play a part in people’s lives. Like everyone that’s commented above, I’d love to know how many people (a) have signed up, but (b) have since activated their account and watched a game, but it will be very fruitful for the game longer term as they start to develop their CRM and grow interaction and engagement with fans as viewers of the game, not as attendee’s – not something many other sports in Aus have yet to achieve, but will slowly do.
October 9th 2012 @ 3:11pm
Crimpy said | October 9th 2012 @ 3:11pm | Report comment
I am not wanting to promote gambling, but bet365 give you free live streaming of these games if you have an account with money in it with them.
The quality is pretty poor.
October 9th 2012 @ 5:11pm
bill said | October 9th 2012 @ 5:11pm | Report comment
The figure is actually 15 live games a month on NBL TV that you cant watch anywhere else, not nine as stated in this article.
October 9th 2012 @ 5:21pm
.Jarrad said | October 9th 2012 @ 5:21pm | Report comment
I think what does the NBL no help is articles such as this, where you state every downfall and note that the league “is not strong enough”… anyone who watched the first 4 games in the season would kno that the league is definitely strong enough to hold its own. Your really complaining about nothing here… fact is, Channel 10 will never air every Basketball game Live, thats just a fantasy.. will not happen. We should be happy that Channel 10, of all channels does show a live game at all! only a few years ago we couldnt see NBL anywhere! the league is without doubt on the way up. I am sick of hearing people call it a weak league.. in what way is it weak? the talent is definitely there.. ex NBA imports come here and get chewed up and spat out! and is it weak overall? well after every catastrophe and every naysayer saying its dead its back the next year! and I dare say it will always be.