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Let me let you in on a secret. The Australian men’s basketball team – the Boomers – are playing in the World Cup in Spain in September.
I am in a special club that knows about this event. The event must be a secret because there has been no advertising or media activity about that I have seen. I knew all about the Socceroos playing in Brazil because they were splashed all over my TV, newspapers and websites.
No matter where I turned I was saturated with information about our hapless football team that failed to win a match – but won lots of hearts, apparently.
I love basketball, however, and for the life of me I cannot find anything about the Boomers anywhere. Please tell me I am looking in the wrong spots. First I checked the major media outlets – News Corp, Fairfax, Fox sports Sky news – you know the big ones. Not a sausage.
Then I checked the TV channels sports websites – you know Seven, Ten, Nine, ABC, SBS. Nothing. Nada. Zip.
Then I went to the Basketball Australia (BA) website. Yes the Boomers were there but they were squeezed in among a very crowded site with links to a dozen representative teams. They did not have their own space on the home page but after a bit of navigation I found their page.
I can only assume that BA does not regard them as very important if they cannot be granted their own space on the home page.
I then tried social media – being an older gent this is a bit new to me but I ‘liked’ the Boomers on Facebook to see what would happen. I got to their Facebook page which was apparently ‘liked’ by 39,000 other basketball fans. I was expecting a notification to my Facebook page welcoming me to the family but alas no – not a sausage.
I then tried Twitter. They have 11,500 followers. A couple of tweets were evident but mostly to do with the U17s Men’s team. There was one very old pinned tweet with a dorky photo of the Boomers attached.
Given that there are over 1,000,000 registered basketballers in this country, mostly under 40 years of age, you would expect a much higher take up in social media, but alas no.
As for the team they started the journey to the World Cup with an impressive series against China, winning more than losing. This should have been a great momentum starter to get the Australian public involved.
Dante Exum and Cameron Bairstow then made the NBA draft. Then Patty Mills and Aron Baynes toured the country with the NBA trophy they had just won. Impressive crowds turned out to see them – particularly here in Canberra – but BA failed to capitalise on this and the momentum never got going.
The piece de résistance in my mind however was the final training camp. This was held in Canberra in apparent secrecy – why?
This should have been split between Sydney, Melbourne and Perth with buckets of breakfast news anchors, not to mention school kids, fawning all over them and promoting this great team – but alas they were locked away at the AIS doing shell and shooting drills.
Hardly the stuff required to inspire the nation to get behind their team.
Am I missing something here? This Boomers squad is one of the best we have ever sent to a World Cup or Championships. They are in a good group and should win through to the final 16.
They are also good enough to win through to the final eight if all goes well and they stay injury free. Yet BA has done apparently next to nothing to promote this wonderful team. It must be a secret plan they have.
No worries – let’s just keep it between us.
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