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NBL in 2008 - photo by Trevor Jackson
Brisbane gone, Sydney gone, Adelaide potentially going and now Melbourne also potentially going with defending champs South Dragons already withdrawing from the revamped NBL and, incredibly, the Melbourne Tigers rumoured to be following. Is this the sad demise of our national basketball competition?
Many are preparing the obituaries.
It’s difficult to see the proposed revamp of the NBL now surviving without such franchises.
The South Dragons, Melbourne Tigers and Adelaide 36ers should have formed the basis for the ‘new’ NBL, the latter two, combined with the Perth Wildcats, were the oldest survivors with close to three decades worth of history and culture, established bases in three crucial markets.
The fact that such franchises are unable to either find the investment necessary to keep their doors open (36ers) or are unwilling to commit to the league (Dragons) speaks volumes of the crisis, the uncertainty surrounding Basketball Australia and lack of any direction.
As Dragons co-owner Raphael Geminder wrote in an open letter, “Sadly, this basketball reform has run out of time and failed to deliver on any of its promises.”
While many make the obvious comparisons to the formation of the A-League and switch from ‘old soccer’ to ‘new football’, there are numerous differences between the two that make this template for change unique to football.
It was a multitude of factors that contributed to football’s reawakening: the Crawford Report, the direct government intervention through the Australian Sports Commission and its successful dismantling of the old Soccer Australia politics, the potential and popularity of the Socceroos, a wide supporter base not restricted to specific areas, a football culture that had thrived underground, and the culmination of decades of frustration that finally uncorked on all fronts within a relatively short space of time.
It was a snowball result of so many factors, many of which don’t necessarily translate to basketball.
It wasn’t an easy or straightforward process, something that is too easily forgotten when BA are lumped with the pressures and expectations of following football’s example.
Perhaps we have reached the zenith of how many different codes and competitions the public and private sectors can sustain, especially in an economy that has been so heavily impacted by the weight of the financial crisis.
The traditional powerhouse codes are now scraping over new markets like the Gold Coast and West Sydney while attempting to consolidate their heartlands and throw into the mix the growth sports from the last decade such as the V8 Supercars with their ability to pull substantial sponsorship deals, the revitalised and immensely popular ANZ netball series, helped by the success of the Diamonds not to mention the A-League, Socceroos and a host of fringe sports and international events and you have an incredibly crowded sporting landscape in a country that isn’t experiencing a great economic or population spurt.
This is just sport and with the other sectors, entertainment and the like competing for the same corporate and government dollars there is only so much money to go around.
For all the failings of Australian basketball, and they are numerous and have all contributed to this crisis, they were unlucky in the sense they didn’t have their house in order and faced this attempted revamp at a time when the global economy has contracted to such an extent while their rival codes, namely netball and football, had already been through the same process and had an established base to survive the crisis.
Basketball is deserving of a second chance and it has the potential to rise from the ashes, fuelled by the passion of the thousands who love the game and play it in large numbers.
Whether it happens or not is the question.