Basketball Australia has had a solid year to come up with a reform plan for the game of basketball in Australia — more specifically, they have had that long to develop a structure for a new elite senior mens’ competition in Australia; a successor to the National Basketball League (NBL). Technically they have achieved their goal, with the annoucement by BA Chief Executive Officer, Larry Sengstock, that a seven team competition will go ahead in 2009-10.
However it is a struggle to find many that would call the reform package a success.
The seven teams that have continued with their expressions of interest for the new competition are the Adelaide 36ers, Cairns Taipans, Gold Coast Blaze, New Zealand Breakers, Perth Wildcats, Townsville Crocodiles and Wollongong Hawks. Notably absent from that list are two teams that have pulled the plug on their 2009-10 aspirations, finalists the Melbourne Tigers and South Dragons — the only two teams from Australia’s sporting capital.
The newly touted league will hence be without teams from Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane for the coming season — hardly a success-drenched plan in anyone’s books. Sydney (Kings) and Brisbane (Bullets) were already absent after their respective collapses a year ago — however there had been speculation of a return of one/both clubs after parties attempted to resurrect them for the new competition. Sydney’s only entry in the 2008-09 season, the Spirit, decided against lodging an EOI for next season.
Victoria’s Sports Minister James Merlino has joined a chorus of cat-calls that BA has failed to deliver a new structure that appeals to all parties and that they have decided to go ahead with the 2009-10 season, despite the fact that things are clearly not in a format that looks to be promising. Merlino was interviewed on the ABC’s World Today, calling the decision to go ahead with the new competition “a joke.”
It is just extremely disappointing for Victorian basketball fans that this league will go ahead it seems without any teams from Melbourne and frankly it is a joke.
You know, we have got a situation where, an extraordinary situation where at the local level, at the grass roots, the sport is absolutely thriving. At the elite level, you know the Boomers and the Opals are at the top echelon of the sport world-wide, yet Basketball Australia and nationally, we just can’t seem to get our act together for a fair dinkum national league.
When asked whether he would approach the Federal Government on the issue and whether they would be supportive of change in the league, he had this to say:
It’s really a responsibility of the national codes to put together proposals that stack up in a governance sense, that stack up financially. So they’ve got to put the case to the Federal Government so whether we are talking about the national soccer competition or the transnational netball competition or basketball in this country, they’ve got to make the case.
It is the responsibility of the sporting codes to make the case to the Federal Government and to states and territories that their competition is viable so really, the essence of this problem stems to Basketball Australia putting up a commercially viable national competition.
When they do that, they will get the support of governments, they will get the support of the key basketball teams around the country.
Former NBA player and Melbourne Tiger, Chris Anstey has called the moves by BA “a piece of crap“. He also doubts that he would travel interstate if he did compete in a new competition, saying he may be retired as of now.
Meanwhile, NBL superstar and superblogger John Rillie has indicated that he is looking for other work, as he has severe doubts about the veracity of this new league structure. JR posted this video on his thoughts (before the BA annoucement went live) and he had this discussion with Isaac Forman of hoops.com.au on possible players that would join a rebel league, should the newly discussed league not find its feet.
It has been clear for some time now that BA should have elected to take a year off and get the league sorted out once and for all, re-launching out of the ashes like a Phoenix and making the kind of impact that soccer’s re-birth made with their A-League. The withdrawal of the two Melbourne sides in the week of D-Day should have only added fuel to the already burning fire on this topic. Another punter has a similar view on this here.
The only possible benefit of running with the downsized seven team league this season is to keep players in work — however the long-term disadvantages of this ill-chosen move are too numerous to discuss here and now. BA needs to re-think this move — and fast.
Ten News had this report on the situation:
