Tough news has filtered out today for Brisbane Bullets fans. It seems that their most recent bid to get a franchise together and returned to the National Basketball League has been punctured again.
According to the always clued-in Boti Nagy at the Adelaide Advertiser, there is now more chance of the Newcastle Falcons returning to the NBL than than the Bullets:
BRISBANE’S Bullets assuredly will not be back next season in the NBL and may even be in a race to beat inaugural club Newcastle.
Representatives of mining and racing magnate Nathan Tinkler’s Tinkler Sports Group and Newcastle basketball met yesterday with Basketball Australia boss Larry Sengstock regarding the return to the NBL of the Falcons.
TSG plans to take control of the Newcastle Knights NRL club and is keen on backing the Falcons, who helped launch the NBL in 1979.
The Falcons lasted 20 years, then from 2003-06, Hunter Pirates represented one of basketball’s primary areas.
“As a league we are encouraged by an organisation such as the Tinkler Group’s interests in re-establishing an NBL club in the Newcastle district,” Sengstock said.
BA’s top priority remains establishing a presence again in Brisbane and a second team in Melbourne but I believe the Newcastle meeting went well and the Falcons may yet be back in 2013.
More background on the Newcastle consortium here.
Having waited for the Sydney Kings to return to the NBL (as they thankfully did this season), I can empathise with the plight of both Bullets and Falcons fans (as well as those in Victoria waiting for a second Melbourne team). Unfortunately, things don’t always turn out as we would like them in a perfect world. One suggestion that always looms is for a community group to get together and resurrect a team, as per either the Wollongong Hawks or Cairns Taipans models. The best of luck to all of you.
