Hoops

Calls for NBL season to switch

NBL games in Melbourne used to thrive during Winter - it was common for the 'Sell out' sign t be posted on the door of Rod Laver Arena with 15k+ watching Tigers vs Magic games (local rivalry). For heck's sake, they sed to get 8k+ to games involving teams such as Illawarra and even the defunct GC Rollers! There is no longer a Magic team, the Giants and Titans have folded and the Tigers now play home games at the Netball and Hocky Center (3,500 capacity) as opposed to Rod Laver or even Vodfone arena. The Tigers just manage to get 2,500 to each game, and they sell out for South Dragons.
NBL needs to switch back to winter, and focus on establishing moe rivalries between teams, with obviously the media being required to help play a part.
To say it won't work in Melbourne is not just right, and history and the facts should be better explored.

IIRR, one of the reasons for the switch to summer was that during winter, concerts go indoors, in summer they go outdoors. Sixers are the only team with their own stadium, everyone else has to book their local Ent Centre. Not only was it difficult to get bookings in winter, with consequent scheduling nightmares, but the NBL had to pay top dollar too. In summer, there are more empty dates to make scheduling easier and booking rates are also lower, I believe.

However, I think if the NBL went to the northern off-season the quality of the product would improve, we'd get better quality imports with fringe NBA players looking to work on their game. I don't know if we'd get Euro-based Aussies back, they might want the off-season break.

There's many problems with switching to the winter months. AFL is the major sport here in Australia and many NBL fans are also AFL fans. Basketball will lose out to football. Its all very good to think that many American & European players will come out here to play if it doesn't coincide with their season over there but fans are still needed to attend games and pay for tickets. Also, if there is no spare crossover time, then we would be faced with players leaving Australia without participating in finals. Also the fact that they would come and play here for extra "pocket" money means they would not give it everything they've got because their livelihood does not depend on it. Also the body gets sore and tired. Time is needed to heal from these ailments. This is another reason why they probably won't play hard because they need to preserve their bodies for their main jobs overseas.

And why would that be anon?

So, it all comes back to free to air television really.....

Would only be the last couple of months of the footy season though, would not clash too much you wouldn't think.

Agreed that the best part would be getting players back from Europe, instead of competing to keep them here(which does not happen due to the $$$ obviously) but as I mentioned earlier what about the Olympics and World Championships? Do they leave a 1 month window for when those clash?

Firstly my spin on Kent's simple formulas above

Winter = Footy = Humans outside
(except sometimes at Docklands)

Summer = Hot Outside so turn on Air Conditioning = Humans inside!!!


If the NBL switched back to Winter, would many fans be affected who also have football season tickets/memberships?

There's no way I'd be paying for both Blaze and Titans (NRL) season tickets/memberships at the start of the year. (Titans would lose out by the way!)

I suspect most who had to choose would stick with footy. This may not translate to 1000's of fans but may offset some ticket revenue possibly gained with a move back to Winter.

haha. Wrong thread. Thought I was in the game thread.