Hoops

Australian Basketball- What happened?

My wife figured this one out a few weeks ago. The Glasshouse in Melbourne closed in mid 1998, signally the beginning of the end for the NBL.

The NBL's peaked in the mid to late 90s. With three Melbourne based teams (Giants/Magic/Tigers) local derby games saw Flinders Park sold out. Free to air coverage in primetime on Ten. In 1996 the NBL revoked the licenses of the Supercats, the Gold Coast Rollers and the Hobart Devils. In 1998 the Glasshouse in Melbourne closed. Consequently the North Melbourne Giants merged with the Magic to form the Titans and the death spiral began.

The NBL was in some ways a victim of its own success. With the Magic and Tigers moving to Flinders Park, the Giants were left as the sole tenant at the Glasshouse. Hiring costs at Flinders Park were significantly higher than the Glasshouse, which wasn't a problem until the 1998/99 switch to summer and Mitsubishi's withdrawal as naming rights sponsor in late 2000.

High venue hiring costs + no naming rights sponsor + no revenue from TV rights = dead dead dead.

I predict the NBL in its current form will fail too. Look at the ticket prices. No way will I pay $42 to take my son to watch the Tigers. $18 for a child ! Are you insane ?

Beantown is right. The NBL does have a responsibility - whether it does it itself or ensures the clubs do it - it is their role as the governing body to make sure it happens.

Anonymous, I disagree that the NBL doesn't have a responsibility to ensure players are well recognised in the community. The league can't leave the promotion of its product up to the teams, because only some teams have proven to be adept at it. The league needs to drive the promotion of basketball at all levels as part of its core business and building the profile of key athletes to promote the game around is a big part of that.

Simple. Basketball was the hottest ticket in town when the NBL was on FTA TV every week. NBA appeals to a certain faction, but to get large numbers of bums on seats it has to be local & tribal - hence the success of AFL and the rising success of soccer. If you can watch your local team on TV, know the names of a few players & get a bit of hype on TV news and in the paper the people will come.

You know you are hitting the spot when the Premier or PM want to be seen at the game giving their support. It happened with basketball in the 80s/early 90s & it is happening now with AFL.

Be sure, the first thing AFL execs do on Monday morning is to look at the crowd figures for the weekend.

At the moment, the NBL is so anonymous that a whole team could walk down the street without anyone being recognised.

LOL HO, I'm following you now! I had forgotten Palmer. Now that I think back, I had a positive view of him as well at the time. Its a shame that the NBL had so many ineffectual heads after him.

BTW, I am actually one of those who has been arguing that the NBL needs to cut its cloth to fit its revenues. If that means salaries fall to semi-professional levels for some, so be it. I'd rather have a stable, grass roots league with a cult following than a high flying league with teams going under every 5 years!

Hopefully the NBL is going to get back on track again soon and that won't be necessary though!

Anon - not sure if you're all the same person - I think we all agree that the NBL was poorly run for the past decade plus. But it really is not as simple as the NBL screwed up. Basketball doesn't exist in a vacuum and you have to give some credit to the strategies of the AFL, who have been absolutely dominant in selling their code since the early to mid 90s.

HO, I wasn't suggesting Mal Speed was the be all and end all, but he did have a good reputation in the early 90s and then Cricket Australia went from strength to strength after he went there. Without knowing all the ins and outs, I had a good impression of him. Hence why I was wondering aloud as to whether his leaving could have had a major impact on the league at the time.

You seem to think Mal wasn't much good, but the only comment you made was that he thought one success indicator would be if the NBL had the highest paid players. Well, that could be one success indicator if you ask me. It wouldn't be the only one, but certainly if you want to get the best athletes playing your sport, you have to offer the best money - its just the way the world works!

Still, I'm no insider, so I can well believe that you might be right about Mal. I don't know all the factors that contributed to the NBL's fall from grace. That's why I asked if anyone wanted to do a PhD on the subject earlier!

I'm 100% positive that basketball participation increased also over this time.

This has been done to death in previous threads, but as I have previously stated, a definite disconnect with the grass roots level was a major contributing factor the the decline of the NBL and crowds attending games.

Michael Jordan retiring.

He got people interested in basketball who otherwise had no idea about the sport.

I think it's no coincidence that when he retired, no new fans were gained and others became bored and the NBL went downhill.

Basketball at grass roots level has never been better IMO. It is the NBL that fell apart.
Whilst there are probably plenty of contributing factors, I think an important one was the fact the NBL lost contact and buy-in with the grass roots level.

Paul, what were the 'family-kid friendly' things? Like NBL players turning up to schools to do clinics? That kind of thing?

How confidently can we say that the NBL started these things? (I can't say as I was too young back in the 80s - all I remember is my mate getting into basketball due to a clinic Mark Davis put on in '86 - and getting me into it after).

Isaac, won't argue over Gaze/ Longley as I don't know - just speculating. But I'm interested to know why you think the mass expansion of the AFL into a limited media space in the 90s (and thus the public consciousness) was not a significant factor in the slide of the NBL?

The Yank sport thing is obviously a factor for some people (my dad always complains about the yank noise and glitz at basketball games) but I'd be surprised if it was a major factor in turning people off the competition - I know just as many people who love US culture as hate it.

I feel as though basketball really grabbed hold of people as something new and exciting at the start of the 90s, but it was not very deeply rooted and so when a good national product became available in the AFL and strong media support was locked in behind it, many people were drawn back into the football world.

Perhaps that could have been better resisted by basketball administrators/ marketers, but its also possible that football was a tidal wave that was always going to sweep everything before it. Don't really know, but I'll always follow basketball, then soccer... football is a distant 4th behind cricket for me.

Just a note drawing attention to the match-up of the season drawing nigh. On Wednesday night before the Sixers game, the Navy Seals will be hosting the Paul Rees Posse in the ultimate battle.

Winner gains bragging rights and the eternal gratitude* of Paul Rees.

6PM (I think) on the portable hoop outside the main entrance of the Dome. Starting threes yet to be finalised. Bring your goggles because if the sweat don't fly, the tears will.

Some of the Seals might not look to be in peak physical shape, but they have hoops in their veins.

Both teams endorse Paul Rees for the All*Star game, so vote until your thumbs bleed. SMS "Paul Rees" to 1992 7427. All SMS entries will be charged 55c including GST.

* (unconfirmed).

Tough question to answer - someone want to do a PhD on this?

Factors I think may have contributed (Note: I'm not claiming to be knowledgeable about this, so don't rely on my views):

1. AFL got its sh!t together in the early 90s when they finally got the Crows to join their glorified VFL and then started developing a highly sophisticated marketing machine that quickly captured the FTA market.

2. NBL lost a talented exec in Mal Speed to Cricket Australia. If he had stayed, could he have guided the NBL so it resisted the challenge of the AFL better? Or did he leave because he knew the organisation was dysfunctional and had no chance?

3. NBL gained popularity very quickly and unexpectedly. Was that peak in popularity just a fad? There is always that section of the population that will dive into something with enthusiasm for 6 months and then just as quickly drop it for the next big thing. I always felt there was an element of that with the Kings of the early 90s, and perhaps their failure to win a title back then had a significant effect on how many stayed with basketball long term?

4. Some of basketball's popularity in the late 80s and then early 90s was generated by the incredible rivalry of Magic's Lakers and Bird's Celtics and then the emerging global brand Jordan. As the 90s developed though, the kinds of stars and type of play that emerged in the NBA turned a lot of Aussies off (many just weren't interested in all that isolation one on one play and the tats and bling and hip hop, etc).

5. Andrew Gaze starring for Seton Hall and playing in the NCAA title game and Luc Longley getting drafted high, then winning championships with the Bulls had to have people enthusiastic about talent in Australia. Did people lose some of that enthusiasm when they realised that Gaze and Longley, while both successful players, were never going to match the exploits of true NBA stars?