Hoops

Ten to walk away from Basketball.

Love all the conspiracy theories going around about the Ten network play by Murdoch, etc - has everyone forgotten about Kerry Packer selling the Nine Network to Alan Bond and then picking it up several years layer for about a third of the price he sold it for? It is corporate raider business where you pick up poor performing businesses cheap, sell off or change poor performing sections, revamp it and then sell at a good profit. Actually this was the background of Richard Gere's role in "Pretty Woman."

While a One HD totally devoted to sport was a great idea, the reality is that the viewing audience in Australia is not big enough to give it the advertising revenue that it requires to operate. Any business can only afford to make a loss for a certain time, before it folds, ie several basketball teams over the past decade, or changes what it does to return to a profit.

If OneHD cannot get enough revenue from AFL football, I hardly think they would miss Basketball. The reality is the article said

"Ten is also expected to walk away from many of the broadcast rights used to build One's original schedule such as basketball and netball once they expire."

This is the view of the article's author, not a quote from Murdoch or any other Ten executive.

Might be a perfect time for SBS or the ABC to come in and play hard ball with the NBL. They need a TV coverage, and they are well equipped to go head to head as both have little exposure to the teenage and younger markets.

How quickly Aussie FTA TV is going the way of American TV. More channels, but always the same old cr@p. ONE was innovative and daring where all the other channels just went conservative with their content and made cheap, money making clones of each other.

FTA TV (AND FOXTEL) can sod off. All of the best stuff I watch now comes off the web. Hopefully one day the NBL will too.

Good thing that there's a few more years left on the contract.

There might be a change of heart in a few years.

anon they dont care about sports that arent that popular, from a statistical point of view basketball isnt that strong here, its footy, rugby, and because of the bogans the v8 super slugs that are referred to for the broadcasting stuff. if a sport isnt in demand then there is no interest in protecting it. its shame though.

if no one picks it up hopefully ABC can get it cheap, if this happens though, this will be disastrous for the sponsors like IInet and1 etc, surely there contracts state that they will sponsor for as long as it is on tv. if it goes off i wonder if sponsor contracts are void. anyone know?