Hoops

Ken Cole on the NBL -MUST WATCH !!

I had a discussion with Boti about it when he posted Cole's ideas to his blog, and he basically justified it on the basis that yes, Cole is wrong about almost everything, but he's an NBL legend and therefore his thoughts should be heard.

The AFL-NBL partnership thinking seems to neglect the "what's in it for the AFL club?" angle.

Finally have the time to actually sit down and watch.

- He seems to think the only problem going up against AFL is head-to-head games. The NBL grand final got five seconds of coverage on Perth's 7 News last night. There was a clip of Ibekwe's shot, and a short clip of the team with the trophy. Almost a minute was spent on the Hawthorn-North Melbourne AFL pre-season game.
- He claims Luke Martin is a terrific player.
- He claims that "money doesn't win championships", despite the three financially best-off clubs in the league having taken up ten of the last twelve available grand final spots.
- He further supports this by claiming that the Yankees are evidence that money doesn't win championships. The Yankees have almost three times as many World Series wins as the next-best team, and twice as many appearances as the next-best team.
- He suggests raising the salary cap, ignoring that plenty of teams can't afford the current cap.
- And now it's just a ten-minute rant asking why the league doesn't just spend lots of money it doesn't have yet on people and things it can't afford.
- He suggests Townsville move to the TECC, which would require either negotiating a deal with people that don't exist, or paying rent that's expensive enough to cancel out the advantage of doing so, depending on which story you believe.
- He suggests doing deals with AFL clubs for some kind of joint membership. This one might actually be workable, although it's pretty lacking in any sort of detail.
- He thinks the league should stop spending so much on administration. Because apparently these ideas will all execute themselves.
- He claims there's plenty of TV networks willing to throw money at the NBL, and the NBL should demand they do so. Which...isn't true.
- He then insists we must switch back to 48-minute games, despite 40-minute games being something TV sees as necessary. Even the NBA is considering moving to 40-minute games.
- He says we don't need money from TV. Despite insisting on lots of things that cost lots of money and offering no way of paying for them.
- He seems to think the NBL can break into the US market. Apparently hasn't heard of the NBA.
- It's apparently not the role of commentators to discuss strategy. My head hurts.
- Full-time refs. Again, it's a good idea, but it's also so obvious that if the money was there, I'm sure it would've happened by now.
- The NBA has a big TV deal, therefore the NBL can get one. Uh...no?
- "Let's bring AFL people to games and have them promote us!" Why would they do that if we're playing in winter?
- I've lost count of the times he's insisted that the NBL "show its power" and "flex its muscles", which ignores the fact that it DOESN'T ACTUALLY HAVE ANY.
- We're apparently going to have ten teams within a year, whilst also kicking all the poor teams out of the league. I assume by "ten", he means "three".

People need to stop listening to this guy. Seriously.

18 mths +
Global TV deals
Negotiate global TV deals for the NBL, expanding into Asia and the USA.

China
Grow the NBL into China/Phillipines/Singapore through a Asian Championship or NBL teams playing some regular season games over there.




Really...?

Baller#3 - I like that concept. Good idea. Maybe the NBL needs to think outside the box to suit its unique needs. The traditional Australian league method just isn't working for it.

Paul,
"time that the NBL doesn't have at the moment without serious investment in the running and promotion of the league".

Ken's put his hand up, told us what he'd do & even outline some very valid points of how to get the league back again.

Let's hope the ego's take notice....

Its not so much the fixturing of NBL games when football is on - though that will be a big enough problem - its the amount of news given to basketball once all the AFL and NRL talk is done. The AFL pre-season competition is already dominating the sports news, and who cares about the pre-season? Not the media, clearly.

It cant get a look in during summer, and it will be even worse in winter from a scheduling point of view when they have to schedule games on nights other than Friday, Saturday or Sunday. Mid-week games in the NBL were not well received.

Its not the 90's anymore. The AFL today would kick the AFL of the 90's ass. The current version of the NBL wouldn't even be considered competition anymore, unlike when it was last played in winter.

Baller#3, Well said.

Paul, Perth & NZ went out & did exactly what Ken was talking about. Approached these so called moneybags & said "we're so & so and we're going to do this & that",
The money men didn't come to them.
The governing bodies job is to improve, promote & provide stability to all of the clubs.
Just because they're successful don't expect them to carry teams that can't operate well.

No to winter. Will be even more ignored than it is now - if that's possible. And will impact negatively on the currently successful clubs Perth, NZ, Adelaide and Melbourne because of the amount of football played there.

Like Ken says, Everyone should look at how the Wildcats & Breakers run their operations & learn from them. Not sit back & criticize them. And don't start the ol they've got big budgets" chestnut... clubs need to get off the asses & get good sponsors/partners.

Uwe, stadium standards?