Hoops

Finally, complete schedule and times released

Hey AD, do you expect the cats to be able to please everyone's individual schedule? Surely most of their fans are actually in Perth. Be realistic, please.

Understood Dazz. The Cats want FTA exposure though, they weren't forced into those early times I believe.

The Wildcats sent me another email with their latest update regarding this.

They've offered to refund the three Saturday games, but they've stated the start times won't be changing. No mention about refunds for the early Sundays.

Pathetic. I'm seriously curious to see how this plays out over the year. There's no way the club accepts this next season once they realise the impact on crowds it will have.

As far as I can tell, they haven't sent a finalised schedule to members either so I'm not even sure how many members are aware of this. I'm only getting updates because I asked about cancellation.

Where do you go away from Perth on weekends?

Agree. Really hoping for a better outcome for Perth fans even if it means less FTA games shown. I'd be satisfied with 2 or 3 11.30 starts for TV purposes, but definately no more than that.

Might need someone to clarify this as its a bit unclear to me. The fixtures in the nbl app only show one game a week on Go - not 2 as per the initial announcment. Further to this it looks like all of the Wildcats 11.30am games have been given a start time of 7.59am - obviously not the actual time, so are these games being reviewed by the league? Something tells me this fixture is in dispute and there is more to come.

I just received an email from the Wildcats membership sales department that said they were working with the NBL to provide a 'reasonable solution' for affected members.

Who knows what that means really... I guess we'll wait and see.

As a sign of goodwill, perhaps all food at the 1150am games could be made half price. After all the worst thing is that it clashes with lunch time and I may be forced to purchase the stadium's food.

"True, but the club's been around for 35 years and played precisely one morning game, and that was a special circumstance. Half a dozen regular-season morning games is in no way a reasonable expectation."

It has been said that 2pm would be a reasonable timeslot. A game two hours earlier I don't think is grounds to be outraged and owed a refund.

Look, I certainly would prefer 2pm too, but games tipping off at 11:50am is only ten minutes short of being an afternoon game.

They have zero Friday night home games, one Saturday afternoon game and zero Saturday nights.

Friday & Saturday combined = one home game.

I'd be fuming if I was a United fan.

Don't get me wrong, if I could choose we'd have zero 11:30am games. It's clear we were always going to have to eat a couple though, and they'd go down easier being on the Sunday. The real problem is force feeding us six of them, and having zero Saturday nights.

Out of curiosity I broke down the schedule into teams vs times:

http://i.imgur.com/xaKndwJ

I think that's a pretty poor schedule for everyone really. Perth, Melbourne & Sydney with zero Saturday nights between them? Insanity. Melbourne's schedule is arguably the worst of the lot... They have one home game on Friday & Saturday combined!

What happened to the Saturday arvo/night triple headers of recent seasons? They were great for a basketball fan.

I'm as hardcore NBL as they come but don't really watch these early Sat games because they just feel unnatural after 35+ seasons of never having them.

I'm loving all the Perth whinges.How bad is it to wake up,have breakfast and head to the game and at least food sales will be up as it's lunchtime during the game.

Sat afternoons in spring are huge for horse racing too. Weird timeslot choice, NBL were despersate and got scraps from a crappy digital channel.

1, if you are a member call the club so they can record yoir frustration and share it with the league, tje mkre members they have that are upset, the more validated their complaint, and yes they are in discussions with the league.
2. Those saying its no big deal, it is basically half the home games, it is the sheer volume. Kids play sport, umpire, coach, parents coach, take their kids, people work days, its not missing one game or one of your commitments, it is 6, that doesn't look good
3. The wildcats have built the game night experience around nights in the city, and its epic. 12000 people in the city on a friday sat night, after the game fans everywehere celebrating or comiserating. There is nothing better than heading into town on friday after a long week, having a couple cheeky ones then getting into a game of ball infront of a packed house. It's a basketball fams dream, forget the teams, its just epic.
4. Midday on a saturday is just not
5. The only question you need to ask is do ibwant to go watch my team at midday? Will the atmosphere be any good when no one else comes? Will we get good players if we lose money this year? Its a loss for basketball fans

Fly in Friday night leave mid afternoon Saturday? Actually shorter possibly.

It didn't say anywhere on the membership what time the games would be.

reading the comments on twitter it's not just the start time, it's the sense of betrayal that a lot of cats fans are reeling from.. there are a few guys there who are acting like their wife's been cheating o them... "WE the Red Army have spoken and this is not good enough.. we BUILT this club.." blah blah blah

it's a privately held sports franchise, you didn't think this was all for fun did you?

That the Wildcats asked for the Saturday and Sunday games to be on TV is credible. That they knew it would involve tipping off this early is significantly less so.

"Wildcats are refusing refunds, reportedly."

I'd say they are within their rights to do this. Even they wouldn't have known the tip-off times when they were selling memberships because the channel 9 deal wasn't struck at the time.

Yes but they ultimately agreed to the time to have max TV exposure.

Wildcats are refusing refunds, reportedly.

Shit times, I changed my roster so I can attend all of them. But my other half works all day, so that's $600+ I've lost straight up, unless I can get someone to come and pay half at least.

WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK???

Is this what happens when you let a petulant wanker like Kestleman run the league like his personal play thing?

Of course there are THOSE who will come back with insightful posts such as "haha sux to be Perf/ Gleeson is a flog" but anybody with a shred of decency and common sense has to see that this is insane.

More than half our games are crap.
SIX games at 11:30pm, and at another 2 at 2:00pm on a Sunday.
No Saturday night games.

And you can't even justify this on the basis of television. Even with a 3 hr time difference, who wants to watch their basketball at 2:30 in the afternoon.

The Wildcats are the only team to have demonstrated that you can make high quality NBL viable, if you have the success, the following, and the right venue. For that we have now been completely fucked in the arse.

I'm in two minds.
I don't know whether to just keep my membership and not go to half the games, in the hopes that eventually Kestleman will get bored and piss off.
Or just give up my seats to somebody that wants to go to NBL on a Saturday morning?

Is 9Now HD?

I would love to believe that but I'm pretty sure when the 9 deal was announced it was said they also got the streaming rights which is why every game will be streamed on 9NOW.

Source Rabbit?

6 11:30am games for Perth is terrible for Perth who are the most well supported club in the league.

No NBL TV is terrible for everyone.

Overall, very disappointed with this.

"Don't be surprised when you find out a similar story here. It was not the NBL but the Wildcats that decided on the 11:30 starts to get on commercial TV. They knew all along."

If by "the Wildcats decided" you mean they were offered 11:30AM games or no TV games at all, sure it may have been their decision, but it wouldn't change what a horrible choice they were presented with based on a deal that wasn't well constructed.

I'm sure you can come up with a better analogy if you go away and think about. go on, have another try if you like.

No point owning glasses if you walk around with at least one eye closed.

not yet. maybe I need to put some red-tinged sunglasses on to help me understand this incredibly complex issue more clearly.

“ ten years of watching nick Marvin rort the salary cap to help a dull grubby team that nobody outside WA cared about to win is hardly credible.”

Idiot.

See how easy it is to deliberately misrepresent an issue?

"seeing a Perth-NZ grand final series allowed the league to look respectable to outsiders, when they see a full stadium and great atmosphere and overall product"

i think I've addressed this. watching Perth and NZ dominate year after year made the league like a badly run joke, which it largely was until LK came in. let's agree to disagree.

"CT thinks because he supports a basket case team then all other teams should be brought down to their level."
Ha. the Taipans have 5% of the local population at their home games. they've been in the black every year they rebooted as a community owned club 10 years ago. they've posted a small profit year on year without a cashed up owner throughout this period and the 5000 seat local stadium has largely been at 80% capacity or higher during this period. they are constantly on the back page of the local paper or the first sports story on the local news channels. they have huge local community engagement and are at every local school multiple times throughout the year and attend absolutely everything in town they can. they are rooted in all levels of the local basketball community and the qbl. they've just signed a huge contract integrating tertiary sports science and fitness programs from Cqu into their programs and have negotiated and completed a massive expansion of their training facilities that ties in with this deal in conjunction with the local and state governments. all the while remaining competitive with teams from far bigger markets. they are a model of how to run a successful sports franchise in a small market. idiot.

Ok.

Assuming you’re the anon above, you just said that Marvin tried to veto the LK deal. Then the story changed to “all teams had a vote but Marvin said no.”

Those two things aren’t the same thing.

Veto were other issues where Marvin/Cats basically were calling the shots.

That isn’t a veto then...

Yes it did. All clubs had a vote in LK ownership. Perth originally said no.

No that didnt happen either. But nice story.

CT Perth did help the league, how? Well they ran a successful and profitable team, this meant they didn't need a handout and league support, therby leaving more money to keep other poorly managed and not profitable teams afloat. They were the first team to move into a 14000 seat stadium and achieve 10000 members, this was a huge financial risk amd took lots of hard work and marketing to make it a success, how anyone could be so dismissive of this is hard to understand. No league in the world in their right mind would destabilise one of its largest fanbases and most consistent and well run organisations (despite how you feel about the in court product the viability of the club and the league high membership numbers spell major success) which begs the question, why do it to Perth for 6 home games? They could have at least moved the two sunday games up meaning there were a couple more evening games. Whether you lile it or not perth is are the lakers of the nbl, even if the on court product is not desirable, its the place to be and people pay alot for the privilege. You don't see the nba scheduling their games before brunch finishes

Sure*

When LK offered to buy the NBL Marvin tried to veto it like he had done with many issues before that would've helped the other teams. Once asked "who do you think you will play against in future?" and realising the grim future Perth yielded. Sire look after your own backyard but they tried to F everyone else in the process. Arrogance.

“How exactly? did they pump money back to the other teams before LK came in?”

Um yes they did. Their success helped the league make a profit, but that money was spent on the Crocs and the Hawks.

It obviously wasn’t LK money but at the time the league was trying to be sustainable. Things are different under LK but at the time, the Cats success was one of the few things keeping the league going. Stop being so ignorant just because you hate the Wildcats.

Maybe in a few years when the NBL gets rid of Perth, Cairns and Brisbane it will be known as the South East Australian Basketball League....

Good response CT, agree with most of that except for the perception that its Perths responsibility to help the rest of the league just because they've got their shit sorted out. What they did do is significantly raise their profile in WA to become the club thay they have, henceforth improve interest in basketball in WA. Means bugger all to NSW, Vic, qld and anywhere else in the country, but thats not the Cats problem.

By 'carry the league' they were largly responsible for increaing league attendance averages. Did they help the other clubs out? No. Nor should they have. Did the rest of the country give two shits about them? No. Nor should they have. Did they keep the league afloat? Doubtful. But they didnt hurt the league or make it worse. They certainly helped improve it and i would be confident in suggesting that Perth were a big player in the league's revival.

"Perth did carry the league for a while there."

How exactly? did they pump money back to the other teams before LK came in? No. Did East Coast fans tune in because they were so great to watch? No. Did they take a leadership role in steering the Nbl into growth during this period? No. Explain to me how they 'carried the league'..

"It allowed the NBL to pump up its growth in attendance even though Perth was underpinning most of it"

I cant remember the Nbl ever 'pumping up its growth in attendance'. wishful thinking from the flog army perhaps.

put simply:

1. Perth had a great business model and were very successful exploiting a large fan base when there was limited other competition within basketball (or within WA fro other sporting franchises for that matter)
2. they had no interest in furthering the wider interests of the league. it took LK coming in to do this
3. they deserve respect for being one of the few teams who put together a solid business model during the pre LK years and for retaining/growing their membership and fanbase
4. they got a shit deal with the scheduling this year no doubt
5. the league is far better off with a Perth team that is competitive with other teams but isn't dominant.

For the league to grow and become a more compelling prospect for the average fan, perth need to get pulled back into the pack. screwing with Perth's home games isn't the best way to. achieve this but lets not pretend for a second that Perth has somehow kept the league afloat for the last ten years. that's utterly ridiculous.

If anybody gets pleasure in seeing one particular club lose a lot of paying supperters because of a lousy and unfair schdule, probably aren't that interested in seeing the league grow anyway.

For one, I really hope crowds from the other 7 teams can pick up attendances significantly, because Perth won't be able to maintain their numbers this season with this schedule, therefore bringing them back to the pack.

A competitive league is what I want to see as well. If Perth miss the finals then so be it - they've had their run. But to enjoy seeing what should be a significant decline in attendence is not a good thing - even for your most hated rivals!

CT thinks because he supports a basket case team then all other teams should be brought down to their level.

They played ugly basketball - and dominating the league was getting boring even as a perth fan. I totally agree with you there. I think qe are arguing over different things. Im talking off court success and what Perth brought to the league off the court. CT, nothing to do with the on court product. Im not having an ego stoke here either. I dont like one sided dominance just like you probably dont either.

Just lamenting the fact that Cats have been given a dud schedule. No doubt fans of other teams are laughing and enjoying this. Just wish the NBL could do a bit better with fixturing so attendances grow, not decline and thats not just with Perth, however i believe their schedule will affect their attendances more than other clubs.