Massive reform for basketball

MELBOURNE - (The View from Downunder) - It was November 2008, and the overwhelming mood was for change. In fact, the moment may well be looked back upon as the exact time when resurrection began. But no, it was not the US presidential election, but a vote for comprehensive reform of Australian basketball.

Saturday week ago (8 November), Basketball Australia and its 12 affiliates, and the NBL and its 10 clubs, voted unanimously to merge the two entities and have basketball governed by one, united body.

The reason?

Thanks largely to complacent and then grossly under-funded administration at both club and league level, attendances at NBL games (Australia and Oceania's premier competition) fell for over a decade after the league's peak in the early 1990s.

As would be expected, media interest waned and public recognition dropped to the point where, after the retirement of Andrew Gaze, many keen sports fans in Australia could not recognise any of the NBL's star players. This is despite the competition featuring 31 players, out of 100 in total, who have played at the Olympics or FIBA World Championships.

The story is the same as far as Basketball Australia goes.

BA looks after the game at its grassroots level, along with the Women's NBL and the semi-professional ABA. But many managers of local associations and ABA clubs have little or no faith in BA's ability to run a sport that has more than 600,000 participants in Australia.

Possibly worse, in a country where other national sporting teams receive top billing, is that the Boomers and Opals only ever rate a mention during the 16 days of Olympic competition, or when they face the USA in a friendly game.

Things have slowly been getting better since the start of this millennium. Before this season - a lame duck year waiting for reform to occur - NBL crowds had increased slightly year by year, corporate and TV support had grown steadily, and the standard of play is better than ever before.

But the progress made was in such small increments they could not even be described as baby steps. And they certainly weren't enough to turn around the substantial losses being incurred by many NBL owners each season.

When the Sydney Kings and Brisbane Bullets, two of the NBL's marquee clubs, folded after their owners fell into serious financial trouble last year, the proverbial hit the fan.

By that stage, the review of basketball in Australia was well underway, but the collapse of these two giants gave it an added sense of urgency.

On 8 November, it was agreed that a bold move must be made before the sport slips further down the Australian sporting ladder, and that move was a merger of BA and the NBL, and a raft of changes to go along with it.

Amazingly, given the state of the sport, the review was almost defeated at the vote. A number of NBL owners - who are relied upon to fund much of the plan - were so disgruntled with the lack of communication, consultation, and information provided to them, they were prepared to walk away from the process.

One club rep - before the final meeting - privately described the process as being like the blind leading the blind, while South Dragons co-owner Mark Cowan described the small caveat of information he had been given as "a map with no lines on it".

Thankfully, by the time the vote came around, that was no longer the case. To their credit, the interim board of the NBL and Basketball Australia went out of their way to allay owners' fears, provided additional information, and assured owners they would be consulted on a number of points regarding the new professional competition that will take the NBL's place next year.

The result was a unanimous and unquestionable vote.

The promise of a new $35 million television deal from pay TV provider Fox Sports added a cherry to the sundae. Once the deal is signed, every game will be screened on television, giving the new league a much better chance of succeeding than its predecessor.

But will it really work?

Well, bringing the pro league under the same roof as the grassroots administration for the betterment of the pro league seems an odd move. Consider the success continental club basketball in Europe is experiencing since it has been run independently by ULEB.

Now that ULEB and FIBA Europe are working more closely together, but from distinctly separate buildings, the sport seems poised to take even more giant leaps forward
Similarly in the USA, the NBA has long benefited from concerning itself solely with the business of running a professional basketball league, without the agendas of any other level in the sport.

But as of next year, the sports' governing body in Australia will look after all aspects of basketball. Professional clubs will hold just 40% voting rights in the new organisation.

So how can this possibly be an improvement for the NBL? Three things stand out, and quite likely persuaded club owners.

Firstly, there will be an independent board. The current NBL board is made up almost entirely of club owners, meaning personal and club agendas have thwarted many ideas that would have benefited the sport.

The second is the ability for the sports governing body to sell sponsorship that can provide companies with exposure to all levels. In theory, that includes fans of the professional league, WNBL, semi-pro competitions, as well as the hundreds of thousands of kids, parents and average Joes who play in their local basketball stadium every week. Potentially that could have huge positive effects.

The third and biggest factor is the compulsory links that professional clubs in the new competition must have with local basketball associations to gain and retain a licence. When basketball was at its biggest, players regularly ran clinics for youngsters, but today, that is a scene as rare as a Hollywood movie with an original storyline.

Getting players back out to meet the kids will go a long way towards helping basketball regain its rightful place in this country.

But I still don't think this was the best option. Regardless of the benefits, it is hard to believe this couldn't have been achieved without merging the two bodies. Now, the sport as a whole relies largely on the input of professional club owners, and the success of the pro league.

In a time of severe economic upheaval, that is risky to say the least. If owners aren't making money, the entire sport will suffer, as will the national teams. Of course, if they are making money, the whole sport benefits.

Given the balance sheets of sports clubs and businesses right around the globe, where would your bets be?

Effectively linking the bodies without merging them could achieve the same benefits with far fewer risks.

In an age where multi-purpose companies are becoming a thing of the past, in favour of organisations that specialise, a well-run professional basketball league that is focused on its own business can surely do it better than a body that has to have its finger on the pulse at so many different levels.

In the end though, there was no sign of such a professional league emerging from the 'fight-for-survival' the NBL has sadly become. Because of this, the option that was chosen is still much better than the status quo, even if not ideal, and it has to give long-suffering basketball fans some hope.

So that's it, a new dawn in Australian basketball - change we had to have. I am particularly interested to hear from fans in Europe and elsewhere about how it is done in your country.

Did the emergence of ULEB help or hinder basketball at a grassroots level? Or has it made no difference? Are we in Australia silly to bring those two components of the sport together, when Europe and North America have shown how well it can be done separately? Or is the coordinate approach the only way forward or has it to be looked at on an market by market basis?

One thing's for sure, we need to get it right in Australia or basketball may never be considered a mainstream sport again.

Paulo Kennedy