Great Idea. I'm playing college ball in the states right now. And the reason I chose to come over here was to use it as a stepping stone for the NBL and to try and get a degree at the same time. Because its tough to juggle uni and high level basketball in australia a lot of guys will still come over here, but then education is a big reason for some guys not to come over here! I know thats why Ingles didn't make the college move.
It would be like the NBDL. But do you think there would be enough players who are not good enough for the NbL and too good for the ABA to make a good league? Maybe an idea would be to have something like the ABA summer league where they play the youngsters and some vets if they want to stay in shape over the summer. But obviously a higher level than the Aba summer league.
All in all, i think it would be a good idea. It gives some unknown players the opportunity to get noticed against some 'known players'.

As I have written before I am a huge fan of dropping down to an 8 team league - WA, SA, Vic, NSW, Qld, NZ and 2 other teams. I like the idea of a Div 2.

I doubt it would work but I like the idea of the bottom team being relegated and the top team of Div 2 being promoted like they do in Europe ... again I doubt this would work.

I have said in the past that I think the talent pool as become too diluted - reduce the number of the teams - increase the number of good players per team, increase the quality - better quailty = better games = better product = more fans going to games = more revenue = better league.

Better League means more guys will look to come back from college and not look for options o/seas (which maybe being addressed in the Div 2 format) - again better players, better league.

Just my opinion

The educational and developmental components of the college option would be hard to emulate or compete with.

Too true Isaac - but then again, if players have the opportunity to stay at home, play and, for the most part, continue with their lives in australia, that could in itself be a drawcard for some young players.

Depends what they're earning. Going away to get a degree and potentially be good enough to come back and walk into a starting NBL role (see Loughton, Knight, Jawai, Martin, etc) for good money will still be very attractive to many as Derwin acknowledges.

Not disputing that. But there are alot of people who don't care much for travel or dare i say, venturing outside their comfort zone, and the opportunity to stay at home, while being able to play competitive ball against fellow fringe NBL'ers is exactly what they are after.

While you can't compete against some of opportunities college provides, it's not for everyone.

Oscar never went to college did he? - say he had a NBL div II league to jump into instead of grinding the end of the sixers bench - do you think he may have had more opportunities to develop?

Similarly with Dodman - AIS wasn't his cup of tea (and presumably college wouldn't be either), but i wouldn't say he's coming along in leaps and bounds in the NBL.

Dont a lot of Collages have a GOAT as their mascot?

The concept sounds good and i also favour the promotion/relegation concept difficult as it may be.

I find it absurd the quote...

"and Derwin admitted his organisation had not done a great job of keeping track of these players"

would be spoken. In todays world of easy communication, the internet, etc etc...are we seriously saying we dont know whats happening with these people?

There is a good opportunity for a clever web person to create and manage a database (wink wink Isaac, ill take a 10% spotters fee) that keeps an eye on these people?

Rather than have a NBL div II, start negotiations with all Univeristies in Australia and start a college league of their own.

[edit] Australian Capital Territory
Australian National University ANU, Canberra
University of Canberra, Canberra

New South Wales
Charles Sturt University
University of New South Wales
University of Sydney

Victoria
Monash University
La Trobe University
Deakin University
University of Ballarat

Queensland
Griffith University, Brisbane and Gold Coast
James Cook University
University of Queensland


Western Australia
Edith Cowan University
University of Western Australia
University of Notre Dame Australia

South Australia
Flinders University
University of Adelaide
University of South Australia

Tasmania
University of Tasmania, Hobart and Launceston

Northern Territory
Charles Darwin University

Decrease the amount of teams in the NBL and create a College league. Some people might be aware but on average universities bring in a profit on average of $4.5 Million. They would not need to pay these players but give them 4 year scholarships.

They would probably need a large naming rights sponsor to make the league work. The SA ABL competition is funded by juniors. That bucket isn't deep enough to fund a semi-professional league involving travel for games.

Say the current NBL competition was split into a top eight NBL comp and a bottom five plus three others - would that mean there wouldn't be any NBL games in Adelaide?

Before even considering reducing to an 8 team comp, the salary cap would need to be:

1) doubled; and

2) enforced.

Can't see there being enough money in the pot for any of the teams to be able to afford that.

someamateur , that is an awesome idea. I dont think they would neccessarily need a naming rights sponsor. Like someamateur mentioned colleges have bucket loads of money. I reckon people that have never followed the sport would get into this kind of competition because the uni students would identify with the teams whether they follow the sport or not. The downside would be the standard. This would be a very, very filtered league with so many teams and remembering most of our best players would still go to college in the US, the AIS or the NBL..... However, perhaps they could have imports or something in the teams/or those that dont neccessarily go to the college (cap the number of these players allowed for the first few yrs)??????

Having said that I reckon this concept could lead the resurgance of basketball in Australia and we need to cover more bases than NBL/ABL and social competitions.

Hmm interesting concept. Could really see it working quite well. You wouldnt want to scrap the AIS totally but I reckon you would see it move away from being a full time scholarship and more of a camp based thing. So the AIS guys would stay in their own state playing for their own state and they would be able to continue studying at "home". Could possibly use the money going into the current AIS program into sponsoring scholarships for players who want to study at university/tafe - but would also need more money from somewhere to cover the others in the teams. You would have to work it similar to the NBL (but different) most of your guys would be young locals but you would be able to have 2 unrestricted Aussies ie ex-NBL or similar - you could maybe base it on the NBL points system ie no player with +5 points rating or something like that. I think you would definitely have to not allow imports this is about making the Aussies better players not about putting on a show.

Personally I think the NBL teams should be 2 x Vic, 2 x NSW, 2 x QLD, SA, WA, NZ, Tas (or maybe 3rd QLD). There has been a fair bit of talk re Asia - perhaps an Asian Club Championship could take place similar to the old McDonalds Cup - ie winner of the Hummer Championship gets to go to the Asian Club Championship. I have no idea how strong the Asian Clubs are though - those Darwin Airport All Stars would be an enviable opponent :)

Basket 79 - Oscar went from the AIS to training with the 36ers, to getting a four-year deal with them that included an educational allowance and so on (to match what LMU offered). Hard to say whether he made the right or wrong choice, but I don't think he's doing so badly today that he'd be regretting his choice at all.

A DNBL would be perfect for the Dodman's of the world, as you said.

Losing players to college isn't doom and gloom because, as has been said, they usually come back! We outsource their talent to trade some basketball for an expensive education and some basketball development. Really only worth keeping them locally if you can leverage their talent to sell tickets to games and, given that our pro teams aren't all doing that, I'm not sure that's the case.

I guess we'd have to see more about the plan to know whether it'd be linked to universities, linked in with NBL teams (e.g., Sydney Kings and Sydney Princes), or just 8 NBL teams and 8 sub-NBL teams in other areas.

NBL: Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, NZ, Wollongong, Cairns
DNBL: Gold Coast, Darwin, Canberra, Hobart, Bendigo, West Sydney, Townsville, South Melbourne

What's going to fund that second league? Still has the same venue, travel and accommodation costs as the top league.

The whole Australian uni/college although a good idea would need a huge injection of money and I don't think we would see and real dividends for 20-30+ years, also personally I don't think we have anywhere near enough young talent to do it( but we will never get there with negativity).

I basically just can't see Australia having the money or talent to have three basketball leagues. ABA, NBL II and NBL

Also the cutting back to 8 teams sounds great but which 5 teams get the chop?, XY made a good point of the money situation although if the NBL was cut to 8 I think the Asia/Oceania super league thing were our top 4 teams play other top teams in the region is supposed to be worth huge amounts of money in Asian sponsorship, so that might help out with that.

Although we all love basketball here, in the greater Australian community it really doesn't get much love and I think you are overestimating on standards of current facilities(from my experiences) and underestimating on the cost to get then up to scratch for a league that isn't a complete joke.

Don't imagine that Universities have spare buckets of money to spend on basketball. To start a serious University league, it would need to be packaged up and handed to the Universities as a going concern that they only needed to put their name to.

Sport is a recreational activity in many Australian Universities that is largely run by student associations that are separate to the University administration. These associations have no access to academic scholarships.

I don't know what relationship there is between the Sydney Flames in the WNBL and the University, but that might be a model to use.

The Universities may not look favourably on a men-only league, you may need to set up a feeder league for the WNBL as well using the same structure.

BA would need to do a fair amount of legwork to get this great idea up & running.

Running Professional basketball teams in Australia is still a hobby for rich people who either have too much money or do not know what else to spend their time and money on.

After much thought, I can only see another expansion as a source of bankruptcy and the game as a whole suffering further. The present problem appears only to be:

Keeping track of players who have the skill level and the desire play in the NBL - recruitment people and

Funding - Basketball Australia.

I keeping seeing a link between the decline in the popularity of basketball and the collapse of Ansett.

If the transport for the one major regional competition is covered by sponsorship, then teams playing in that comp can afford the quality of player that generates interest in the sport. More interest, more participants, more money. Then we should talk another division.

Defence, I think that's going to be the problem with this concept. Unless you forgot about the university concept and just have two tiers of wealthy people using it as a hobby!

Why don't they just bring back the CBA. That was the NBL div 2 and they still had the State League aswell.

Or they should have an ACL ( Australian Champions League ) Where top 4 teams in each Conference go into a sort of Euroleague comp, so we are playing teams from different states. Would make it a bit more interesting for the local scene. I think thats what they should look at first. Put more money back into local clubs, then you can attract the bigger players for the NBL off season.

Kersten would have dominated that!

since you said you need rich people with money, i had an idea.. why dont hoops buy and run the team (this idea was brought on by another topic suggesting we buy out the sixers) it could work, since its only a second tier team.. depending how many people would pay to have part ownership of the team, i think it could work

oh and one more thing, i get assistant coach ;) i could still do better then smythe

Make it a National Under 23 League? Make every NBL team run an U23 team as well? If they're going to so blatantly copy the A-League they might as well steal another idea.