Re Badge west Sydney and send them up there! IF a team had the backing of the NT government i couldn't see why it wouldn't be a huge success. There is NO other Major national team based in Darwin and it could work.

+ I also think it is good that the Paper is behind it.

Yeah why not, would make the league bigger again and get basketball out there a bit more. if its got the cash and a good stadium lets get it done

What i´ve said before is that the player pool in Australia isn´t big enough to still maintain good basketball with more teams. Allow Asian players and for example all players from the southern hemisphere to be non-imports and it would work - a darwin team would make the roadtrip to singapore feasable.

Will need to check with the Airport as they have a stranglehold on the best Darwin players.

re badge West Sydney.
Probably should re badge Sydney!

Me and a mate were talking about this the other day.

As long as they did some research regarding public interest, business support etc, it could be a good move not only for the town but for the league; wouldn't the NBL be the only team with a professional sports team in Darwin? could milk that for a bit of publicity.

It certainly makes more sense to me than going off to Singapore, it's all good trying to capture foreign markets but there's no point if you haven't conquered your own market yet.

On the downside, Curtley does have a point that the player pool in Australia probably isn't big enough to support another team...

The player pool is probably big enough, but not if the strongest teams are hoarding the best players. The points cap and salary cap rules would need to be revised and enforced so that teams can realistically only have 7-8 decent players before filling the final spots with single-point rookies.

The other way around it is, as Curtley suggested elsewhere, opening up the doors to players from other countries. I think the idea of allowing a third import from, say, South America or Asia or even Europe has merit. That still ensures positions for young Australian talent - guys like Burdon, Zorich, Madgen, etc who should all have 10th-12th man spots on NBL teams at least.

So this side has found someone to invest privet money into this venture, they are not after public money from the NT government?

It's always a worry to me how long privet investors plan to hang around the sport once they start making a negative surplus. It's not like NBL have a history of making large profits, maybe 15 years ago but not this millennium. Unless they can produce a long term financial plan that is sustainable the NBL shouldn't go down that path.

The NTFL have been trying desperately to find the funding to enter a side into the SANFL for 7 or 8 years now and have come unstuck with the financial instability in the region. Football has a history of making money and being financially viable and they have found it very hard to find someone to financially back them, how could a basketball organisation possibly do this with a sport that has a major history of losing money?

Pipe dream.

I say just do it, I live in Darwin and would love to be able to watch NBL, however I don't know if we would fill a 4000 person stadium very often, there is only about 100,000 in the area - meaning 1 in 25 people would have go along to sell out. I can't see it being a continuing thing, maybe at the start but not at the end of the season, especially if the team was bad.

I've never been a fan of the Singapore thing, so if a team had to be relocated I'd rather it be them.

Darwin has the Stingers in the National Hockey League. They have also just got a deal to have Netball in the National league. AFLNT has secured money to have a team play in the SANFL comp. I believe the SANFL has warned its own clubs about the teams entry in 1 or 2 years time. Obviously it costs money for all SANFL clubs with travel to Darwin and Alice.

As for the number of people in Darwin that would support a home team in Darwin. I know a few big money businesses would get behind the team (depending on ownership) and given the season dates are in the Wet Season, Darwin has nothing else on offer to the public this time of the year. Darwinites will support the team, as they have done successfully for Perth.

Flights to Darwin are cheaper during our wet season, so some fans might choose to combine an adventure holiday in Darwin and see their home team whilst they are here.

The biggest barrier to the sport in Darwin is that the two associations (BNT & DBA) dont get along and has been the political undoing of the sport for the past 20 years.

As for the Airport Resort team, this is made up of invitational players from around Australia combined with Darwin players. It is suppose to be a half , half team however last years team was 8 inv to 4 local. Main reason being because the players thought the coach was only joking about 'if you dont train, you wont play'. A few players took him on and decided they all wouldnt turn up to train. So he took the 4 remaining juniors instead.