This is embarassing for the league. How can the NBL not have any cash to promote the game and look after its key sponsors like Hummer.

Is it a case of spending money to make money? Blaming the clubs for not taking action is poor. Yes the clubs should benefit but so too should the league and that should be the concern, the league.

Get some seasoned business people involved and see what a difference that makes. Isnt Harmison a caretaker for the role any way? Is the NBL looking to find a leader who can make decisions and get some action?

"Teams will again play 30 matches each, but Harmison virtually guaranteed the heavily criticised play-off system would be revamped. However, the finals series could still involve eight sides."

This is somewhat positive news as the final system definately needs to be changed. The 8 team "knock-out" final system was brought in to appease Foxtel so they could show every finals game live, however it's not helpful for getting big (or even average) crowds especially in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne where games were played on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday nights. Ridiculous.

The finals just seemed to be so rushed. You play 30 regular season games and the most important part of the season is over in a flash.

I hate the knock-out system, partly because Adelaide were burnt by it twice but also because finals are best played over series - that's how rivalries build. Just look at the Sydney - Perth series. How sad would that have been if it was only a one game knock-out.

I understand that the NBL needs to please Foxtel so it can have a presence on TV, but they need to re-negotiate the finals situation.

Personally, I'd like to see the lucky loser top 6 finals format brought back. The flip-side of this is that you might not get to see your team play a finals game, eg remember that we missed out on seeing that Sixers vs Perth finals game in Perth where the Sixers came back from some ridiculous margin (30+ points?) at 3 qtr time.

Single game knock-out might be OK for 7th and 8th, but for 3rd and 4th, it's just stupid. Three-game series should arrive earlier in the schedule.

The downside of that in the current format is that 1st and 2nd go cold waiting for a game but there'd have to be a way around that.

Recomendation # 1 - get someone with a proven BUSINESS record into the top job so we dont have to put up with explayers who mean well but are lacking when it comes to running a business properly

What about using the the AFL finals system as a platform as it is a final 8 system too.

This would mean the top 2 teams host qualifying finals against the 3rd and 4th ranked teams.

The winners of each of the qualifying finals (1 game) to host a best of 3 preliminary finals series.

The losers of the qualifying finals to host a best of 3 semi finals series against the winner of 5th vs 8th (1 game elimination final) and 6th vs 7th (1 game elimination final).

The winners of the semi finals series to play against the winners of the qualifying finals in a best of 3 preliminary finals series.

The winners of the preliminary finals to play a 5 game Grand Final series.

The finals system should always have been:

Quarter finals, Best of three:
QF1: 1 v 8
QF2: 2 v 7
QF3: 3 v 6
QF4: 4 v 5

Semi finals, Best of three:
SF1: Winner QF1 v Winner QF4
SF2: Winner QF2 v Winner QF3

Grand final, Best of three:
Winner SF1 v SF2

Minimum games 14, maximum games 21.

Currently, we have minimum 11, maximum 15 games. So my plan would bring in more revenue. Every team in the finals also gets a home final. One week per series, so the finals are all over in three weeks.

Only possible downside is that the first/second placed team could cruise through the quarters. So what? At least the 8th placed side gets a chance to make an upset. We don't waive regular season games between the top team and the wooden spooner, and the eigth placed team is significantly higher on the ladder than that.

There is also an arguement for the "minor premiers" being determined the season champions.

Currently, a team who has won the most games at the end of a season and should be seen as the best team and champions, could (in theory) lose that because they have a couple of bad games in a final series? The potential exisits now, for a team who was the 8th best at the end of a season ending up as premiers!

Play a longer season where everybody plays each other 4 times (2 at home and 2 away) and who ever finishes on top is the champion.

Spinner, does any other professional league do away with the concept of finals/play-offs?

I'd like to see a 3-game series for all finals until the GF where it could be extended to 5. That would enable the league to showcase the two best teams for the year over a longer period and you'd think that the best basketball would also be shown too. Also surely the crowd numbers would be up coz they can see the series (hopefully if not a whitewash) go longer than just a couple games than in the 3-game series!!

i think the price of the tickets should be looked at.
we payed $60 a ticket to watch NZ get wasted by brisbane and then again to watch the Tigers beat Brisbane in OT, never saw or heard any advertising except at the games either.

Isaac, most of the major European soccer leagues have this system?

(But then have best of both worlds with their knockout, all-comer FA Cups etc)

For the series finals 3 games is more than adequate. 5 is too many and is a bit of Seppo bullshit.

finals series are purely a money making exercise.

Surely the team that performs the best over a complete minor round 25+ games...is the best team in the comp and therefore...should be champions.

Run an FA cup style competition to have the finals excitement if you must.

Isaac - English premier league don't have finals do they?

I fear the NBL is not going to be around in 5 years time.

I don't know about the Brisbane ticket prices but Game 3 Kings vs Wildcats cost $35.

I wouldn't want to lose the finals, and nor should they IMO. Look at the intensity for that Sydney-Perth series compared to most of the regular season - amazing.

The problems with the league are not in the existence of finals at all.

I can't believe that people are talking up not having finals at all. Laughable.

This season, all interest in the sport would have been gone by early January when Sydney had a three game gap on the Tiges. No point even playing the rest of the season.

Soccer has draws. So that we can be more like Soccer does basketball get rid of overtime? That would have the same effect as removing finals and reducing interest and excitement.

Stating the obvious - The EPL, Championship & European soccer competitions are a different ball game.

These competitions do not have finals but they do have promotion/ relegation/ playoff/ UEFA Cup & Champions league spots to play for, ensuring that the teams involved are (usually) playing for something right up until the end of the season.

Although our finals format needs to be fixed scrapping it altogether would be a backward step

this may be a stupid thing to say, but why not hold a game in some of the bigger interstate venues such as here in adelaide, even though it may not be a sixers game, alot of people here in adelaide would still go watch. say its brisbane Vs Sydney, and a finals match, i think it would still get around 4 thousand people to it.

your thoughts?

I can't see why some clubs can charge $35 for a finals game and others $60 (plus $6.60 booking fee). As I said in another post, this is what kept crowds away from Brisbane. I know this for a fact because the seat I purchased was in a season ticket holder section where the option was not taken to attend the finals games. There should be no change in prices between the regular season and post season as fans should be given equal opportunity to attend all the games. The fact that it is finals games will attract more people so they make the extra money that way. Who would doubt that if Adelaide had made playoffs and had a home game, we would get over 7000 if the ticket prices remained constant? We got close to these numbers in regular season games after Hodge arrived and the team was showing huge improvements. An interesting point is that in the after game interviews, Joey Wright thanked the fans for their support and commented on how pleased he was that the numbers had increased this past season over previous seasons. Where were they?

Has harmison actually made any changes or positive moves, let alone thought outside of the box? The sydney kings situation is hard to work out, i mean you can buy season tickets for 90 bucks but the truth is basketball isnt cool anymore like it used to be, i still think the NBL having a monopoly on the best sth american and asian players warrants attention, also if a team that can afford a marquee player outside of the salary cap however is not allowed another import (or any assuming he is australian) it would generate interest and not make it as unbalanced as some may think. The playoff system warrants reviewing also. Is it at all plausible that the NBL could ´´pay´´ a free to air station to play the games after say 11 pm on weeknights? its exposure.

I agree with XY's proposed finals format, it's straight forward and rewards top teams with an easy first round over three games to avoid a single bad game causing an untimely end.

There's no way an NBL season could function without a finals. The reason it works in the 20 team Premier League is that most teams have something to play for right till the end. The things at stake are

1. The title
1-4. Champions League
5-7. EUFA Cup
18-20. Relegation

This basically results in all the top 7 jostling for a cup berth or the title, along with the next 3 or 4 teams hoping to sneak into 7th as motivation. This means the top 10 teams are battling till the end, and the bottom 6 or so teams (depending on how the season unfolds) and fighting to stay up.

Now contrast this with the NBL where there are no consequences for finishing in the bottom three (lucky for us last year!) and nothing to motivate the better teams once they get too far behind league leaders.

EC, they need to put finals tickets up a little bit (and this happens in Adelaide) if only to cover the NBL's cut. I do think almost doubling the price is excessive though.