I used to have Foxtel and know how expensive it is. I would expect more than what you are getting to get some value out of the money you are paying.Unfortunately Basketball is still not a high profile sport in Australia.

Just checked the foxtel site. They have scheduled games every thurs and saturday in January - starting with 76ers Vs. nuggets. Hopefully, anthony will be playing.

I dont think Foxtel get much of a say in NBA programming. ESPN International (which Foxtel re-broadcast) would only have rights to certain games, hence Fox can only show what ESPN can get.

As for NBL, they were advertising before the season start that there will be 3 games a week shown in 2005. Hopefully that starts soon.

We have to get free to air coverage back and at a normal hour. I remember the good old days when the sixers would play and we would wait until 10.30/11.00pm to watch the reply. If only they could do that again because not everybody can afford Fox.

I think the WNBL is doing a good job on ABC.

Channel 10 instead of numerous reruns of Simpsons and Raymond!

Why can't the nbl get on ABC if the WNBL can?

ESPN had coverage of the Miami/LA game but I did notice the Detroit/Indiana game was covered by ABC I think.

The Simpsons rock so don't knock them. I am not sure why ABC can't get on board for NBL.Seems unlikely because I beleive they were talking about scaling down sport coverage but i could be wrong.

Simpsons might rock ... the first 5 times around!

I heard something about nike sponsoring the NBL next year - if thats the case, surely it would open the door to free to air coverage.

Nike sponsor the NBL now. It's the NBL shoe of choice...

WNBL coverage on the ABC is, while a little amateur, great to see. A number of times I've had TV on in the background and flicked channels -- WNBL beats the shopping shows or motorsports/golf that is usually on over the weekends.

An NBA and Euro hoops show on SBS would be good...

The reason why WNBL is shown on ABC is because being a government owned station, they have a charter
to not only produce a certain amount of local programming, but also to provide coverage to "minority" sports, which as unfortunate as it is, WNBL comes under.

NBL does not come under a minority bracket, and therefore the ABC has no obligations to coverage.

I personally beleive that FTA is not the be all and end all that so many people proclaim it to be. Foxtel now goes out to approx 70% of homes, not to mention every 2nd pub carries Fox Sports as a minimum. Given that Fox do their programming on LIVE games, in peak viewing times, I think thats a lot better situation than gettin a 1 am edited highlights coverage, which is all FTA would offer, if anything at this time.

But surely the goal is to bring in new fans, and the vast majority of those watch FTA TV.

The majority don't have Foxtel -- I don't consider it value for money, so I don't have it.

FTA isn't crucial, but it'd help basketball get back in front of people.

But...how many people would see the edited highlights package at 1am???

Yogee, 70% of homes in Australia or South Australia? I would very doubt that SA has 70 % as that is why they are offering free digital to SA at the moment.(that also might be to all states.) People used to watch FTA tv on 7 and if they didnt watch late they would tape it. I remember when they played interstate friday night you used to come home from district and switch it on. Kids don't have access to the pub and remember if this game is to grow its needs to be promoted to the younger generations so they see what they want to play. With Nike on board I would say that something would be in the pipeline soon. I hope so.

Yogee, I'm not worried about other people and the edited highlights package at 1am.

I would watch it .... or more likely tape it. Pay TV is still too expensive for sooooo many people, that the NBL is shooting itself by throwing all its eggs in a closed basket.

70% in Australia (sorry, didnt think that needed qualification,but there it is :) )

Yeah, most of us would watch or tape any FTA that was on. But thats not what it is for.

The whole idea is getting the product in front of a new audience, and promoting the sport to get better crowd numbers. So a 1am highlights package wont be the best way to do that.

You seriously don't think the NBL would jump at the chance to get the NBL "Phillips championship" on free to air television. Now that the NBL have a major sponsor with Phillips and Nike as a shoe sponsor "FTA" will take the NBL seriously and listen to them when they say they have a product that is both attractive and commercially sound to a national advertiser that doesn't wish to directly invest in the NBL it self, but can see the benefit in spending money on advertising during a telecast of a basketball match. Give the NBL 6 more month and a "FTA" network will be lined up for next season, reports out of the NBL are that a "FTA" network is very interested in have a finals package on.

I doubt the NBL will go back to FTA. Foxtel easily outbid the FTA stations, and none of them would be interested anyway. SBS has soccer (except local, which unsurprisingly is on Foxtel); ABC has local footy and other minor sports; Seven has Union Test Matches, Soccer Internationals, Olympics/C'Wealth Games, and other sports; Nine has football and cricket and Rubgy League; Ten has football and Motorsport.

Where does FTA Basketball braodcasting fit in??

Where does FTA

I always thought if any network would pick up basketball, it would be 7....the only summer sport they have is tennis

I cannot understand why the ABC would consider WNBL as a minor sport and therefore telecast these games as opposed to NBL. Either NBL must also be considered a minor sport and therefore preferable to be telecast on the ABC or if it is not, why aren't other FTA stations telecasting it? NBL cannot be excluded from both of the categories. I also consider Fox to be poor value for money when you can't get what you want out of it. The only value to us would be telecasting Sixers games. There have been a few home games telecasted which are no good if you go to the game. There have been very little away games telecasted (from memory one only this season and that was the Sydney 3rd Nov game and we are half way through the season already). Instead of investing money in Foxtel, I use that money to go to a couple of away games. As for anything else being shown on Foxtel, if you've got the time to watch that much TV, there is probably enough to see on FTA stations.

I think it has to do with crowd numbers.....considering it is considered an excellent crowd if it breaks the 1000 mark at any WNBL game, it qualifies for minority status.

I'm not sure of what the ABC's criteria is, I just remember it being covered quite deeply in the papers when the ABC was threatening to move all sports production to Sydney.

Yogee, I also thought that the ABC had a requirement to cover a certain amount of Women's Sport as well and they chose the WNBL as it had a wider TV appeal than say the National Netball League or Soccer.

That could be part of it as well.

As I mentioned, my very limited knowledge of the matter is only what was reported in the papers quite a while ago.

Yogee, You keep going on about Foxtel. OK, so if 70% of Australian homes have it, how many of them watch or have the sports channels. I think that would be the more important statistic. Just because you have a service does not mean you will use it. The same could be said for FTA of course, but the coverage needs to be accessable to 100% of the population.

Yogee
where did you get the statistic of 70% of homes have Foxtel? This to me sounds INCREDIBLY high. I would agree that 70% of homes have access - ie the cabling is in place if they wish to connect - but I doubt that 70% of the public actually have Foxtel connected.
And to Anon every subscriber has teh Fox Sports 1 and 2 channels (which show the NBL) - it is included in the Basic package. How many people are actually watching these games is another question entirely however

Like I said before, whether NBL or NBA, to put some of the crap on they do before Basketball is insulting to the sport. I simply can not believe that Basketball have that small an audience...
NBL games replayed the next morning would have to be an idea??? Put it on around 12pm, kids are just getting home form playing morning ball and guys like myself are just waking up...PERFECT! I remember in high school I used to race home from Basketball or Tennis every Saturday morning to watch an NBA game (although severly edited to fit within an hour time slot) followed by NBA Action, it was great!

Statman you are correct - it is not true that 70% of Australian homes HAVE Foxtel, just that they COULD access it if they chose to subscribe.
Foxtel's website states that just 22% of Australian homes subscribe to pay-TV (Foxtel-Optus-Austar).
So without free to air coverage, more than three quarters of Australians couldn't watch a game of NBL at home if they wanted to.
Hardly providing the exposure the game needs is it?

I thought that I was right about the 70%. Thanks cat for stats. Once again yogee, you are sprouting off about something you are ill informed about.

Sorry, my mistake. I misread the details, it says that Fox is available to 70% of Australian homes.

As for time slots, people you keep talking about when you would like to watch it. That is not the idea of getting more TV exposure. We are already fans. We will watchg it, or tape it no matter when it is on. We need to get it in front of new audiences. FTA will not give it a 12pm weekend time slot. If anything, it will give it a 1am-ish time slot, and the NBL would probably have to buy that air time anyway (sorta like a paid advertisement you seen on at that time of day).

1am, and an edited highlights package (imagine the package this week with something like 12 gamnes on across the round - 1 minute of each game if your lucky), just would not get it in front of the public.

There needs to be strong enforcement of Australian content on all networks.

The key to FTA for the NBL is crowds. Why are sponsors and TV networks going to jump on opportunities to broadcast games if there are 4000 people going to the Dome instead of 7000+? Back in the 90s, attendance records of 15-19,000 people were being set in Melbourne, and hasn't that changed! It was only a couple of years ago that the Dome would be nearly full for most games of a season!

FTA is a step for the NBL, but it's not the next step, IMO.

As others have clarified, 70% of Australian homes have the potential to buy access to Foxtel.

1.1m homes have access, which is less than 14% of households using data from the ABS.

I think advertising on TV would be more crucial at this stage (i.e., attracting crowds) than actually pushing for live games.

i am a 15 year old girl who is absolutly in love with basketball. i think it is appaling how much the basketball is shown on t.v and the little tv i do watch a week is usually the basketball on a saturday afternoon.if basketball was on more i would watch it. everyone is always going on about how australian teens dont get out enough or do enough exercise because they sit infront of the t.v but dont you think that if they had the inspiration of a basketball game once or twice a week that would be their inspiration to get out and do some exercise.