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Years ago
New NBL - Secret meeting at wildcats
From The West today
The outcome of a secret meeting between three renegade NBL clubs in Perth yesterday could halt Australian basketball's reform process and plunge the sport into its biggest crisis in more than a century.
Representatives from Perth, South Dragons and Townsville gathered at the Wildcats' headquarters yesterday to devise a united stance against plans to amalgamate the NBL and Basketball Australia into one body to control the sport across the country.
A new elite men's competition would then be implemented next season to replace the ailing NBL.
League clubs, State associations and BA will assemble in Sydney tomorrow to vote on the unification, which follows an 18-month review of the sports' dysfunctional structure.
At least 75 per cent of the 10 NBL clubs need to be in favour of the proposal for it to succeed. However, while the Wildcats, Dragons and Crocodiles have in principle support for the code's reformation, they are at odds with key parts of the merger blueprint, including the amount of distributions from TV rights, relinquishing team identities to the central body and a demand each club have a minimum of three owners.
The Wildcats would not comment on the discussions involving owner Jack Bendat, his executive staff Andrew Vlahov and Nick Marvin, plus Crocodiles boss Ian Smythe and Dragons part-owner Mark Cowan.
But The West Australian understands the clubs were not prepared yesterday to vote in favour of the merger. Their dissenting voice would be enough to scuttle the reform and leave an already floundering NBL competition with no direction.
A delay in determining basketball's immediate future would jeopardise plans to implement a new men's league by next season and raise doubts about whether an NBL operation struggling to function could survive.
Not even the sweetener of a $30 million pay-TV deal for next year could change some clubs' views.
BA chief executive Scott Derwin revealed yesterday Fox Sports had offered to broadcast every game in the new men's league but only if the merger was successful.
"Their (Fox Sports) opinion of the way the sport is structured at the moment is that it's completely flawed," Derwin said. "You would hope that offer would get the vote across the line. The alternative is to keep going the way we've been going and I doubt anyone in their right mind would agree to that.
"This is one of those moments in time for the sport that comes along once in a lifetime."
ROSS LEWIS
