Great POST!

Without going into detail as to why, I know that you hit the nail right on the head.

they need ta win a medal in the Olympics !! any color will do

The Women have won medals. Medals help sure but the structure is the first step.

http://www.fiba.com/pages/eng/fc/even/rank/p/openNodeIDs/1001/selNodeID/1001/rankComb.html

Fe govt certainly puts significant funs into basketball through the Australian Sports Commission. Funding is based on participation rates, Olympic status, and world ranking - and basketball has big ticks in all boxes.

Dont know about SA State Gov, but in Victoria the Gov would put as much money into basketball as any other sport,, if not more, thorugh grants to build new facilities.

The overall review of the sport was initiated largely because the Fed Govt felt the sport was being inefficiently run. The brief was to create a structure that linked the grassroots with the elite and create a sustainable elite competition etc or else not only risk not having funding increased, but being reduced significantly.

Once BA can show it has achieved those goals, it is likely to receive a significant boost in govt funding. The community linkages in Cairns, Townsville and Wollongong have helped in that regard, but the withdrawal of Melbourne and South, opening the door for a Basketball Vic aligned team that creates the linkage in the sports biggest market.

With BA aiming to introduce similar models in Sydney and Brisbane the following year, this has opened the door for BA to achieve their required goals and get the funding boost.

I know the Messenger is currently putting together a story which covers this discussion to a point. Since Hubbard has come out and said that there would be at least 6 stadiums in SA that need upgrading it has generated interest and discussion about State level Government funding. I believe that Morphett Vale has received some funding to do some renovations to their stadium and I believe that currently Marion Stadium managers are trying to do the same.
From a Health and Safety aspect, I think the distance of the fixed seating around the courts is way too close, if you look at both Wayville and Pasadena's design the fixed seating is at least 2 metres from the sideline. At Marion currently we are having issues with Nails coming up through the floorboards and are currently having to hammer them down before games and practices.
The sport at a local level is in dire strait of some funding and I just hope something can be done soon before any incidents occur.

I guess it depends on your definition of significant. For me, being a major source of funding is significant.

It is true that basketball hasnt received the boost funding netball and soccer have received, that is probably to do with the fact that those sports have reviewed their operations and basketball hasnt.

show me the press release where anything like 50m was allocated to netball....

Even FFA, the federal government's sport love child (abd for good reason), only got 32 million over four years and a significant proportion of that was to establish the new w-league

netball receives signifcantly less FG funding than basketball does.

Netball just use their money more wisely.

paul. FYI the Victorian State government is a non-generous funder of BV as an entity and while it announced two weeks ago it was giving 7 million to thje ill-conceived but electorally pleasing knox development, it has not funded facilities generously in recent times.

It has lavished $ on AFL club training facilities, jointly funded the country football/netball grants with the AFL and poured (pun intended) a lot of money into swimming pools recently.

I believe youll find that basketball and soccer receive the most money for local facility grants of any sports in Victoria.

Burnside Council survey said last week most people there wanted an indoor sports stadium, because there's nothing in the east. Mars is private, CLC is dodgy, Unley is school.
Trouble is, SA Government has no policy, literally no policy, much less funding to support it, to provide community facilities for any sport. Feds do elite sport and peak bodies, but the rec and sport office can onl y hand out up to $300,000, which may help with a car park/storage shed, but won't build a knox/Wayville etc. If only Martin H-Sm wanted to build basketball stadiums instead of whatever it is he does want to build...

They don't fund basketball because it doesn't win votes. If the NBL were to show plans for expansion into Asia i'm sure it'd get funding along the lines of soccer.

So why wouldn't people vote for community sports buildings? I wouldn't vote for an NBL jaunt into Asia, but would most definitely vote for a sports stadium for my kids. The pollies just haven't discovered the deep support for this issue, as revealed in the Burnside survey. When they do find out that there's votes in it, then we'll get some action.

If foxtel was behind aussie bball then the murdoch press wouldn't bag out funding for it, if it isn't then if it was funded the murdoch press would jump on the story negatively, it's a lose/lose situation.

NBL in Guam, thats just silly. While the Australian Government did the deal for Australia to move into Asia for football, it was nothing to do with their national league, its about the sheilaroos. No one in football is yet convinced that the Asian champions league is good for football, as it adds massive costs to particpate above and beyond the a-league costs and as yet there is not return.

Why does everyone think Asia is a saviour for australian basketball and the nbl? The vast majority of asia, bar China, a little of korea and Japan is neither good at basketball or well funded for it.

A look to asia is a very very long term strategy - maybe 20-30 years down the track.

I guess we think Basketball is popular in Asia , more than here.
What's it like in the Phillipines , these days ?

About 6 months ago BA announced it would take expressions of interest for a new league, replacing the old NBL, increase Opals and Boomers games played in Australia, against quality opposition.
And work with International Basketball for participation in an Asian champions league for 2011.

and Paul, the Vic government has dedicated funding programs for football/netball (600k in 2009 and 2010, but 6 million over a 5 year period), for football (as in the world game - 5 million over 4 years), for minor facilities (around 5 mill per year), for major facilities (around 5 mill per year) and for aquatics (up to 8 facilities per year at up to 2.5 mill).

To give you an idea of how much that funding is skewed, there have been three maor funding announcements involving basketball in the last 3 years.

a) the two year, 7 million commiment announced recently for the knox basketball AND football centre
b) 500k for kilsyth late last year (major facilities)
c) 500k for eltham about 18 mths ago (major facilities)

Other than that, its been minor grants funding for feasibibilities and the like....around 60k per time and occasionally (but not often) for high ball stadiums.

Two aquatics announcements per year blow the basketball funding stuff out of the water. The country football grant stuff easily exceeds what basketball has been given - especially because councils can also apply for minor facilities funding for football grounds.

They are spending 5 million this year on a master plan for melbourne park alone (for the Australian open) and last year gave 5.7 million in one hit to redeveloping arden street for the Kangaroos.

They've given Geelong at least 15 million for Skilled Stadium in the last 5 years, and offered money to st kilda, melbourne, etc etc. each of the victorian football clubs has enjoyed a generous funds input from the vic government in the last 5-6 years, normally in the multiple millions.

Sorry, basketball, considering its participation base in Victoria, is not well funded at all compared to these other sports. Participation for basketball in Vic is on a par with footy and netball, and comfortably exceeds soccer.

Basketball is not a national sport in Australia! It does not deserve the funding! It is an American game and should stay in America! Basketball makes arise so many social issues! Basketball is only for the TALL players! Its boring to watch compared to the likes of Australian games!
Overall its a sh*# game!