Its a shame the crowd sizes have reduced in the last year or two. We would support the sixers and the lightning if we lived in adelaide.

Lets keep this great game going. Its given me much pleasure since my daughters have started playing.

9.40 to go in the 3rd and were down by 20!! WHAT THE F*!K IS GOING ON HERE!!!
Im stuck at work fuming!!!!!!!!!!!

why have we played bad? what is with their shooting 3's brisbane?? why why why??? Maher and Farley havent had the influence...the bullets are a danger team without rucker and a great team with him....i knew it was gonan be tough with rucker playing...but i thought we would get up at home...

*shakes head*

I just can't believe it.

What the score??????
don't have foxtel.

Game over. Sixers lose by 15 points. Season over.

Adelaide have never be known for awesome defence. Live and die by the three.

Hmmmmmm so who was saying that they would rather play Brisbane....a streaky team that can run hot and cold...but tonight they have proved that when they run hot they are as predicted preseason!

Sixers wewre purely and simply outplayed by a better team on the night!

Statman, Brisbane would've beaten any team in the country tonight, still think going in to the match, they were the preferred team to play rather than Melbourne(or Perth).

I am not sure if was that we lost, but rather Brisbane won, so to speak. Our half time stats on the large scoreboard weren't that bad. Their shooting, particularly the 3 was very good - undefended and defended.

seems a waste, i was positive the season would have been longer for the 36ers.

what happened to the 3 game series?

How can a top 4 side not get 2nd chances? what the hell do you play for? 11 team comp, 8 team finals, top 2 or else??

that being said, the bullets played a blinder and deserved it tonight. The 36ers need to think about it and they have all off season to do that now :(

get the cat back and a dominating big man!!!!!

where is the cash? and the roster spot. Do you loose jacob for cat and hope brett, dusty, or willie leave for the money? Cat wont play for nothing and i think they should stay with jacob and oscar as the young guys stepping up. See what happens with brett and if he is leaving, look at the mee situation if he is now an oz.

On tonights form Jacob may be a little nervous come contract time!

The crowd didn't look good. Whether it was the prices or lack of publicity that stopped the game from selling out, I don't know, but both of those issues need to be addressed. I was shocked.

I too was shocked at the crowd number. Being a season ticket holder and sitting amongst the same people all the time, I only recognised 1 face around me tonight. Looks like even the season ticket holders don't carry their support into the finals series. The prices were a little higher for this game but only a couple of dollars. Don't know why people don't continue their support to the very end, I would have thought that the finals series would have brought about even more excitement.

Cat aint coming back, and hopefully neither are the people that set the prices for the finals, sorry final!
But of course they are when they get the sort of money there on, thanks boss.

Prices and publicity were woeful. No e-newsletter sent out in the week before the final. No real previews posted on the site. No seeds on the official forum from admin. Weak.

Why not? Have they given up!?

There's no official crowd figure on the NBL document, but it didn't look better than the best during the season which was around 5800 from memory. It's a final game, possibly (and ultimately, unfortunately) the last the team will play for 6 months. Go all out to get the crowd in!

If you thought that the Sixers site had stagnated these last few weeks, I bet you can't wait for the off-season!

Ok. I actually write the e-newsletter (I was never going to own up to that one, I do enough that people know of).

Unfortunately with the opponent only being known on late Wednesday, I literally did not have time to getone written between then and the game on Friday. However, that should not have stopped someone from the 36ers admin, who are actually getting paid to do something, write something about it. There was only 1 press release from the club during the week, and that was a schedule for the week, including a media invitation to training on Thursday (which is why Reesy was on all the news services)

There are some different plans already being drawn up for next saeason for the web site, and hopefully things will improve there.

$31 for an adult ticket, $27 for concession (gee, our lucky concession holders get $4 off - wow).

Pretty ordinary pricing. C'mon folks, I know the regular season tickets are $27 or so anyway, but this is plain stupid.

Supply and demand. Anyone can see the problem here.

Lack of advertising is no excuse. The crowd last night was smaller than many of the regular season crowd. Every season ticket holder knew of this game coming up yet many of those stayed away themselves. I spread the word to atleast 6 non regular attendees about the game. If every season ticket holder attended and mentioned it to atleast 2 other people, the crowd would have been bigger, with or without advertising.

Like I said after throwing the game against Cairnes be careful what you wish for!

this one will take a while to get over...the whole season of great memories is flushed down the toilet and what can be described as one of the worst losses i have experienced.
hopefully they wont blow the team up!

EC, you seem to think that the burden is on fans (paying to watch games) to do the job of the 36ERS marketing crew (getting paid to promote the games). I've not even seen the 36ERS send out something suggesting that people tell their friends about the games, or try a viral marketing campaign to induce this.

Often I struggle to give away tickets (including posting on this forum that I have spares, and getting no responses whatsoever) so trying to convince less passionate fans to fork out $32 at Venue*Tix for a seat, isn't really the solution.

I think that the finals should be included with your season ticket. I think the club is too greedy and season ticket holders get very little in return in their support of the 36ers.I heard the game advertised on the radio a few times during the week but that was it.More T.V. promo perhaps? Who is the woman who sits in the 36ers players tunnel during games?promotions? She runs around the court all game like a chook with its head cut-off!

EC, I hype games up to my friends all the time, and they are always keen to come. Then I say it will cost $31 plus booking fee and all interest is lost. In past years I was able to get people to buy single game tickets. This year not one person did.

If this were a shareholder company management would be outed by now. Great work management on making me pay for the car park too after having a season car park pass.

Isaac, if you fail to give away tickets, then tell me what the club's administration can do to make people pay $32. If you haven't been passionate all season, advertising finals will bring no excitement at all. If someone tried to convince me that I should be part of the excitement of a soccer grand final, I would tell them what they could do with their tickets (politely that is). It starts at grass roots level. You've got to find ways to entice newcomers throughout the season and then perhaps some of them will leave with such a good impression that they will want to keep coming back. Believe it or not, it's only 3 years ago that it happened to me. I am not a passionate fan going back 10 or 20 years, but my 1st game I attended never saw me looking back. In fact I kick myself now for not realising earlier that there was something out there that I would thoroughly enjoy doing. I'm sure I'm not unique, there must be many more out there who would be in the same position. The challenge is finding them.

The challenge EC is getting numbers back to the games. New fans are not needed; we just have to get the current 36er fans back to games.

I can literally reel off 20 names straight off the top of my head that desperately want to come but simply can't afford to. These are the same people who years ago attended games regularly.

Everywhere I go, work, to university, to family events, talking with my friends, the question constantly gets asked: "Have the Sixers lowered the prices yet?" Placing a $15 ticket on a website no one goes to doesn't work either. It's simple supply and demand. Even if net ticket revenue is less with lower prices and higher crowds, the higher crowds brings in sponsorship, sells the corporate boxes, brings merchandise sales, higher car park revenue, higher food sales etc etc. Right at the moment the sport is on a downward spiral and the ONLY people to blame for it is the front office.

One other point. As of Thursday night it was reported that there was 2,800 tickets left. That would leave the crowd at 5,000. With a whole day of sales left, with two days already gone with about 1,000 tickets being sold each day according to the numbers the crowd should have approached 6,000.

4,600 show up. So does that mean, without selling a single ticket on Friday 400 people decided to watch on Fox? Doubt it? Seems to me that Basa were just making numbers up to make the situation not seem as bad as it was, (this figure was quoted on the Thursday news as well so surely Basa gave this figure and not Boti).

You've answered your own question. They've got to find ways to entice people to come to games (hasn't been done, IMO), and get season ticket holders to pay up for the finals (you've suggested that it probably didn't happen). Whose job is that? The prices for some people would have risen from $15 (using the online coupon) to $30+, for pretty average seats.

The club should be leading by example and I don't think that they are.

mixmasterwipe, that would probably be Teresa Whitehorn (usually wearing a Sixers shirt or polo). Also in the tunnel during games is Jane Donovan who coordinates the Sixers Dancers.


DC, where did that 4,600 come from? Has it been confirmed anywhere bar an anonymous post? The crowd was not good enough, but I wasn't sitting in my usual seats and so couldn't make a decent guess at numbers.

Just the post but I would stick by that number. Behind the backboards the seats weren't even half full. Above the concourse was virtually empty, maybe a quarter of the seats full.

Ausstadiums has the estimated crowd at 5,500 with a crowd figure still to be announced.

As for the above post. When I say front office, I mean to direct the criticism to certain individuals, and the people hired by those individuals.

Like I said earlier if this was a shareholder company, top end management would be out of here by now.

That is crap! Of course marketing assists the selling of tickets.

I know people who couldn't care less about the AFL or the NRL but come finals time where you can't walk out onto the street without seeing a reminder about the next 'big overhyped' finals match, even those same bandwagon people are trying to buy tickets or tune in on TV to watch the next game.

The 36ers off-court team have to lift their game.

On-court action was fine but the game presentation, half time entertainment, ticket prices and increases for the finals were absolutely horrible.

I said it last year and I will say it again...if dramatic improvements aren't made to the ticket prices the crowds will be even worse than this season.

Like Isaac said, I have trouble giving tickets away. People at my work who are on far more than what I am on laugh when they hear the ticket prices.

Its gotten to the stage where I would predict that most of the season ticket holders are fanatical fans either who play basketball or who have been going for years. I wonder how many season tickets they have sold to new fans during the past few years.

Re the half time entertainment, I don't want to read crap about reduced budgets and financial constraints either because most of it comes straight down to absolute laziness and lack of creativity on the part of the people getting paid to come up with smart business decisions.

I went to a game in Sydney, and their half time entertainment was some dancing from some teenage community centre group (and I am not a dancing fan by any means!). The Brisbane game I went to featured a pretty decent trampoline dunking group that had the crowd entertained.

How expensive would something like that be?

How hard would it be to have the best U/12, U/14, U/16 and U/18 state players play a 10 minute scrimmage over the half time break. I'm talking about the top kids in the state, not an U/10 primary school game where the whole crowd cheers when someone hits the ring.

Between the boys and the girls there is 8 of the home games already accounted for. If the off-court team was extremely lazy, have the teams match up twice in the season and there is your 16 games accounted for.

The novelty factor of seeing a Brad Hill light it up in the U/14 game, then see him the following year in the U/16 game, etc until he ends up playing in the main game would be pretty cool.

What would the cost be of doing something like this? Nothing apart from rewarding the 16 or so kids involved with free tickets to the game.

Hell of a lot better than blind folding people who chase a blown up Coke bottle.

If the sponsors want more exposure then have the kids where bloody Coke jerseys and put the Coke signs around the court. Its not really that hard.

Of course we pay our money to see the big game and some couldn't care less about the pre-game and half-time entertainment.

However, if it was irrelevant from a ticket selling and entertainment stand-point why do NBA teams spend thousands per game on fireworks, celebrity bands, prize giveaways, on court weddings, etc when the fans are quite willing to pay their $20 because Lebron James and Shaquille O'Neal will be on the court.

My opinion is that when you don't have a Lebron James who will sell tickets by himself, the off-court team have to work harder not just sit around providing their paying customers with nothing while accepting their pay cheque for providing nothing.

I apologise if this offends anyone or if you think this is too harsh. Probably sour grapes for getting knocked out last night but thought this was the appropriate spot to post this criticism that I'm sure I am not the only one who thinks this way.

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Anonymous, yes you would be right in the things about the Pope, Queen etc. But they would also be written by paid journos, who actualy get paid to do it.

My writing the newsletters wasn't even something asked by the club, but I was approchaed by JABA, the guys who designed the website, due to my previous involvement with the former website. I dont get paid, apart from the occasional free ticket. I also have a home life to maintain, a full time paying job, and other clients of my business that need attending to.

And to be honest, I didnt think an e-newsletter would have been that warranted. All the season ticket holders would have got their mail about the finals, what more could have been said? I wouldnt have done a game preview on a newsletter, as that should have been done on the website, something provided by the club.

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cavalo, as Yogee has said, that's been mentioned before and IMO it's a good idea.

My original tweak to that was to offer a $15-17.50 ticket from which $2.50 (or whatever) went to the club promoting it. This could be easily tracked via the coupon used (you'd have a Sturt coupon, a Forestville coupon, etc). Doing so would give each club an incentive to promote the game amongst members and friends. A club could, under its own initiative, have a ticket drive by which families would pass on the ads or coupons -- it would work a bit like an affiliate program which is a very effective way of "spreading the word".

I believe that Forestville have, in the (recent?) past, organised group bookings for 36ERS games to attain a better price. Someone might confirm that for us, but I think I saw something about it in their online newsletter.


Yogee, the e-newsletter would also go out to non-season ticket holders. I'm subscribed and I'm not a season ticket holder, so I receive no info from the 36ERS besides that newsletter at all. I think that there have been two newsletters all season long. As I've said in the past, they never needed to be a saga, just a couple of paragraphs pointing people towards recent articles or forum discussions.

Here's an example:

"The Adelaide Pura Milk 36ERS face the Brisbane Bullets on Friday night in an elimination final. The Bullets are coming off a home win that ended the season of the Hunter Pirates. Tickets go on sale to the general public on Wednesday morning at Venue*Tix outlets in Da Costa Arcade and (wherever else), as well as being available at the door on game night.

Tip-off is 7:10, so don't miss this game! Adult seats are $27.xx plus a booking fee, and we have a family ticket available at the door only for $98 (whatever it was).

Forward this to as many of your friends as would be interested and help us make sure that the Dome will be rocking on Friday night!"

That's literally (I watched the clock) two minutes work. Even if it brings in an extra five people, it's better than nothing.

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I agree Isaac, that it would have taken 2 minutes.

I guess I can put it down to lack of forethought on ym part in not sending one out. But then all I do is write them, email them off for them to be put on template and then sent out, so there still would have been no guarantees they would have gotten out (I have written 4 newsletters, but as you mentioned, only 2 came out)

I know JABA have some different plans for next season, hopefully that may improve web interaction a bit better, but unfortunately, they are still the message bearers, and if the messages arent being sent out from the 36ers, there isn't a great deal they can do.

They can start by answering e-mails. After all I'm nothing but a "faceless critic."

Yogee I'm sick of you defending Adrian. The website is dead, hardly anything is updated, it looks awful and he is most likely hitting the club up for a nice sum of dollars.

He never answers e-mails and his last public comment was to offend fans. Quite frankly his work is a joke.

Actually, Adrian is just an employee of JABA, one of many people that work on the contract.

And you cant blame JABA "for hitting the club up for a nice sum of dollars". The club hired them on a quote, so if you dont like the price being paid, blame the club.

I looked at the website this morning, and there had been at least 3 news articles posted in the last week, and a reasonable amount of forum activity (for them, I would not dare compare to the activity we have here) - so I think your criticisms are a little unjust.

How can JABA, who are a multi media company, generate basketball news??? Surely you would agree it is up to the club (and in fact, the way the site is designed is that staff at the club are meant to actually update the news part of the site themselves) to provide the news, not up to JABA to actually try and gather in the news???

Yes, there are a lot of faults with the web site, something JABA is more than aware of themselves. If you have some constructive points you would like to bring to their attention, feel free to send them to me if you like, as I will be meeting with them over the next few weeks.

4 forum posts since the elimination final /= "reasonable amount of forum activity"! Compared to this no-budget site: 22 new threads, with at least 240 replies (the majority of which are discussing the 36ERS).

I honestly think the 36ERS site is very average, but I'd defend Adrian also. AFAIK, he's gone beyond the terms of his contract with it and the main criticism I would have is that he underestimated or misunderstood what it would take to create a successful site.

I think part of the issue comes down to gaps not being filled. As I've said before, the club needs to identify their strengths and weaknesses, and recruit/adapt to cover those weaknesses. If one of those weaknesses is not having internal staff willing to make a site successful, change that.

Yogee, whoevers responsibility it was, do you seriously think that it's reasonable for there to not be finals prices and ticket information available on the website leading up to Friday's game?

Oh, I think it's very poor not to have any info up on the site.

My comments about reasonable activity was in regards to their usual traffic, and took into account before the fianl as well.

It will NEVER compare to this site.

I disagree on that last point. Leave this site in the hands of someone and put me in charge of the other site and I'd win people over. Wouldn't be simple, and it wouldn't be because I was doing it (rather because of the things I'd do), but I bet that I could do it!

Isaac, you've lost me a bit in the last sentence of your post. Please explain.

There is no doubt you could improve the Sixers site. In fact, let the Sixers buy this site from you (with you taking complete control of moderating it) and make it their official site. With the addition of a home page full of relevant info and this forum connected to it, it would be the most successful website they could gain.

This website already takes in the most basketball talk traffic in SA and as Bongo said, it will give sponsors a good impression so as to get involved if the website is a lively one that people visit regularly (more like peak hour traffic all day).

I say all this assuming that it would be up for sale for the right price.

EC, I just meant that I could get people to go to an alternative site, without them even knowing it was me doing it. i.e., if Apple put out an MPG player, a lot of people would trust the brand and give it a shot because they valued their past products. I was saying that I could do the right things to get people across starting from scratch. It's not even that hard -- you just put in an on-going effort, and keep doing the little things.