This is something that I think would help, I have mentioned on here before that I know more people that follow NBA religiously than I do that could name all 9 NBL teams.

NBA Exhibition match before (or after, suprise on the night to keep the NBA purists there the whole time) an NBL season game?

Might be hard to organise with the lockout, But get some players out here to just be at some of the NBL games. Do a clinic with some youngsters at half time. Advertise it as NBA half time show!!1!! Which is something I still think Bogut should do if nothing gets sorted.

In my opinion, it would be good to see any kind of partnership formed with the NBA, even if it only provides some "name recognition" for the league.

If the NBL is able to enter into a partnership with the NBA surely that would allow the game to expand in Australia, as well as put pressure on the media to cover and broadcast it more.

The one thing that bothers me (and there is a whole other thread about it) is the delayed telecasts of the games.
People keep talking about a game which tips off at 7:30pm needing to be broadcast on delay by 10:30, but this quote makes me think otherwise.

The current broadcast deal calls for matches to be shown live or within a three-hour window from when a match is complete.

Australia has supported the NBA big time for the last 15 years. We buy heaps of the merchandise, league passes, etc. However the NBA has just given us 2 NBA Jam conventions in all of that time. I think it is about time the NBA gives back to Australia - they have had games now in China, England (WTF) and Mexico.

The distance is not an excuse.

dud, we don't have the population they could potentially reach. The money in Chinese basketball is massive too. We might do OK on the world stage in lots of ways, but when it comes down to it, we only have 22.5m people.

Anything is better than noting IMO right now.

There is another side to this "partnership" if it does evolve. Surely this would get the Australian league more recognition with fringe NBA players, hence possibly bringing some better imports to our shores.

What would be ideal is if FetchTV or someone similar gets rights to broadcast NBA TV into Australia. League Pass is one thing, but the NBA TV channel live, and not counted against your ISP quota would be awesome. I'd happily pay League Pass subscriptions on top of a premium ISP plan for that service.

Still, it seems a bit silly to ignore a market like Australia and divert ALL resources toward China.

Australia has a bigger population than 48 American states, so maybe treat it like another US market!

I mean if we buy aggregate the most overseas League Pass that means we are a fairly fanatical market.

I would like to see a match with NBL All stars vs an NBA team! once each season

to tell you the truth, i haven't watched an nba game in full since the bird,magic and jordan era's....when it was about basketball.
when that era came to an end the nba panicked and sold out on it's image for the braid haired,tattooed,gangster,rapper thing.

maybe the huge oz following says something about the wannabe attitude of our youth, rather than getting off their butts(and play stations)and having a red hot go!!

Skull - when did u find the time to watch any basketball? After all, didn't you have to walk 80 miles thru 4 foot deep snow to school every day?

thedoctor - yeah,yeah, working two jobs to support the family because our drunken/abusive father walked out !

actually,it was when i was on the dole in the 80's.

80 'miles' thru 4 'foot'of snow! school? me?

I'm all with Dud NBA basketball was huge in the nineties in Australia even bigger then it is now and the NBA played games in Japan, Mexico and even England. But Australia was left out and like Dud says two NBA james one of them hardly anyone call superstars in it Greg Anthony, Scott Brooks, Bj Armstrong.

Frankly it was piss weak from the NBA, it would'nt have hurt to have one game over here, it would of sold out like hot cakes even if it was held at the superdome.

Without detracting from NBL, never underestimate the difference of popularity between NBA and NBL, it is huge and will always be huge.