Surprised it hasn't happened sooner

You do wonder..what does Australia bring to the community? Appart from a hobby theres not exactly a huge entertainment value that will contribute to the community as a whole by doing this.

Waste of $? Pretty sure more people come to Australia to surf than play basketball

does that benefit anyone other than the odd young surfer?

for 99.99999999999% of surfers its just a very passionate hobby that they really enjoy doing when they can. im not sure big $ needs to be spent helping kids, seriously, if your a passionate surfer living in the right place all you'ld be missing is a coach and a place to compete. not exactly big dollars and the companies fund the comps to get publicity anyway.

unlike ballers who need a stadium and court, referees and training, stadium staff , coaches. beaches and waves occur naturally, all you need is a coach and competitions.

It's amazing how often when a thread on here is about another sport getting funding, the majority of replies are just whiners complaining that the money should've been given to basketball.

Phil, you are supremely narrow minded. For surfing, you need more than just a coach and a competition to put people in. The big waves happen on the coast generally in rural areas that aren't developed much. Competitors need a place to stay. In addition to the education of the sport that will be provided with this COE, accommodation is also a part of the centre. Then on top of that you need an administration to govern the competitions etc.

I could argue that all basketball needs is a hoop and a ball, but that would be without actually taking a look at the big picture. Until basketball australia gets their act together, money won't be given to them by the government.

Again guys, and without regurgitating everything said in the thread a week or so back, basketball has landed good buckets of money for venue development over the last 3-5 years. Upwards of 30 million....

End of the day, surfing has been handled at a much higher level here and will put money back into the community, basketball is handled by idiots here generally and isn't putting much money back in the community, if any...

Ricey that's just stupid. Almost every major basketball development I have ever seen has involved basketball (assoc normally) making a significant contribution.

I'm talking about financial return to communities around them. Surfing compared to basketball, look at spending from the general public and tourists in this country. Wonder which creates more tax dollars, hmmmm

Again Ricey, ridiculous. Basketball, simply on the basis of hundreds of thousands of weekly participants, could claim a significant economic impact.

Recreational surfers don't pay to play. they buy a wetsuit and board, and they shop in surf shops. Basketballers pay to play, often pay to train, buy uniforms, shoes etc. and shop in sports shops or through uniform manufacturers.

Basketball directly employs hundreds of people if not thousands in this country, and then referees generate significant generally untaxed income which works its way into local economies.

So Australia has one basketball store and how many surf stores are there? Thank you and good day sir

Ricey, I don't want to disrupt your discussion here, but please - if you ever do one thing for me, please start posting as Sir Ricey from now on!

Only after the queen knights me in couple weeks in London haha

Sir Ricey,

Who said anything about basketball shops?

See you in the morning, assuming mum has you tucked away and in bed by 7.

Tax dollars, we are talking the industry as a whole apparently. My point is our sport can only sustain one basketball store, so how can we possibly even think about bitching and moaning about 4 million going to a sport that is probably our biggest benefit financially to the country after probably Football.

Wow mum jokes about tucking me in. Is it school holidays?