Didnt they struggle to fill their stadium last season? With Patty Mills?

And they havnt exactly had the best image in the last year either..

They will have to market hard and/or give away alot of freebies!

And get some decent entertainment during the breaks, cos what usually happened last season sucked.

I admire that the new owners are more ambitious in getting bigger crowds in, and Melbourne Park is a great location, but I worry about the loss of atmosphere by moving to Hisense Arena. It simply is a poor venue for basketball. Even a full house lacks atmosphere.

I hope the plan is to eventually move into the court 1 (Margaret Court Arena).

That will be an ideal size and location for basketball -- 7,500 in the main sports precinct.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbNwSPowYhc (although this simulation makes it look a lot smaller than 7,500 -- an earlier design?)

The seating arrangement is more conventional, like a scaled down Rod Laver Arena, so should be great for basketball. The redevelopment will be ready for the 2015 Australian Open, so we still have to wait 2 and a half years, but upon completion surely that is where at least one Melbourne-based NBL team will call home.

For those interested in a more detailed look at the new Margaret Court Arena design, check this out: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/archives/old-sport-pages/australian-opens-bright-future/story-fn77kxzt-1226246788585

"Didnt they struggle to fill their stadium last season?"

I think they had their best crowds ever at The Cage last season, including 6 or 7 sellouts and some near sellouts with minimal marketing, which is probably part of the reason the new owners are looking to a bigger stadium.

They have stated they plan to extensively market the team, and that is the key to this working. The various Melbourne teams havent really got 'out there' to the basketball community - the Dragons did it in their first year and got decent crowds - so if the Tigers do that there is a certainly potential to make this work.

Would have been better if the Hisense games werent so close together, but venue availability probably had a fair bit to do with that.

People have often been critical of the Tigers' ticket costs. Hopefully they have some accessible options to fill the seats further out and make sure the crowds aren't disappointing.

You would imagine that Margaret Court Arena will become their home court next season. Pretty much the perfect size.

I agree Isaac, and it's good to see they have 7-game memberships from $140 this year. Much overdue.

RJD's points are important. HiSense is not a great basketball venue - it struggles for atmosphere. The Cage, for all its diminished capacity, is a fun basketball venue.

I believe another team (Another Melbourne bid) have registered interest in Margaret Court Arena

Margaret Court Arena gets a roof in 2015.

This will make of break the tigers in my opinion.
How may is good number according to you all?
6k?

Any word on the other Melbourne team to express an interest in Margaret Court?
I thought the only bid around at the moment for the second melbourne team was at the ridiculously undersized State Basketball Centre (3200).

The Dragons prices were very low. What did they average? Not much more than 5k?

Re: 2nd Melbourne bid. You're talking about the team that was going to be based out of Knox. The team that put that bid forward has since disbanded.

This is a different bid, kept fairly quiet.

rjd, I beg to differ. I think its a great venue but it needs to be pretty full. The size of the crowds Melbourne have been getting would get lost in such a large venue.

The atmosphere of Tigers games diminished greatly when they first went to Vodaphone arena (now Hisense arena). I thought crowds declined faster after the move. It's so hard to generate noise in that venue.

Although SNAHC is like a cardboard stadium, much smaller than Hisense, the move to the SNAHC improved the atmosphere at Tigers games massively. It wasn't purely because the same noise sounds louder due to the acoustics of the venue -- the increased presence of noise made the crowd more pumped and wanting to be even louder. It's a positive feedback loop.

I'm concerned about the opposite happening with the move back. If crowds don't feel like their noise is being heard, they become quieter.

They'll need big crowds to make it work. Let's hope the bad press about the Tigers doesn't impact their ability to draw a big crowd (with black curtains pulled, 6,000 is alright).

I agree, if they can get 5000-6000 for those seven games it is a good start.

It may diminish the atmosphere somewhat, but this is a positive step for the Tigers and the NBL. Melbourne are the second biggest market, and with so many of their home games on TV, they need to show the league they they have that "big city" feel about them. Playing at the Cage gave the Tigers the impression that they were a nobody in Melbourne. To me, they looked like a small town country team playing in the only venue available. Sure the atmosphere was good, but with a limited capacity, growth was never going to happen. Cairns, Townsville, Perth and Adelaide are much smaller cities, but played in bigger venues. Melbourne need to be more in line with the rest of the league.

Even if the Tigers can only pull 4000-5000 that still increases their attendances and a 5000 crowd is very good these days.

I remember watching a Dragons game on TV and there were 5100 in the crowd. When that was announced, I was a bit disappointed because it looked bigger to me. So I don't think Hisense is that big for a half full crowd to be a bad thing.

This is where the NBL needs to head towards. The Tigers were outgrowing the Cage, and it's now time to move upwards.

Memberships from $20 per game arent too bad.