Hobart - 3500 if they play out of the derwent entertainment centre, which can hold around 7000 I think. That wouldn't be bad. They're first year might get larger crowds due to renewed interest, but they will need to put a competitive team on the floor to maintain it. Lack of corporate sponsors, and not much interest from wealthy businessmen to buy into a Hobart team means it probably won't happen anyway.

Newcastle 1500-2000. Soccer and rugby league is huge there. Last time there was the Hunter Pirates and that failed with crowds of around 1800 a game. Probably won't happen anyway.

Brisbane - 3000 if they play at the convention centre ( which has a capacity of 4000).

2nd Melbourne - 3000 if they play at Knox(?) and 5000 if try spend money and play at hisence arena.

2nd Sydney - 2500-3000 and will likely play at the sports centre. Crowds will drop off once the interest fades and I can't see it happening anyway.

2nd NZ - likely to be Wellington. They have a nice arena there and if they play there they could get very big crowds initially. 6000?

2nd Perth - will NEVER happen, but if it does they will play out of challenge stadium and will probably attract 3000 a game if they're lucky. And they will be basketball fans who hate the wildcats, and I don't think there would be many that feel that way.

Massive barriers to entry for a 2nd Perth team at this point.

Stupid to have a 2nd Perth team

Wellington Saints have decent financial backing and a decent fan base to build on. The Wellington public generally support their teams well in other codes and the Saints are one of the most successful NZBL franchises. The Saints organization have been making the necessary off court changes over the past couple of years and tweaking their business model.

Unfortunately a heap of young Kiwi's are already going through the Breakers Academy and Development Program and won't just jump ship as many hope.
The Breakers don't have minutes or room for everyone nor can they pay everyone what they want so a second team may pick up 1 or 2 defections and then add a couple that have been shed of the last couple of seasons and you have a local-ish core to build around that fans will come support.

Please make Wellington the next expansion team. Brisbane and Melbourne aren't ready.

If there was a second Perth team, I'd go and watch them every week, regardless of my support for the Wildcats.

Tassie needs to find a way to overcome the rampant parochialism and get a team together representing the whole state. Then there might br an outside chance, but still slim on the $$$.

Why do people still insist on a 2nd Sydney team? That city just does not care enough about sports in general, let alone basketball. Brisbane, Wellington, 2nd Melbourne should come first, in that order. Then if we (the NBL) are still around after those expansions, we can maybe look elsewhere.

yeah, i could see a newcastle team failing pretty bad, jets games would be on at the same time, so it would affect the nbl team bad if there was one.

Hobart
In a state starved of its OWN team this is doable thing.

Great track record on getting on board with teams and would be a drawcard that would get 7-8000 from the start. Easily sustainable, and would grow, with promotion outside the basketball community.

Would need a whole of state buy in - which requires BTAS to move from the 1970's – to draw on talent from all areas.

The DEC is a cavernous venue that is best suited to concerts. But is the only venue that currently could hold the desired crowd. Chargers currently play from Aurora Stadium (run by netball, profits flow their way) which only seats about 1300.

Attempts to get a purpose built stadium went down with the GFC.

There is a lot of corporate support in Tassie. And with national exposure companies are likely to get on board.

Again if whole state buy in could be achieved a community model could also be an option.

^^Further to my last - re: venue^^

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-03-02/sports-high-school-proposal/347202