By "growth" do they mean the CEO is going to continue to RT every article about empowering women to become board members of random organisations? Because that helps the NBL...

I'll say this about the article - if you wanted to navigate back to nbl.com.au, it had plenty of links for you to do so.

Anon 409167 - whilst I imagine that you are joking or a troll - for your edification:

A white paper is an authoritative report or guide helping readers to understand an issue, solve a problem, or make a decision. White papers are used in two main spheres: government and B2B marketing.

oh dear

It's 2013. BA took over in 2008. Don't you think this "White Paper" would have been sorted 5 years ago?

Honestly Nat, you dont think theyve been working off strategies before now? Ones that delivered expansion, TV and sponsorship deals?

What this is about is summing up the current position and seeing how they make further progress, because some big roadblocks have come surrounding the TV in particular and generating revenue for clubs.

They have to find solutions to these if the league is going to continue growing. I just hope the process has more substance than the press release!

Paul

Please clarify expansion - 8 teams when they took over - 8 teams right now

The NBL joined BA after being dangled massive carrots which included promises of millions in Fed Gov funding.

TV deal fell in their lap after the Highstake Hoops efforts of JVG, i can tell you before that there was a clear resistance to even contacting CH10

My belief is that the NBL revenues are supplementing all BA revenues streams.

Teams are losing 000's so the NBL owners right now are effectively paying BA to exist. The BA model is reliant on philanthropy which is extremely dangerous for the leagues existence.

IMO NBL needs to rip itself away from BA and regain financial control of its own destiny.

BJF, while I think a number, if not all of your points are refutable, can you explain one thing further?

How are NBL owners paying BA to exist?

Is this because their teams are losing money?
Is it because they are paying BA money?

cheers

I think that the NBL has improved since it almost died a few years back - improved in the way that half the teams aren't taking the piss out of the cap, and the other half aren't going broke trying to keep up, or by not being able to keep up.

Clubs that struggle financially has always been an issue (across all codes too) so that is nothing new. Not ideal but not just something to throw BA under the bus for.

My biggest gripe with BA right now is that no one seems to give a shit. The little things (proper website, stats, game night production etc) have gone backwards, and considering how long it took to improve on those things about 5 years ago, it doesn't leave much hope that they will be fixed when responses from BA management are non existent.

NBL teams are charged by BA to participate
BA keeps all sponsorship and broadcast money that the NBL generates
BA clips the ticket on all finals ticketing revenues
You cant refute my points because they are facts

BJF - That's why they need to reassess. The initial plan appears to have been get Sydney back in, get on FTA and increase sponsorship, crowds and viewers as a result.

All those things have been achieved but not to the extent needed.

The TV isnt growing as much as hoped, next naming rights prob wont fetch what they thought as a result, and the next step in expansion is proving difficult because BA cant generate revenue to make clubs more viable (which is chicken/eggy because that limits commercial growth).

They need some solutions to achieve further growth or theyll have to settle for current level or even a slight downgrade of that in a couple of years time when the TV deal is up.

Not sure ripping away is the answer, the clubs nearly destroyed the league not long ago.

Has the NBL ever recovered since it was decided to can those cheesy/tacky Carfino/Gaze/cheerleader intros? Those were the glory days right there. :)

BJF,

Were you answering me?

What do the NBL clubs pay BA to participate, my understanding is all they pay is their share of equalisation (travel). If that is the case what is the problem?

As for keeping the slim broadcast and other revenues they generate what is the problem? They pay all refs and operating expenses, staff etc. Its not like they generate 15m per year from these things. If they are lucky, they are generating 1.5m.

Finally, the league has always clipped the ticket on finals. Basically ALL professional sports leagues do this. Again, what is the issue?

And something is not a fact because you claim it is....

Paul you said they have delivered expansion - no they havent. Expansion would be relocating the Blaze licence to Brisbane as an example. Brisbane SEABL had Homocide and Groves as an import pairing so even that team would attract something of a supporter base in the NBL

Sydney only came in because their costs were underwritten in year one. nice little pitch to people, do you want to own a sports team that wont cost anything?

Sponsorship came as a BA director was on the board of iiNet at the time

The Board had to be forced to start discussions with Ch 10 as they wanted to renew with Fox and not even entertain 10 as an option.

By repealing the league operations from BA every $ generated stays within the NBL and isn't being used to prop up other departments under the BA banner.

Where did I say "they have delivered expansion"?

Sorry. My above post should have read:

Has the NBL ever recovered since it was decided to can those cheesy/tacky Carfino/Gaze/cheerleader intros? Those were the glory days right there. :)

HO
The clubs shouldn't be paying $1 they should actually be receiving income.
Clubs are only surviving now because someone or some body writes a big fat cheque at seasons end.
When revenues generated arent coming back to the owners why would they want to continue to cough up money?

I will give you an example of what i am talking about.

Until recently the NBL teams pooled their accommodation through a league "sponsor". The teams had to pay higher room rates than you or i would have walking in off the street. The higher room rate money was passed on as kick back to BA.

Of what benefit is that to the clubs? Increasing the NBL teams costs so that another BA department can have income.

@paul

"Honestly Nat, you dont think theyve been working off strategies before now? Ones that delivered expansion, TV and sponsorship deals?"

KK is hot!

Brisbane Bullets need to return to this league.

That's what the strategy was, to get Sydney in, which they did, but then also 2nd Melbourne and Brisbane, which they havent delivered.

That's why reassessment is so important now, without Brisbane at the least but preferably both they are capped in the areas of TV and sponsorship and they cant deliver the return that clubs need.

Bitta sameness about it - top , second and bottom teams in their usual spots with a points cap that sposed to even it out . Perth in finals for 49 years In a rough league , ya know the players who will get away with it and those who will get called . I just get bored .

BJF, that is just naive.

The AFL, NRL and A-league all distribute money to clubs, but on TV rights deals alone that amount to 200m per year down to 20 (soon to be 40).

The NBL TV deal is, apparently, 800k. Well UP on what they were getting from Foxtel.

You cannot expect a league operation, on subsistence revenue, to be providing a dividend to its clubs.

And you can't just say its BA's fault.

It was not doing this BEFORE it merged with BA and it is not doing it now. Sorry, your point is very poorly made, despite your passion.

There was a time, in the mid-nineties, when the NBL tv deal did allow a small distribution to its clubs, but they still paid equalised travel.

My understanding btw is that it has been quite some time since the league had a centralized, all in, accommodation deal.

do you know how many staff are actually assigned to run the NBL?

Could be argued that Sydney in for Gold Coast is expansion, knowing that TV wants capital city teams. Bit minor though.

Could also be argued that some progress/knowledge in Melbourne and Brisbane (identifying or weeding out potential owners) is expansion of some extent.

I dunno about that Isaac, BA really needed to have delivered one or both of those. It is tough times no question, not a lot of people willing to splurge money around, but Melbourne could have been handled a lot better from what I have heard.

The big thing for BA right now is to deliver a sound naming rights sponsor to ensure revenue doesnt go backwards.

I have a reasonable understanding. And I am aware that some roles and responsibilities are shared.

So Chuck, who was strictly NBL, now has a wider remit. I believe the marketing guy has had his role expanded across BA commercial.

And they have some other staff supposedly dedicated to media and promotion.

And they have a referees manager and a couple of dozen referees. I suspect, as it always has been, that the referees manager is shared across WNBL/NBL/BA. And i suspect they pay a fee to BA for other shared services like finance and admin and rent etc. Just guessing now.

It doesn't change the point. The league had over 3 million in revenue in 2011 and spent over 3 million. I imagine the biggest chunk of that is income from clubs for travel and expenditure for that same travel. The league office might then have a wages bill of between 500-750k by itself.

the point is the league has:

- always equalised travel
- only rarely been in a position to distribute from broadcast revenue
- always clipped finals tickets
- always paid its own admin costs (ie, not charged clubs for this)

With or without BA's involvement, this has been the situation.

BTW Isaac, Sydney wasnt in for Gold Coast, they were very separate occurrences with very different financial implications.

paul, I was stretching to defend your position! Better to have tried and ruled some things out (screwing something up ignored) than to still be wondering beforehand.

I agree with The Situation further up that the league (36ers too) is messing up a few simple things that are within their control. Can blame crappy stats or timing of tweets on a tough sponsorship market or the media, TV deal, etc.

And yes, obviously Sydney and GC are completely different cases. Looking at the net result. Lost one team but gained a team in the biggest market.

Yeah absolutely. Sydney was huge, but not getting Brisbane and 2nd Melbourne in is almost as big on the downside.

No question BA shoot themselves in the foot by not getting the simple things right. They seemed to have got on top of that last year but some key staff departures have set them back to the 'bad old days'.

For me their biggest failure is the lack of control/input theyve had on the TV product. That's their main marketing tool and sadly it doesnt reflect well on the league at all.

Basically the NBL/BA needs to read what Daniel Eade has to say on fixing their leagues, and then do the complete opposite.

They should do it in partnership with Sorbent or Quilton & then decide whether to go with 2ply or 3ply.

The potential for growth is huge!!

Have they got the White Paper ready yet!

They are going to need it right now.