yet how many people were at the game? or game 1? or watched game 1 Live in NZ?

I just watched another replay this morning despite getting up at 11.30pm to watch it live here in NZ.

To be honest, when that ratings figure says only 22K watched in Perth Im not overly convinced it's an accurate figure.

The NBL needs to work hardest on getting its ratings up though, that's the biggest thing holding the league back. Finishing the season in late Feb/early March is the first thing that needs to happen to avoid clashes with GF games.

TV data can be interpreted and skewed in many different ways

Is this total people? peek numbers? average audience? all people 24- 35? Males 19-45?

All these numbers can be spluttered out in different ways.

If the WNBL got 3x the NBL GF that tells you the data is not consistently captured or reported

With some promo the NBL could've cashed in with this series. Last years was great but they've relied on NBL.tv as some sort of magic bullet, what rubbish.

For the basketball youth of Oz CJ Bruton should be an idol not some footnote to other sporting codes stars.

WNBL got triple the audience. Seriously did the ABC really pump it up that much?

Or did the Breakers need to complain about not getting sleeping masks on their trip to make it news worthy?

KK's "clear eyes" cant see that the sport needs HELP!

Lets wait until 2013/14 to re-hash this all again.

Another missed opportunity.

Game 2 was broadcast live in NZ but it was 11.30pm. The replays today would have rated well.
They Sold out both game 1 in NZ and game 2 in Perth in 2 of the largest stadiums in the league days before the games tipped off, it aint all doom and gloom.

Where did you get the figure from? Viewer audience numbers are always notoriously bad and error prone to say the least. They are based on a small number of people being issued with measuring devices and then extrapolating across the population.

Viewer numbers are taken from a small cross-sectional audience and there is a bias in the cities of Sydney and Melbourne with their population.

I would expect that Sydney and Melbourne viewers would be down due to them not having a team in the final.

"Wow, this league really is dieing (sic)"
I think having 14,000 people at one of the most thrilling games played for a while says something else.

Let's look at the FTA media and see where their focus is:

ABC: Women's sport. Not a bad thing as it gets a balance out there.
SBS: The world game
C7: Australian Football. Will always be the stable diet of this channel.
C7: Tennis.
C9: Cricket & NRL. The favourite sports of the former owner are always going to get a flag
C10: Bit of everything incl motorsport

The official national audience may be 33K, but it doesn't mean only 33K people watched it.

Correct me if I am wrong, please, but was not the AFL Freo v Essendon game on last night too?

With this in mind, and the fact that about 14,000 watched the NBL live at the game, I think the answer to whether or not crowds will be affected by moving back to winter is that they will not...

NBL and AFL, NRL too for that matter can co-exist in the winter season, because the crowd is not the same.

Up against a hotly contested AFL game. That would've hurt the numbers. Plus on One HD which is pretty hopeless these days.

Then no real promotion in the lead up.

Ch 10 are really struggling too. Saying they don't have any good sport to rely on like other channels. Surprises me that they don't invest in NBL and build it up. Make a strong sport for them to have as their own.

TV viewer numbers for NBL are never going to be particularly high. It seems to me that NBL is not a product designed to capture the non basketball fan in Australia.

As Jack said above, last night was a thrilling finish - from the point of view of the basketball fan. How exciting was it for the non basketball fan? IN the last 5 minutes game time, there were 7 fouls and 4 time outs. 4 of the fouls resulted in free throws. So that 5 minutes required around 15 minutes of viewing time with no more than 93 seconds of action between game stoppages. In fact, there were 3 phases of less than 10 seconds of action between extended stoppages.

Basketball fans have followed NBL and know what to expect when they turn the TV onto an NBL game. However, non basketball fans have had NBL promoted to them as fast, athletic and exciting. Instead, they watch 40 minutes with 46 game stoppages for fouls (40) and time outs (10), with 30% of the game time in phases of less than 60 seconds of action.

That sort of broken action makes it hard for a non basketball fan watching the game to sustain the sense of excitement in such a close finish as last night, if they stay watching to that point. Remember, they aren't at the game absorbing the live atmosphere - they have to be captured and held by the action on the screen.

That's why I think it's a hard sell to get viewing numbers much above a core of basketball fans and we probably shouldn't expect otherwise with the current product and how it's promoted.

To be honest, watching a bit of the drug effect getting essendon back into the game was great.

"Ch 10 are really struggling too. Saying they don't have any good sport to rely on like other channels. Surprises me that they don't invest in NBL and build it up. Make a strong sport for them to have as their own."

This annoys the hell out of me. Channel 10 were always known to be able to grab a sport cheaply and build them up to a hugely successful enterprise. V8 Supercars is the best example of a sport they brought to mainstream when it was at its lowest point.

The NBL some idiot in an office has obviously decided is not worth spending any money on, these are the same idiots that are obviously destroying channel 10's market value. Bring back some of the old staff who put effort into making a product instead of these clowns who seem to want to buy an instant success, or get rid of it.

BA, Go cap in hand to FOX.
Or cap in mouth as you crawl along.

Replace all idiots!

PeterJohn, interesting points. AFL obviously has little of that. Free kicks are taken quickly, throw ins are fast, there are no time outs to break up play. After a goal, they cut to an ad which never seems that long.

NFL is almost all breaks in play, but does well.

Even during the NCAA Finals the locals were also not happy with the regular stops in play with coaches timeouts & TV timeouts.

The last 5 minutes of the College games can take almost half an hour in real time when it is really close & intense - but its still interesting to watch although the same comercials get a bit monotonous.

Many NBL Season games are straight out boring to watch on tv but when there are good ones they are usually being shown at 11pm on Saturdays.

The WNBL have a very good following on the ABC on a regular Saturday afternoon timeslot and it does not surprise me they achieved such good ratings in the Finals and the games are more interesting to watch.

somewhere between jack toft and peterjohn are a lot of the answers.
i would like to add,basketball is the only sport in australia that is constantly raped and pillaged in one way or another.
1/ most our best players including national team players are not in the league/country,resulting in a lot of wow missing from the nbl.
imagine if you took 50/100 of the best players & rookies out of the afl,nrl,soccer,netball or union.....including their national reps.

2/nowdays even the afl and netball are using basketball terminologies/strategies.....for some reason it is cool,except when used in a basketball game??

3/the game needs to some how become cool again.


Australian National Basketball League

brisbane
sydney 1
sydney 2
melbourne 1
melbourne 2
adelaide
perth 1
perth 2
nz 1
nz 2
must have access to 8/10k seat stadiums

Australian Regional Basketball League

cairns
townsville
darwin
wollongong
geelong
bendigo
sa team
wa team
?
?

must have access to 3/5k seat stadium.
no imports.
nth & sth divisions?
semi professional feeder league to ANBL

just off the top of my head thoughts.

Isaac - interesting you should mention NFL. It's what I had in miond as an analogy of how NBL end games often play out in close finishes. Frequest breaks in play, set piece plays, tactical thinking at the fore. But I think the non NFL fan doesn't expect it to be a continuous, high speed game (if they have any expectations when they watch it)? Baseball is the other game I tend to think of as a tactical game comprising a series of set piece/self-contained plays, rather than fairly continuous action like soccer, AFL and rugby codes.

Hence my reference to both the design of the NBL product and its marketing. To increase the TV viewing audience might need changes in both areas. Although I think it's easier to tinker with the design and stay faithful to basketball's rules internationally. e.g., I can't imagine removing time outs from the game altogether but maybe a coach only gets two per half and none in the last 120 seconds of the match? Or do we come up with a marketing angle that sells the suspense and tactical aspects inherent in that close end game? (sounds like promoting chess - a hard sell to non chess players).

Also, I can't see any solution to the end of (close) game foul fests that are part of the problem I described. However, going back to giving the team with the ball the option of taking shots or of taking an inbounds pass in the back court is probably the closest to a solution to that problem, without straying too far from basketball's fundamental design.

Unfortunately, I don't see any easy solution to 34% shooting being good enough to win you a championship! Still, one out of three going in is way better than soccer players' goal kicking accuracy and close to, if not better than, AFL goal kicking accuracy. So that's probably not a big problem to the non basketball viewer.

Isaac - another point about the NFL. Apparently, if you measure that actual time spent with the ball in play, it's around 5 minutes of the 60 minutes' game time. When you then realise that the elapsed time for a televised NFL game is 3-4 hours, it is staggering! 5 minutes of action in 200-odd minutes of TV!

Maybe that's more about the "made for TV" presentation of NFL games. They are completely wrapped in a shiny, noisy, vibrant package. They are pretty much the paragon of a TV sports model designed to keep you engaged and interested whether the ball is bouncing or not. Can't see the NBL emulating that model (too expensive) and it may be too "American" for Australian viewing tastes as well?

Peter i think i saw that article as well, and if i recall baseball was even worse as a pitch only takes like 2 seconds and most of the time its a strikeout or catch. Very little field time. The commentators in that sport really earn their keep.

I'm not mucha fan of alotta time outs and free throws
The ole days are gone forever and the new ones ain't far behind , the action is fading away . With a Cedric Jackson in our team we'd take a side ball rather than go to the line and there was a deliberate foul back then also and Ten/one ADL didn't mention this game was on at all. AFL game on 7 a close finish
I used to care but things have changed.

Did anyone stop to think that perhaps the reason the viewer ratings are down is simply because the NBL product is not very good? The players are sub-par and the "fast, athletic" game that basketball is, is killed by over coaching and ridiculous amounts of structure and serious lack of athleticism.

Of course non-basketball fans miss out, its because when they turn on the TV or go to a game they are NOT entertained. They pay hard earned money to watch sub par players who show little to no athletic ability - old guys who would rather lay it in than dunk it......The reason Perth has 14000 people at the game is because - ITS PERTH!!!!! not much going on over there people, Wildcats have always cashed in on loyal fan base.

The NBL is not dieing.....PEOPLE it is DEAD!!!! Its has been killed off by poor decision making at the top, over coaching and Australian egos fazing out the extremely talented ENTERTAINING American Imports who were not only extremely marketable as athletes, their talent made the NBL stronger and pushed our Aussie talent to new heights. Instead Australian's got greedy and decided to over pay sub par Australian talent in the name of promoting Australian basketball - and attempted to make average AUstralian players household names. Clubs and coaches stopped paying great American players and furthermore coaches stopped letting guys go out and simply "PLAY" electing to show off their play books and coaching skills.

Very sad and until the "old skool" stop off and let fresh faces in the NBL will continue to putter along with same people defending it and choosing not to see it for what it is.....A league that used to be great but is now poor all the way around.

Doctor, those entertaining players tend not to win championships in the modern league. The league can't dictate signings and the clubs are driven to win because playoffs are worth money and success brings more of the same.

Claiming Perth got 14k because there's nothing to do is idiocy.

I'll pay over-coaching though, but I can't see that being stopped without rule changes.

How about the NBL just makes the salary cap $300 000......so instead of paying a guy $100 000 you just pay him $50 000.....What?

The players are not going to go anywhere, they are not good enough.....at least this way the clubs can build some money up and increase spending as revenue begins to come in.

There is no argument for "you get what you pay for" because right now guys in the NBL are getting $100 000 + and giving $500 performances.......And if guys want to retire that is a good thing......new talent coming through.....

"A league that used to be great but is now poor all the way around."

So why didnt it get good ratings back when it was "great", back when there was much less competition from other sports on TV?

LOL it was free to air TV channel 7 and then 10 and they even had a Saturday morning Basketball Show on 10.......

Not much competition from other sports? wow do you live in Australia? AFL NRL Cricket......for a solid decade basketball has built its way up to the point where you open a news paper and there were 3-4 articles on the NBL, now it has gone back to 0.

Highlights programming is whats needed to draw people in.

Maybe ch. 10 could show a weekly highlights show, which reviews all the action (the dunks, 3-pointers).

That would entice people surely. Rope those people in, get them interested and they will start to enjoy it that they might start watching full games.

Admittedly, it happened to me. I used to hate football(soccer), but I started watching that EPL review show (which I think SBS used to/still does show in Aus?) and it drew me in.

Now I don't mind watching EPL games.

With no advertising/promoting/marketing of the game, Channel 10 should be blamed for the low ratings. How can they expect anyone to tune in when they (the casual sports fans, who don't necessarily follow basketball) would know it's even on unless they look it up themselves.

Anybody that watched the game would either have been a fan of the game, or relied on media attention from radio and the news etc... Not from Channel 10 who did nothing to promote the game and have done so for the last 2 years now.

On top of that, plenty of other high profile sports on at that time including a Freo home game that had a massive build up - due to essendon and James Hirds news, would no doubt have effected the ratings for the GF.

MACDUB you are def making sense.....A show like they had in the past would be awesome keeping everyone informed even featuring our Aussie players in college and pros overseas.....

As for the Dunks we might have to show the same 2 maybe 3 dunks over and over and over again HAHAHAHAHA NBL is a strictly a No Dunking league.....but we can show some sweet fundamental lay ins and do a 10 week series on the complex offenses coaches are running........we could also highlight how professional basketball players cant dribble through a 2 2 1 trap......

Wow......A basketball show would be great I AGREE........and of the day NBL needs exciting talent to highlight for it to build up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DthGICZSsL4


More games like that one ^ and people will start to notice