Here are some factors:

- higher venue costs
- availability (bigger stadiums get booked for concerts, etc)
- full crowd in smaller stadium has better atmosphere than the same in a bigger stadium
- creates scarcity; easier to charge more when you're selling out than when you're half full

Thats true, though i dont entirely agree with it. Venue costs and availability are the main issues, particularly Melbourne. However, the Tigers and Breakers are two of the "wealthier" clubs so to speak, yet they choose to play in the smallest venues despite having a bigger and nicer venue to choose from and a strong supporter base and wealthy owners to back them up. Other clubs book the venue out for the duration of the season so they dont get caught out by a double booking with concerts.

The other 6 teams all play in their cities best availabe indoor venue so i dont see a reason why NZ dont. I would love to see the Breakers permanently move to Vector arena, for crowd growth. Its disapointing seeing them get 7500 one week at Vector and then just 3500 the next week when they go back to NSEC simply because of capacity.

The Tigers i think are moving to the renovated Margaret Court Arena next season, with a capacity of 7500?

When Margaret Court Arena is ready the Tigers are expected to make that their new home court as far as im aware.

Some stadiums have to sell 50%+ just to cover the costs of hiring the stadium! I'm not sure if this figure is still relevant but the WEC (Hawks home stadium) used to have to sell around 3k-3.2k to break even. That's without having to pay for players, team staff etc. Just venue hire alone.

Both the Melbourne Tigers and the ANZ Championship's Melbourne Vixens announced in June that they will be moving into the redeveloped Margaret Court Arena from 2015. By then the venue will have a retractable roof and a capacity increase from 6,000 to 7,500.

http://www.michaeldifabrizio.com/2013/06/melbourne-tigers-look-to-margaret-court-arena/

The Tigers will play 9-10 games per season there, with 3-4 at the State Netball & Hockey Centre when the Australian Open Tennis is on.

In a perfect world every NBL team would own their own Allphones Arena style and size venue where they play in front of packed houses every game. Reality is a wee bit different unfortunately.

Anon #447548, the Margaret Court and Hisense Arena's are two completely different venues, though both are located at Melbourne Park.

MCA, originally known as Show Court One, was opened in 1988 and will have a capacity increase and a retractable roof added as part of a $363 million redevelopment of Melbourne Park in time for the 2015 Australian Open. This will actually give Melbourne something that no other city on earth currently has. Four retractable roof stadiums.

Hisense was opened in 2000. Its a tennis, basketball, netball, concert, convention and entertainment venue. Its also a world class velodrome.

I guess in a lot of ways the 36ers are lucky. The Adelaide Arena a good, medium size venue to play and train at, and regardless of attendance I don't think they have to hire the place or work games around other pre-booked events like tennis (Hopman Cup, Aussie Open) or concerts from touring music acts.

Vector Arena is super expensive.
The breakers are not running at a profit as far as I know.
The NSEC is smack in the middle of Aucklands basketball heartland.
Vector is crap, expensive parking and the catering is super shitty and super expensive.

Errr... this might be oversimplified, and I've only been at The Cage when the Tigers are playing the Crocs (ie. not a big draw card...), but I see tonnes of empty seats in what is a tiny stadium. Do they get regular sellouts?

I actually love watching games there FWIW, you get to be right in the action even if you're in the last row. The whole stadium is basically in what would be the "lower" section of bigger stadiums.

Clubs need to make more of an effort to get to a bigger venue if they want to grow their brand, their fan base, their profile, get more sponsors and make basketball relevant again. Wollongong are one of the battlers in the league, yet their venue is one of the best! I know Im simplifying the issue a lot here and there are plenty of things to consider, but this is purely from a fans point of view, that wants to see the league grow.

Mysto, I disagree that Vector is crap, though I can understand if its super expensive. NSEC is crap! Now Ive never been to either of these venues so Im in no position to judge. Having watched games on TV only, I find it crazy to believe that anybody would prefer NSEC over Vector. It seems that the majority of Breakers fans would feel that way too given they get very good crowds there. But if venue hire is the issue, I get that.

Also, just because its in the middle of a basketball heartland doesn't mean you need to play there. If this was the case in Perth, the Wildcats would be playing at Lakeside or Joondalup Arena, with a capacity of around 1000.

...and the only clubs Im talking about are NZ and Melbourne. All other teams play in suitable venues.

I hate going to games at Hisense. It's not really much of a basketball arena, and the cage is way preferable for configuration I reckon.

To answer you though Mick, the Tiges have been doing fairly well on ticket sales this season so far. I tend to buy tickets a week out from any games I've been going to (most of them so far this season), and it's actually been fairly tricky getting tickets in a vaguely decent location when I leave it that late. It's been good to see the joint fuller than usual!

Looking forward to a move to MCA in a couple of years where hopefully crowds keep improving and there's a better chance of getting decent seating!

The venue a team plays in and the team marketing strategy play a huge difference in the financial viability of the club. Remember that 12/13 (the first season in the arena) was the first year since the restructure of the league that Perth was in the black, they simple could not sell enough tickets at Challenge, which was beginning to be quite run down and has transport difficulties, to break even for venue hire. Sometimes a move to a bigger stadium, especially when you combine it with a membership drive as successful as project 10k can be great but if the marketing team behind the team is poor all you are going to do is loose money.

Bigger stadiums also generally have exclusive food and beverige contracts with external providers.
Several big venues in NSW and Victoria use Delaware North - http://www.delawarenorth.com/International-Australia-New-Zealand-Our-Locations.aspx

Rumour has it teams make little or no money from this area

"Mysto, I disagree that Vector is crap, though I can understand if its super expensive. NSEC is crap! Now Ive never been to either of these venues so Im in no position to judge. Having watched games on TV only, I find it crazy to believe that anybody would prefer NSEC over Vector. It seems that the majority of Breakers fans would feel that way too given they get very good crowds there. But if venue hire is the issue, I get that."

Vector is good in that it can hold lots of people yes. That is where it ends. It is also constantly booked out for concerts and events and extremely expensive for not only the club but also fans. The catering is crap & way over priced as is parking in the city.

I live in South Auckland and prefer to drive past the city and Vector over to the North Shore to watch a game at the NSEC. Good catering at good prices, cheap parking, easy to get in and out of and great atmosphere for Basketball. The only real negatives are that it can get really hot and humid causing the court to get slippery and it doesn't hold 10k.

Your opinion of the NSEC is based on that you don't like the look of the floor on the television screen am I not correct?

Anon - I know all that. I was simplifying the situation and making a case as to why 2 of the more bigger and financially stable clubs play in the smallest venues. The fact is NZ and Melbourne are both capable of playing in bigger venues. And as far as anyone knows, they are working towards that anyway as we have seen the Tigers gradually move to Hisense (and soon to MCA) and NZ play some games at Vector, so they are working hard to achieve this. They just need to make the next step and play more games there!

And I don't think its dumb to suggest that if a club wants to grow bigger, expand its fan base and become RELEVANT again, it needs to think a little higher. Besides, Its not a dire situation overall with venues anyway. All the other clubs play in their cities best possible stadium.

Dasson Maid: Vectors Catering is contracted to an Australian company from memory.

average food at exorbitant prices = I will vote with my wallet and won't go to Vector for Basketball.

Yeah the floor at NSEC is terrible! I guess if the difference between NSEC and Vector wasnt so extreme, it would'nt be such an issue for me.

I compare NSEC/Vector to Challenge Stadium/Perth Arena in terms of extremes from an old small venue, to a new flashy one. I would assume they are reasonably similar and both clubs have had a similar rise in profile due to being able to play in the bigger nicer arena!

If a big stadium sits empty because its too expensive to hire, they make zero dollars.

Are there any venues that are looking to expand by 500-2000 seats at all in coming years?

If we are profit sharing between teams then surely we should be encouraging Breakers/Tigers to play out of bigger stadiums with more risk can come greater profit and surely the rest of the league teams would want to look big time and like they are deserving of the chance to sell out every stadium when they come to town (when the schedule is put out and every team is optimistic about overachieving) as they get at Perth stadium.

Another point which I have mentioned on this site a few times is that I don't understand why clubs feel there are certain demographics that they need to target to get their crowd up... In the what 20 home games at Perth Arena, each and every game we have had young families, grandparents, male adults of all ages and female adults of all ages and lots and lots and lots of chicks hotter than our cheer leaders... I don't see Perth Wildcats management go in with the attitude that you won't like being there and everyone turns up...

So it's about time that the other clubs target everyone and get sell outs... Too many people are missing great action and basketball

Also what would happen in the South East Melbourne Magic return and they market aggressively and get more people attending every game than the tigers... Would Tigers management or NBL/BA have more egg on their face?

Well, the Tigers averaged over 5000 at Hisense last season, while the Dragons non-derby average there was around 3800 in their time, so a second Melbourne team has a bit of work to do to catch the Tigers.