Well, how does the NBA make it so it's NOT overkill?

I follow most NBA scores when I can (don't have time to watch them) and check the boxscores of a few each day. I would happily follow more NBL stats (especially if they were easier to follow, say, like ESPN's site). It's just the number of home games and cost of season tickets that could become an issue.

If the NBL went from 14 home games to 22, that might be manageable if the season ticket price didn't jump much. Or if they went from 14 to 18 and then 4 more were played regionally, existing fans wouldn't really take the hit then.

Would it mean a raise in player payments too, due to 'more work' being done?

Venue availability would be a huge issue as well. I know that the Blaze always had to deal with the GCEC being booked - sometimes over a year in advance - by other groups. 6ers shouldn't be worried here but everyone else would I'm sure
60 games IMO would work best in smaller boutique venues rather than large entertainment centres. Aim for crowds of 2-3k (larger for certain target games during the season and finals) and get the product on TV screens in Prime time - whether it's FTA or pay tv or a combo of both doesn't matter just get it out there!

stubhub.com.au

Isaac - I don't follow NBA any more and certainly don't understand their business model. In my ignorance, is live attendance their main game or is it TV audience. I'm led to believe they now have a global TV reach which means most of their fans actually watch games remotely and not live. That might affect how they manage the program?

Re NBL 7 days a week - you'd probably get a better standard of refereeing. They would have to be full time, like the players and they would be doing it several times a week. Presumably, you'd also have paid scorers and other game personnel as not many volunteers could make that sort of commitment, I'd have thought.

What would it do to local leagues - junior, social, district - if there's a local NBL game 3 or more nights of the week? We had the energetic and fairly polarised debate earlier this season about the 36ers' clash with juniors on a Friday night. That sort of clash would be happening every week for social leagues, church basketball etc. Would it kill some of those competitions? Is that okay?

Teams could manage 12 games a month
Teams are currently playing /training around 6 months already
Players are contracted for 12 months

Players would 100% rather play more and train less so they aren't working any more under this proposal than they currently are.

What costs do go up are travel , accommodation, per diems which are significant. Not to mention more stadium hire means that your break even point is a lot higher

All offset of course if a media deal makes it all work

I would gladly pay $150 per month to Fox if it meant they had a game on every night

A media deal somewhere around the 30 mill per annum in cash would be needed to make it work.

pfffhh like drawing blood (money) from a stone (empty pocket)

44 games is a lot, but do-able. 60 games is too many for our market, and I cant see it working for the NBL, or in an Australian sporting landscape, even if it is unique.

It works well in the NBA and EPL because they're huge big brand teams with global appeal, and they play in much larger cities with 3 or 4 times the population, plus there is a lot of tourist attraction with going to an NBA game. The NBL does not have this.

I don't like the idea of the NBL gearing towards smaller stadiums and crowds either This certainly wouldn't work in markets like Perth and Adelaide, and possibly Sydney, as a lot of momentum in building crowds would be lost.

I like the idea but teams would have to get very creative with the membership/season ticket management.

I think the 7/week thing is from looking at what the BBL is doing.

I remember there being 33-game seasons. Don't recall anything higher.

My wife's first reaction was "no!" when I mentioned 60-games; not a good sign!

Season tickets should stay the same.
As I am sure the players would agree that they would rather be playing than training.
So if you are still paying them to train playing a game that counts for something would be more preferable.
The cost of a season membership would be more enticing and maybe encourage more members (those that usually work on weekends).

The Arena can be modified to seat 8000 or so, which might be a better option.

What about the extra operating costs that each club will incur. I can't really see the regional based teams being able to cope. I would rather see same amount of games played in a shorter season date range

Given that we have never had more than a 33 game season a 60 game season sounds a bit drastic. I would go with 40-44game season first.

That's the plan. 12 teams, 44 games in 2016, working up to 16 teams, 60 games.

"Amazing isn't everyone has always complained about not enough games, and now there may be too many."

You do realise different people have different opinions?

PJ, the big-drawing NBA teams have strong crowds and even sell out their season ticket allocation I think? But TV is a big deal.

In the NBL's case, their best bet with increased game volume would be a mix of things - cheap season tickets, variety of other passes, regional games, themed games, cheap tickets for low-drawing teams, etc. Just seems like a bigger gamble to me than a concentrated TV-oriented season with big market teams.

60 games is overkill.. I even think we have too many games in the season we have already considering the league size. If you have 16 teams maybe everyone should play eachother 3 times intead of 4 and knock that down to 44 for 16.

As for every day of the week.. your going to be playing to empty stadiums on many days. Thurs/Fri/Sat/Sunday... Ok, Monday Tues Wednes? No... I just don't see people going in the early part of the week.

two key questions:

1) Has any research been done to demonstrate that the public (basketball-attending public) would support such an increase (through bums on seats)?

2) What do the broadcasters think?

No broadcast money, I fail to see how the NBL can pay for it!

I do agree with GWB about each (in 16 team comp) playing each other 3 times I should have put that in my last post "sorry anon" lol. That is what I meant by 60 games being too much, anyway moving on I like the idea of Thurs to Sunday games but I would even be tempted to try Monday night games providing we get a great tv deal

Ok I'm surprised that nobody has brought this up yet... If we are going to have THIS much basketball then we will have to stay 10 minute quarters or everyone will be going to bed in the early hours of the mornings trying to watch every game regardless if its pay tv or free to air or NBL.tv.

Thanks NBL for thinking bigger and whilst I don't agree with every day of the week, I believe the teams should be vying to play Rememberance Day, Australia Day, St. Valentine's day, New Year's Eve etc. regardless of what day it falls on and really go with a theme and perhaps work with major sponsors for giveaways and make it a real outing that everyone will remember.

I'm already a little scared by this based on the fact that I spend $45/seat x 2 and 30 home games without a price hike is $1350 x 2... And you just know Perth will play finals so all of a sudden I need a high paying job that understands why I'm leaving early

The current schedule is for a 23 week regular season so if we went 25 weeks and pushed back preseason to 1st week of October (nobody watched anyway) then I'm sure 44 is possible but 60 and 1 home game for 30 weeks straight wouldn't work for so many and 2 home games a week doesn't work when Perth arena charge $90/seat for gold section...

As for players, imports are paid on a per month basis so regardless of the amount of games or training sessions in that period of time they will be paid the same, but as for local and even development players then Isaac would know better than I would

Im not sure I like the smaller stadium idea.. most small stadiums don't look particularly professional.

I think the NBL need to consider it, but consider the motivation behind why the move would be necessary and what benefits it would bring.

I think the NBA like the MLB run a game series to maximise the exposure as well as get bums on seats. A team can fly into a city and play a few games in a row. It builds some excitement if the first games a close and the final game is a cliffhanger. It could be a way to get more bums on seats. Would a spectator go to all games? Not sure. I would be interested to see how the spectator profile fits with the NBA vs the NBL. In the NBA maybe you have 50% of spectators that see 10 games or less in a season (16%). In the NBL you may have 50% of spectators that see 5 games or less (33%). If there is an average crowd of 5,000/game (70,000/season), then does that mean there are 10,000 interested people. By having more home games, would the average crowd say drop to 3,000, but because more home games you have 90,000 visits/season? Would that extra 20,000 visitations mean more revenue, or would the seats be discounted to get attendance?

The more advertising and promotional opportunities/activities there are for a sponsor, the more corporate support there is.

I think a 60 game season could be possible, but you would need to understand why the NBA have mad it successful and would have a careful business plan to ensure it works. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

The size of a venue in this case would be secondary to how easy it is to get to, and get out of.

This could be the move that destroys the NBL.. they need to think a bit deeper about this.. if they want to play out of smaller venues they may find that the product looks uglier on TV which will undo there whole aim on the matter. I don't think Perth will want to go back to Challenge stadium, and I dont think Adelaide should play out of Apollo.. If the product looks ugly on TV your not going to get people tuning into 60+ games of it.

#453195
Have a look at this handy guide....

http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/afl-clubs-2012-annual-reports.981354/

Hawthorn, as a guide, took $13m from gate and membership - nearly 20% of its revenue, hardly cream on top.... and if their attendances and memberships dropped, their sponsorship would likely crumble.

Ho the difference is the other $44 mill out of their $57 mill revenue comes from things like sponsorship, marketing, merchandising and afl distributions, which the tv exposure are highly responsible for delivering.

The problem is most nbl clubs especially regional ones would derive a much larger part of their income from ticket sales and a lower percentage from sponsorship, merchandising etc which a bigger tv deal and more games would help with.

I can't imagine clubs receive anything from the nbl in financial support, yet afl got a minimum $6.6 mill each wow! Good on the nbl for trying to grow the pie in the most cost effective, financially rewarding way possible.

well i was speaking on the train to the wildcats game about how Perth play Adelaide on Valentine's day so it will be interesting to see if we have more than just kiss cam... and do i take my missus or my best mate who is a 36ers supporter lol.

As for 'being obsessed with the notion of being at every home game'. I have been to every home game at Perth Arena and I have come to know those around me on a first name basis and see the love and loyalty they have for their team even on Thursday night games (which for some reason both are against Cairns)and I think it will be interesting to see how the challenge of extra home games affects those around me let alone the rest of the 10k that turn up every match.

I want to make it clear that I love that we play every team at home twice... the chance to see Paddy Mills, Johnny Flynn, AJ Ogilvy, Sam Young type marquee players twice is just what puts the excitement into the league where AFL and NRL lack as you aren't always guaranteed of seeing for favourite teams play one another live!

st patricks day

KR, I understand the economics.

But, 453195's point was extreme, suggesting the AFL would be fine if only 50 people turned up to each game because of the TV revenue - i realise they were not serious about this, but they were serious about membership and spectators just being cream and that is just not true - the AFL clubs put a lot of work into membership sales in particular.

As I pointed out, without the crowd and membership numbers then sponsorship revenue would fall, and merchandise would suffer dramatically as well. Lots of things help build the portfolio, not just TV.

The AFL clubs have diverse revenue streams - many of them healthy.

Like to see my teams stats once a week but cain't. Wouldda liked 1 game over christnas, but, after 14games everyone tooo tired

Crusty , 0n an empty Bong says: Our ( Adelaide ) people cry when we have a two on a weekend schedule. The rest of the world play a mans game 4 or more games a week! Think about it , then crusiffy Crusty. How many games are played per week in the BIG League? A 60 game season for the NBL would take 53 weeks and then the crying session would begin.

We just love the setup as it is! Such great games on the weekend. Such excitment .

Crusty says::: Sydney/ Perth finals

Crusty dislikes Sydney. Crusty loves The 36ers.

Crusty is a very good predictor.