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The Perth Wildcats, who stormed into the National Basketball League grand final on Sunday, are on the brink of another upset: returning a handsome profit for their 89-year-old owner in a struggling league.

Few elite sports clubs in Australia make money and most barely break even. But Jack Bendat's Wildcats are likely to make a profit of about $1 million from revenue of about $10 million this season, a good result for any business, let alone a sports franchise.

With his players doing more community work than any other NBL club and a Wildcats’ Inspire schools program that promotes the team to children, Bendat has more than tripled crowds since he bought the team in 2007, to an average of 12,000 a game.

Its financial results are better than many Australian ­Football League, National Rugby League, rugby union and soccer clubs struggling to stay out of the red.

The NBL final series began late last week after Perth finished the regular season at the top of the ladder.

On Sunday, the team beat the ­Wollongong Hawks, 80-61, at the WIN Entertainment Centre in ­Wollongong, to win their grand final spot after also beating ­Wollongong 91-79 on ­Friday night.

Perth signed high-flying American import James Ennis from NBA champion Miami Heat for the 2013-14 season. Ennis’s athleticism makes him a very difficult player to contain and is his biggest advantage against the local competition. On Sunday he was the team’s second-highest scorer, on 19 points.

Under Bendat, a BRW Rich List member, the Wildcats have ­rapidly grown their fan base and improved their finances through a strong community focus.

The success means the Perth Wildcats, as a business, are larger than some A-league football clubs and Big Bash League domestic cricket ­franchises.

Community commitment

Perth chief executive Nick Marvin said the club insisted each player do at least 350 hours of ­community programs every year, well above the 150-hour threshold across the league.

"We’ve lost some players over the years due to that," Marvin says. “But it’s very important to us. “What we have always been told is that basketball has to tap into its participation base [at junior and amateur level] and, if we did that, then the crowds would come.

“But we think that’s wrong. What we have found is that [if] we promote ­ourselves as an entertainment product for families and engage with the fans, you will get the crowds.”

Bendat took over in 2007 when it was at a low ebb, ­struggling to survive in a league that was slipping away from its glory days of the 1980s and 1990s.

Marvin said the team was struggling financially and not engaging enough with the community. It played at the smaller Challenger Stadium, in front of at most 4000 fans, after Kerry Stokes sold it to some former players.

The community program was then extended by Bendat and eventually became the ­Wildcats Inspire schools program. Eight schools are selected from the lower socio-economic sector and 50 children from each school are selected to partake in the program.

Role models

Players act as role models for the children, promoting numeracy and ­literacy skills with incentives in the form of game tickets and merchandise offered, as well as special matches between the players and students.

“We think if you get to people early you can get them to become a fan for life,” Marvin says. “We do surveys of our fans that have found 93 per cent want to come back and 78 per cent want to become members.”

The Wildcats moved into the new Perth Arena last year and have been drawing an average 12,000 fans a game, the highest in the NBL. Including ­corporate tickets, Perth has about 8500 members or ­season-ticket holders.

“We think about 50 per cent of our fans aren’t traditional basketball fans,” Marvin says. “So we have to ­package what we do as two hours of entertainment or one hour and 45 minutes really. That is where it is heading for families, so we have 40 minutes of hoops and one hour and five minutes of entertainment. About 80 per cent of our fans don’t play basketball either.”

The club derives about 27 per cent of income from membership and 23 per cent from other ticket sales, therefore the need to make attending matches as appealing as possible. About 15 per cent to 20 per cent revenue is from corporate ­hospitality, 15 per cent from sponsorship and the remainder from other sources such as merchandise.

Marvin is also the chairman of the NBL, which has been plagued by problems for more than a decade, including the collapse of several teams and lower television ratings.

NBL expansion

The league was privatised at the start of the season and aims to expand by 2015-16 from its current eight teams, with new sides mooted for Brisbane and potentially south-east Melbourne, Hobart and Canberra.

“Brisbane is the priority but we have to do a better job of promoting the league and making it appealing to broadcasters,” he says. “We also want to forge closer ­relationships with the NBA [in the United States] and to introduce a ­system next year where every team can sign a player above the salary cap, with a luxury tax on top of that.”

Marvin says the NBL should model itself as a development league for NBA clubs, which would send top prospects to develop their skills. Bendat moved to Western Australia from the US in the mid-1960s. He worked in partnership with Kerry Stokes for years, building shopping centres and media interests.

The partnership ended after 18 years when Stokes “wanted to go bigger” and Bendat wanted to stay in WA.

Bendat is also involved in ­philanthropic activities, backing ­hospitals and youth services.

“Money is no use to you when you’re gone,” he told BRW last year. “That’s why I am putting it back into the community now, while I can,” ­Bendat says.

Well, there is your model, for other NBL clubs to follow!

Thats why no one likes us!

i love what the wildcats have done,a while back i suggested that for basketball to THRIVE in oz it needs to go back to the capital cities(only)with 1 or 2 teams in each city sharing 10/12k seat stadiums,no salary caps,no points system,short seasons,attracting ex/future and present NBA players etc

The points I like are that the Wildcats organisation obviously do a good job of reviewing their strategic plan, understanding their audience and they engage their local community, very clever and pretty simple really, just good business practice...

"Thats why no one likes us!"

The reason no one likes Perth is because of the meathead fans and Shawn Floppage.

I think everyone admires the way the team is run and promoted...and of course Damian Martin :)

The game day experience at Perth Arena is second to none. I've been to most teams stadiums and none is more entertaining (as a neutral supporter) than Perth. However, the footy crowd bogan element really puts people off Perth.

Love em or hate em, they are the benchmark of the competition.

Does the revenue from the luxury tax go to help teams like Townsville and Wollongong use the full cap?
Because otherwise Perth will just sign an import above the salary cap, and make the gap between the top and bottom even greater. Don't see the point.

Lets be fair though, without Bendat willingly propping up the club for a few years at a loss, we wouldn't be in the situation (LOL thats my username!) we're in. Good management has been a key though.

So we "spent make to make money" but most of the other clubs don't have that money to create wealth so using us as the benchmark isn't always fair.

But lots of the little things we do, which don't cost an arm and a leg, other clubs can take notice of.

What I thought was interesting was that the AFR had it on Page One of their print edition (yesterday). I kind of wish they employed a naming policy similar to the NY Times, ie everyone's a 'Mr', so 'Mr Ennis' and so on.

I would hope all teams would aspire to make a similar profit

One interesting comment from the article from Marvin is that he admitted they had lost players because of their community focus. 350 hours a player per year is a lot of community work and obviously it works to get kids involved in doing their school work and learning about Basketball.

Some of the others above me are right, the Wildcats have benefitted a lot from Jack Bendat.. a lot.

""We've lost some players over the years due to that," Marvin says. "But it’s very important to us. “What we have always been told is that basketball has to tap into its participation base [at junior and amateur level] and, if we did that, then the crowds would come."

Thats pretty freaking sad really. Your getting paid to play for the club full time and in the context of full time jobs 350hrs is sfa.

It was widely rumoured that when the NBL was rescued and Marvin/Bevo stated this requirement to the current players that PC and Loughton baulked at it (which was surprising from Loughton who was king of the kids at the previous members day).

Why don't teams give away free tickets to communities and schools? Or give them away through fundraisers and competitions? Sure it may devalue purchased tickets but it builds a better atmosphere when there is a full house and gives the opportunity for some who would not usually go to experience nbl and hopefully return.

I've been thinking about this for a while and no it isn't an April Fools joke but with Dr. Bendat looking like the most frail person on the planet...

Is it time he bought the Wikdcats their own private plane?

Wildcats travel over 100,000 Kms every season, so if they can travel out of away games the same night instead of waiting the morning after for a return domestic flight and also with added leg room and many other benefits you'd think that maybe this is the next step that the Wildcats could be taking.

If they are travelling up to Townsville like they did this season on the same flight as the opposition then maybe they could help them guys out too...?

Or even the West Coast Waves?

I don't want to offend anyone but with such a frail looking owner this circumstance could be taken away immediately at the passing of the good doctor so it's just a not so well thought out suggestion.

As for listening to its members, whilst they have in many circumstances. I still don't see any Saturday night fixtures on the horizon :-(

Stadium tickets for NBL games are apparently not totally free. Clubs pay a booking and printing fee for each one I was told. If so it does explain why more tickets aren't given away to fill the sections empty every week.
Can anyone confirm this and how much $$$$?

350 community hours in Sydney would be tough when every promotion, which is usually 1 or 1 and 1/2 hours, can easily take another 2hrs return trip to get home. Melbourne probably in the same situation.
Wonder how many Comm Hrs the AFL guys have to do?

Just got to proportion it all out....investment against rewards.

Perth players used to always have a swag in their pockets at the schools/shopping centres when games were playing at the PEC under Stokes. Back rows but who cares. Helps when the owner owns the stadium. #6'ers were pretty generous when they were more linked to BASA, is that true?

You've got to look at the community service factor from the players point of view too. They have been limited in what they can earn in recent years ($800k salary cap?) so making them do non-basketball activities in a time when they could be working part-time (or even studying) is a bit prohibitive.

This where the NBLPA is useless.
There used to be regulations about where and when the training sessions could be held. All completed in the morning or the afternoon. This was to release players to study, prepare for life after.was told by players that it was abused by the clubs.
That was then changed to official days off etc but clubs now travel on their days off and do promotions etc. Have enormous respect for the guys who can actually achieve a degree etc whilst playing.

I agree.
It's just the 350 hours blows me away.
Remember they have an official 6 weeks holiday, and I think most of the NBL players aren't back in business till mid July. I guess I'm saying those 350 hours are spread over 40 weeks for the Cats.
That's a huge extra effort.
I really take my hat off to the club.

I have seen Wildcats players at my local ex primary school and have seen appearances at my local shopping centre.

Bowtie: Perth is pretty geographically spaced out too, so the Wildcats might take 1 1/2 hours to get to some locations around Perth.

They also do a lot of visits to PMH (the Childrens Hospital in Perth)

Think they visited a correctional facility too. Bit strange, but still good for the community I guess.

Matthew,
Doesn't come close to the time needed to get through the traffic in Sydney.
Your boys would not be travelling peak times, mostly.
In Sydney, it doesn't matter.

Congestion is a major issue in Perth right now with all the development going on and the spike in population.

Still nothing compared to Sydney or Melbourne (as I've spent plenty of time there) but its still getting to be a problem in Perth.