I agree . The stadium is almost empty.

To be fair, a lot of people would have been watching the cars go around in circles on TV this weekend.

You can't just blame the 'new board' though.

At the end of the day, the 'fans'/basketball public in TVL should take some of the blame.

The board can only do so much with a shoestring budget.

It does not make for good reading though.

As soon as they got rid of Homicide that was beginning of the end.

still a much higher percentage per capita attendance than melbourne

I don't understand how they can get 3000 to each game for most of last year and now only get 1,400. I guess basketball has gone out of fashion in TSV and also the high ticket prices have contributed.

Really hate to say it, as I've always respected the Crocs in the past, and think they have a great franchise - or at least did - but they are fast becoming a club that is just there to make up the numbers. If the league didn't look thin enough as it is with just 8 teams, then there wouldn't be much concern to keep them around.

With the league improving everywhere else, and expansion on the horizon, the Crocs will probably still be around, but won't add anything to the comp other than being just another club for other teams to compete against and provide fans another opponent to watch when they travel.

It does seem like Townsville people have given up on the Crocs, which is a great shame. Lets hope they can improve their attendances to at least 2,000 going forward.

@NBL Fan:

You would still be getting those numbers if you were at TEC.

People don't want to go to RSL stadium.

Ticket prices are absolutely ridiculous to be playing in a venue like that.

What are the ticket prices?

Keep positive guys, crocs fans have faith, have a great team with plenty of firepower. They will work harder than ever this week, and come out firing next week, I will always support the crocs and try to get to the games when I can. Go crocs Go!!!

Have to agree with @Wildcat Fan. This is probably the beginning of the end for the Crocs unfortunately.

A team or teams out of Brisbane, Canberra, Hobart (maybe) would be good for this league. The Townsville Fire look like they get more to games than the Crocs did today.

Whatever happened to the days when the TEC was sold out for every game? I remember seeing a number of games in the late 90's with the place packed. How times have changed.....

still a much higher percentage per capita attendance than melbourne

The League knows the Crocs are skating on thin ice hence why they are forcing expansion next season.

I don't think the league would be talking about 16 teams if they expected to lose one or two along the way. They'd be speaking of 10 or 12.

It might be that the strategy instead is to develop a league that can support big market teams that get a majority of TV games, and regional teams that have ways of staying competitive despite smaller stadiums and meagre crowds.

More teams means more job opportunities and eyeballs and a greater talent disparity from your stars to your next tiers - that makes for big names standing out, stats to spruik and so on. It also means games potentially most nights of the week as you see in the NBA.


To those in Townsville, is this a case in breaking continuity? If you give people a chance not to renew their season tickets or stop coming to games regularly, they will. The greatest competition is not from other teams and often not other sports but from apathy.

It is a great shame. But with all due respect, let's not keep them on longer than we have to/delay the inevitable.

The league has a clear direction it wants to head in.

The league will only ever be as strong as its weakest link.

On the money Isaac.

Was it just me or did all the courts seem very plain - lack of advertising this season, is this an NBL directive?

Crocs might be on the last legs so Brissy come in to replace them so what markets are next?

2nd Melb team? (Be pretty quiet in Melb lately)

2nd NZ Team? (They are keen but are the NBL)

2nd team in Perth? (Haven't heard it but only market that might be able to support it based on Wildcats gate numbers)

Apparently charging $10 to park your car hasn't been rcvd well either.

I don't think the NBL can afford anymore negative publicity when we are about to expand. I remember whenever s team folds we just keep getting told basketball is dead and it is a basketcase.

If you want to know why it was only 2/3 full, look at the ticket prices:

http://www.crocodiles.com.au/ticket-prices

Wow. Looks like Hawks tickets before they came to their senses.

When you look at the seating map there are only about three rows of bronze on each side at $29 (which looked full) and then next is silver at $53, which looked mostly empty. Time to think quick and make that $29 as well.

http://nblclubstatic.s3.amazonaws.com/town_TRSL%20Seating%20Plan%20-%20Numbered.pdf

Their survival will probably come down to the TV deal.

I renewed my season tickets in the bronze section which is the cheapest option and at $25 a game was up on last year at tecc, yet they only made the back three rows available for cheap seats.

Obviously they have to cover similar overheads in a smaller venue with less seats, hence the higher cost of other closer seats. But the bronze tickets were all but gone within the first week and most fans would have pulled the pin rather than paying $45 or about double their previous ticket price.

Either they hope for the best and continue to price people out of the market or open up three more rows to bronze or $25 tickets and give those already with season tickets in those seats the chance to fill silver seats closer to the action. At least that gives casual fans the option of a reasonably priced ticket.

paul, those silver prices are way out of line given how many there are.

Absolutement! That should be the gold price.

As paul suggested, they should increase the number of bronze seats and bring existing season ticket holders down closer to the action. Then offer the remaining bronze as season tickets slightly cheaper to account for the one game, or just for walk-ups.

For the remaining silver, find a way to sweeten the deal. T-shirt or hoodie or something.

An alternative would be to make the silver tickets say $35-40 (still high) and upgrade all the bronze buyers, then sell the remaining bronze tickets at $20.

You can change the ticket prices, as suggested you'd just have to sweeten the deal for those who already bought memberships by upgrading them, giving them merchandise, giving them a partial refund, or discounting their membership next season.

Sadly it might be too late, as people have already heard tickets are very expensive. The Victoria Giants got a big turnout for their first game at MSAC, but once the $20 tickets had gone all that was left were $40 which people didn't want to pay, and that affected their crowds for the rest of the season.

Too many mistakes are made in the NBL and not learned from, no corporate memory so we keep going over the same ground.

Why not see if Nth Qld can field one team playing out of 2 venus, much like is being proposed for Tasmania. The NRL has one team up there as far as I know so why not have 1 NBL team. Its aa bit hard to justify 3 teams ( was 4 when we had Blaze and Bullets as well) playing out of Qld when only 2 out of NSW and 1 out of Vic, SA, WA annd NZ.

End of the day, the death of the Crocs will have to be sheeted to the TEC whose ruthlessness towards the Crocs will end up costing them all in the long run.

From what I've read, there really was no choice but to move.

NAthan of Perth, the smaller clubs will start to fall as the wealthy flourish under the new system, predict the next to fall will be Sixers and Cairns despite success and the new will also struggle to get established unless they can get the millionaire plus backing and state governments to build central stadiums or have one already there.. So Nathan, the predictions will come to fruit. Don't blame TEC as they are also having to cover costs. Unless you live in a downward spiralling economy that some states and rural communities are suffering then you will never understand and just overstate the abilities of clubs as being fantastically managed when they have been gifted all they need to survive and flourish, which others haven't. Despite that they make the hard decisions, they keep pushing, locals who can't afford it put in what they can't afford, volunteers pitch in and players take losses and show loyalty no matter hard it gets and to the end. Don't criticise any of it. You should be supportive and encouraging and respectful but then you will never know what these teams and communities do. Sixers had a Save our Sixer Consortium that sent themselves poor as they couldn't get backing and have a stadium well away from what they need to flourish and now compete with a thriving Adelaide Oval in a community that has rising unemployment and dwindling income and businesses and venture closing. To get to 2nd last year the keep the club alive players took cuts, owners are suffering and it goes on.

Once again, it will come down to the TV deal.

If they sign a good television contract that delivers sponsorship to the league and money to the clubs every team will become viable. Without it, I doubt the league is viable long term.

swish, the NRL has one team in NQ but it only plays out of Townsville. They don't play any games in Cairns or Mackay. I don't see any problem with 3 or 4 QLD teams IF they met/meet the criteria. What's been stopping Victoria having 3 or 4 teams? Have consortiums been knocking on the NBL's door asking for licences? I don't think so.

A lot of this has to fall back on NBL HQ though.

The Crocs are a pretty amateur organisation at the moment, run largely by volunteers and other folk whose hearts are in the right place but who don't have a clue what they are doing. The league should be watching them very closely and keeping them on a short, short leash. It would be a tragedy to lose another team right now.

The NBL should have reviewed their ticket pricing scheme and rejected it. The NBL should be reviewing lots of what they are doing and rejecting it (maybe they should take control of their twitter account too....asking your social media followers to lend a bed for Mickell Gladness to sleep on for the season reflects badly on the franchise locally and the Australian basketball as a whole).

Their entire business model is fundamentally flawed. Their community restructure/re-launch charter says they are banking on a $100k profit by 2015.

How are you supposed to achieve anything in real terms when the whole franchise model is a fairy tale? You can't measure any gains/losses against any measuring sticks because the KPIs are were cooked up between tokes of a crack pipe.

They actually have a decent roster put together this season which makes all the off-the-court stuff even sadder.

They are kidding themselves if they think they can cover losses by increasing ticket prices. NBL prices are too high to begin with, league-wide. Townsville has the worst stadium and is coming off the wooden spoon... and they have the highest prices in a league of high ticket prices.

It's just a lack of self-awareness and a lack of business sense.

If you live in Townsville, why would you buy a Crocs season membership when you can buy a Cowboys (NRL) membership instead, and watch one of the greatest players of all time (Johnathan Thurston) play every week for half the price?

And it's not just the ticket prices: from what I've heard they are asking silly money for corporate sponsorship as well.

"Townsville has the worst stadium and is coming off the wooden spoon... and they have the highest prices in a league of high ticket prices."
They might have the highest-priced cheapest ticket, but their cheapest ticket is still a much better seat than the cheapest ticket in most venues around the league, and their most expensive tickets aren't even in the ballpark of, say, Perth.

They got 1.5k people on Sunday, so they're clearly doing something wrong, but you can't just compare them to other teams with much bigger venues, who are selling worse seats and have more ability to make up for the money they don't make off the back few rows by charging an arm and a leg for the front few rows.

one team across Cairns and Townsville wouldn't work. Most people here don't support the Cowboys because of the fact they're in Townsville.......
Wouldn't work and doesn't make much sense, especially given the off court success the Taipans have had (posting profits, sponsorship etc). If they were going to head down that track i'd suggest they look at places south of T'ville (Mackay for example)

I think it's a bit early to throw the Crocs out with the bathwater. I don't think the league will let them fail and Sunday games are notoriously hard to fill (esp when Bathurst is on).

In saying that though, if i remember correctly, even the Cowboys have struggled to put bums on seats the last couple of seasons (with the exception of finals) so maybe it's just systematic of a malaise in the T'ville marketplace?

Let's remember though that it is amazing how quickly things turn around after a couple of wins.

The idea of having a Nth Qld team playing out of 2 cities is just an attempt to keep the Crocs legacy alive. If the town can't support a full team maybe they can share with Cairns. I know there is a rivalry but the concept is based on what is being suggested as the answer to a Tasmanain team playing out of three towns. Just an idea I had with no real answer to the many issues.

Not sure how it would go down in Cairns BUT it is a better look for the league from the outside to be seen to be consolidating its presence in Nth Qld rather than being seen as simply having another team fold.

Interesting stat from the Cowboys - 60% of the members aren't from the Townsville area with well over 70% of the home game crowd (lots of people from Cairns will only buy a few game tickets cause of the travel etc) not from Townsville. Basically the cowboys survive due to fans outside of the Townsville.

Agree with Podge its just the general malaise in da ville - employment is the highest in the state, mining jobs are shrinking rapidly, Fly in Fly out jobs are now based out of Cairns/Mackay. Townsville is struggling in general.

Will they close ? Dont think so but there will be alot of pain in the near future.

Also why don't the Crocs have their naming rights sponsor on their jersey.

swish, I see your point about consolidating NQ teams for the sake of the league but asking Cairns and Townsville to merge would be like asking Port Adelaide and Adelaide to merge.
As Cairns are quite strong as a standalone entity the better solution would be if TSV folded for Cairns to play one or two home games out of TSV, but not as a merged team.

Mick : Its funny you should mention that Townsville are a 'pretty amateur organisation' at the moment.


Have you seen the NBL recently? Townsville arnt the only organisation that should be having a look at itself.

The NBL website should be being updated every day with articles and information. It isnt. Ive yet to see any tv advertising or radio advertising by the NBL (ie advertising that isnt from my local Wildcats team).

I think we really need to slow down on this expansion push. More teams might sound really awesome, but its not doing anything to fix the teams we have right now.

More teams = better TV deal = more money. Money fixes a lot of problems.

More teams = better tv deal ONLY if the product rates sufficiently to justify that deal and create a two bidder situation.

A better deal = more money ONLY if that extra money covers the maintenance of running the extra teams in the expanded league AND provides cash back to clubs.

That doesn't require a better deal - it requires a MUCH better deal.

There is no proof that more content (more teams playing more games more consistently) makes the product more desirable to TV. Its a strategy they have adopted. It may or may not work.

I don't think many people would have predicted FFA getting $40 mill a year.