Yikes!
Well he's been hinting for a long time now. Plenty of time for some contingency plans to at least be sounded out.
A WNBL without the Lightning would just be wrong.

Thanks Vince for all you have done.

I guess that's a reasonable indication of roughly what the shortfall is per season - $500K and what a new owner could be potentially looking at funding.

To make it worthwhile, any new ownership group would need to look at their business plan very carefully.

let's hope an ownership syndicate can be co-ordinated if no new single owner comes forth.

Lightning have been a source of so much entertainment and activity in our household - we hope they are around for the next generation.

Appreciate all the work done to get them this far.

I would support any fundraisers or community activities.

Maybe a shorter WNBL season to keep costs down ?

No TV plus anything else on the horizon.... will put some challenges in front of the competition in 15/16 .... and after one of our biggest years !

Thanks Vince for all you have done.

The Lightning should be a product of Basketball SA. The sport in this state needs Elite Women's representation. Yes, it will cost the state body some and yes the Members will ultimately pay however, the right management focus would deliver much more significant benefit to the local clubs and their members.

It is completely unrealistic to think that Private enterprise will continue to pick up the tab.

If you think whatever they are doing they need to find another $500K/season in revenue. Attendances in women's sport is poor, but if there are 14 home games, then that works out to be about $36K per game. Assuming a $20 ticket, attendances would need to rise by about 1,800/game.

Yeah, that's not happening

BSA would be dumb to take it on given they had to sell it back in 2005 to bail themselves out.

The local clubs that make up BSA have no funds, the BSA Executive have not delivered a new court since being in office, so to buy a team that is losing is a dumb business decision and won't happen

I agree. The only clubs represented are Sturt and Norwood and many of the out of towners have not been performing well enough at this level.

I DO NOT WANT ANOTHER RISE IN COSTS FOR JUNIOR BASKETBALL..

It is already the most expensive sport due to it's yearly commitment outside of cycling.

We do not get the numbers attending so clearly not an inspiration to young women.

What we do need is a better system for Girls in SA and I believe it is the Domestic Model that should be looked in to in Regions within Adelaide and Country then inter regional finals. District Levels 1 and 2 should remain and that is the pathway to the elite womens but with more tiers. This gives every level the ability to achieve success at their level and the top teams to progress to the next tier. Girls are more sensitive and the group dynamics, friendships and contribution is more important to them than the boys who generally are less team orientated in their younger days and their strengths are their ball handing and shooting. For girls that comes later. Not every family can fit the sport in with the travel and lack of regional competitions is also a turn off especially as it competes with school sports and netball wcih are regionalised and it is not suitable for many of those that are late bloomers. We lose a great deal of transition players from netball to basketball due to this due to opportunities in netball. We also need to look at school basketball which for girls is not cutting it. There are not enough all girl teams and quality coaches within the school system. WHen girls do play it is often against and with boys who are not interested in including the girls in the game in most cases. Immediately you lose girls to netball and other sports. BSA would be better off spending their money in conjunction with the state government getting funding to provide an external link to new inter club domestic programs for girls school basketball and provide the coaching for them at a subsidised fee. This could also be a coaching/ref development pathway and a career pathway for coaches, young teachers with an association with basketball. I have so many ideas about how this could work. I am involved with a domestic program with girls teams at a club in Adelaide that is already working at a local level without advertising and straight up have 65 girls at 1 club playing on a Saturday afternoon. 1 term is all it took and targeting girls needs, 65 !!! NO ADVERTISING and this is surplus to district - Imagine what that could become if every club in regions implemented a parallel program with marketing and then linked in to a regional finals for the top teams while the remaining fought it out locally for their titles. Inclusive and Growth, rapid growth !!!!!

Within each region you could have selections for a regional all stars team and so on. This is able to generate profit as well and be self funding with a start up cost.

Women and girls are different to men especially in juniors and need to have a different approach in the early years. Late bloomers may be lost due to the 3/4 system here and not enticing compared to netball. We need to funk up the juniors girls and make it more evenly balanced for young girls and a lot more fun as they develop and then provide that pathway to 1/2 for those showing promise at any age as that varies. We need to be creative in our training and target small groups such as guards, forwards and bigs to hone in on their skills. We have a resource of senior women who we should be tapping in to to share the wealth and less concerned about a state womens team in the WNBL right now at the expense of more women coming through the ranks. We are not there yet. Perhaps hitting the reset button with a program that has potential to be a great success can rebuild our womens in SA which in pockets is doing well but not well enough across the board.

The Pink Ball program was a good thought but does not provide the opportunity to just get straight in to a girls program playing with girls and against girls with girl coaches and girl trainings and girls uniforms. It is idealistic to think we need to develop other areas of their well being and that an be a side issue, but all that self esteem and empowerment will come with the game in the right environment. We need to just get on with it and get local domestic girls comps going, provide an alternative to school ball and compete with the attraction of netball. Many of the girls I work with have stayed with us as notable limits their opportunity to get involved. They are delighted they can have the opportunity and glory shooting a goal and not just a select few. They are delighted they can bounce the ball. They love their colourful girls uniforms and love having young dynamic female coaches. Parents love being at one place at a similar time every week. Their daughters can still do dance and go to parties and they can get the rest of the family to school sport and club sports. They can play one season, miss one to play another sport and jump straight back in where they were the following season. We provide opportunities for those who want to go to the next level the doorway to district at a later age where we are normally losing girls, we are starting to gain them in that age bracket. It has been a surprise and revelation having a different approach and the potential is huge !!!

JUST SAYIN.

correct we do not want to repeat the problem.

shorten the wnbl season.

Q - what made the lightning so successful in the early days ? maybe find that recipe.

BSA have a lot of other things - i.e. new stadiums that are well overdue.

Maybe we need to accept the fact that - if we don't have the money it will all be local players and we will not keep up with the Dandenongs of the world.

good points pro womens sport !

If the Lightning was successful in the early days they wouldn't have gone broke with BSA and the 36ers

Adelaide have always had high budget teams, yes.
They'll have to live a little more realistically now, assuming they do get to live on.
Welcome to financial reality. Same place the Breakers/Lynx/Waves have been for about 14 seasons now.

I know it ain't cheap.
The obvious start is Adelaide Arena.
Do a handful of spectators really need an 8,000 seat stadium? I don't know Adelaide but surely there has to be something more suitably sized/priced?

I'm curious about why training court hire would be $40k too. Seems nuts to be paying that much.

And btw there is no shame in not keeping up with "the Dandenongs of the world". They're blessed with an owner with way too much cash to throw around. Unless your club has that same luxury, trying to keep up with it is suicide.
Something in the league rules probably needs to be done about that situation. It's great to have the Taylors and Pondexters of the world ... the very elite ... playing in our comp. But if it gets to the stage where only one team can afford to have them, and even that one team can only do so by non sustainable means, then is it healthy?

Thw WNBL is really a great womens competition with some of the absolute best in the world playing here every season. It has ,more world class players than the NBL. But it is womens sport and attracts very small following and so even less financial backing.
We really do need to appreciate the money put in by the likes of Vince Marino who has his faults but has blown millions of his hard earnt money to keep a WNBL licence in SA.

Obviously the players are paid too much. Not because the don't work hard enough and not because their product in not good. Its just that the public are not buying it. But pay them less and the good ones won't be here.
How does a national womesn soccer league run? How did that ever get on TV?

it is important to utilize adelaide arena, the logistics of running a double header would be financially easier with a double header than opening 2 stadiums.

Getting some more people in the door is a priority.

A good start would be getting the players with a bigger community profile i.e. media, out in the public, doing more things with clubs etc

if everyone works together.... who knows what can happen !

Whilst the $ is important - let's not lose the bigger picture.

they have played at wayville

again the state can spend so much money on adelaide oval - which is really nice.

yet other sports that the community engages in are out in the cold.

let's get some %s right re allocation of funds and community involvement.

Wonder what the pandas are costing us nowadays ? - yet our kids play in biodegrading stadiums....

Lightning are playing in WHyalla in a few weeks. Whyala basketball association paying the cost of relocating everyone (players and officials) from Adelaide to Whyalla and return. Then the association tries to cover its costs with local sponsorship etc becasue its a one off special event.
Whyalla's stadium had the floor replaced 2 years ago and has brand new air conditioning installed this month.

This concept can work where double headers not available. Regional centers don't have access to elete sport and the communities lap it up.
But like all businesses the WNBL clubs need to reduce costs. Only pay what they can afford. Live within their means. etc. etc

How long until Chris Lucas buys the club and makes himself the coach?

Adelaide Arena is too expensive to hire - although you would think that concessions could be made for WNBL games given the fact that one of the owners is Church Basketball. Games could and have been played at Wayville. Wayville is co-owned by BSA so the cost factor of utilising the court should not be huge. Games played previously at Wayville , I believe, run by Forestville which included with the additional of a temporary stand on the southern side. Those games were not all sellouts. The subject of heat at Wayville is something that would need to be addressed. Games could also be played at Pasadena (again co-owned by BSA) with the addition of a temporary stand on the southern (court 2) side and would probably still not be a sellout. Heat issue again would need to be addressed. Stadiums interstate are mainly club/association courts that again do not seat vast numbers. No one has a venue the size of Adelaide. Depending on the ownership status of the Lightning (and if they were till being administered by the 36ers) double header games could still be played. There would also be the possibility of a game/s being played in a country venue such as Mt Gambier which was previously used. The big issue is going to be who will own the Lightning franchise and how much will be invested. It all comes down to the money!

You reap what you sow. If Vince wanted to be successful and try to make any money, he would've let coaches play who they wanted and get the wins. By micromanaging the coaches and forcing them to play his little darling for starters minutes (when she is realisitically a 5-12min scoring punch off the bench) meant his teams would never win, and this drove away crowds. But hey, at least his little girl got to be a starter in the WNBL, and it only cost him a coupla mil to do it, eh ?

No other court in Adelaide can seat more than about 500 and cant be used for televised games.

Melvin Corpuscle. I suggest you look at the stats for Lightning games and you will find that Angela is among the higher points scorer for the team and has been over several seasons.
It was my understanding that this post was meant to identify the issues relating to Vince standing down as owner and not to the Angela haters.

Anon 510992 - I was not aware that it was a league rule re air-conditioning. I was also not aware that all stadiums e.g. Bendigo were air-conditioned. Also the WNBL has allowed Lightning games to be played in Whyalla and Mt Gambier (neither air-conditioned at the time).

I agree however that there is a problem with heat, but given modern technology and equipment I suspect the problem could be addressed. Not every game will encounter a heat problem.

It has been mentioned in this post, but don't forget without Vince there would be no Lightning. At the time Vince purchased the team (and does it really matter his motives) BSA were broke and no one else stepped forward (nor have they since) to keep the team going. Many people have suggested that BSA are still broke and would need assistance to fund the Lightning.

I wonder if Melvin has a solution or is willing to put up funds or just willing to bag people.

Anon12

The fact is that Vince brought the team for Angela, and he actually stated that himself at a function years ago. He perches that it was for Women's Basketball in SA ?
If you think that Angela is such a fantastic player, lets see how many other clubs want to recruit her in 2015/2016 if the team folds ???

So why play her for the rest f the season..lol you got nothing to lose..

It was my understanding that this post was meant to identify the issues relating to Vince standing down as owner and not to the Angela haters.

Hoops: Lucas sacked - Asst Coaches walk.

Fox Sports: Adelaide Lightning coach Chris Lucas has been sacked just two weeks into the new Women's NBL season amid extraordinary accusations of nepotism and rumour mongering involving the team owner's daughter.

In a storyline worthy of a soap opera, Lucas believes he was fired last night because he was contemplating whether to relegate guard Angela Marino to the bench for this weekend's games against Bendigo and Bulleen.

If Vince wasn't paying the bills no one would have had a gig...so can hardly have a crack at him for expecting certain things in return for his cash.

i.e court time etc

When Marino bought it, there was another bidder. And I understand Lucas has been interested in some points.