He is right on a lot of things. I would definitely like to see him involved motivating these people.

Is anyone going to say what ideas of his are good?

Loved it

Uwe, stadium standards?

Wow! Wow! Wow!

This guy is amazing!

Let's hope this creates a movement. OK. Here are my thoughts - bring back as an advisor Ken Cole for an initial 3 months. Don't worry about the TV side of things. Let the league continue that.

First 3 mth trial

BA - NBL/WNBL
Negotiate a funding agreement. BA receives government funding and the NBL/WNBL owners should receive some of that funding. Maybe it could be based on NBL players that make National teams? Wouldn't this mean that NBL/WNBL clubs pay these players more if there was funding available. If you don't have viable, vibrant national leagues and give investors the incentives to invest into the clubs then the work BA does is EXTREMELY DIFFICULT!

Negotiate a joint marketing agreement that permeates through the associations. Similar to the branding used. However, the associations and BA are to market NBL/WNBL throughout their associations and through to club level. Posters at local stadiums, involvement by National teams in the clubs etc. etc. Don't ALWAYS play district/association games when they clash with the NBL. THis should be uniform process nationally.

National marketing package
Develop national marketing packages for sponsors. Coordinate nationally to offer corporates national benefits to their sponsorship. He is right why can't Cairns tourism market across Australia through the NBL. Offer a package to every person walking through the doors of each venue etc. etc.

Game night operations
Develop consistent, uniform gamenight operations including mascots, cheer leaders, entertainment, comentators etc. etc. The marketing and entertainment of the game is the most important part.

Salary Cap
Explore the expansion salary cap to $3million per team, remove the point system and introduce a similar luxury tax system to the US. For example if Perth spends $3million on their team then for each $$ spent above $800 they need to pay a certain tax back into the league.

2nd 12 mths

Timing
Manage the change of timing of the game and the communications and promotions around the change.

Move to Winter, international TV
Develop the plan to move the league to Winter and explore selling TV rights to Europe AND the US as this is in their offseason.

Move venues to inner city venues
Inner city venues work. Look what has happened to Footy as it moves to Adelaide Oval. Look at Perths success. The SA government is spending over a Billions on the riverbank precinct. Move basketball into inner city venues with initial government support on a sunset/phaseout for the costs of venues whilst the game is built. Reduce ticket costs to pack the venues and promote and grow the game.

18 mths +
Global TV deals
Negotiate global TV deals for the NBL, expanding into Asia and the USA.

China
Grow the NBL into China/Phillipines/Singapore through a Asian Championship or NBL teams playing some regular season games over there.

Like Ken says, Everyone should look at how the Wildcats & Breakers run their operations & learn from them. Not sit back & criticize them. And don't start the ol they've got big budgets" chestnut... clubs need to get off the asses & get good sponsors/partners.

NZ and Perth run great operations, but they've built them over a period of time at the expense of very well-off owners. At this point of time, most other clubs don't have that luxury.

What NZ, Perth and Melbourne should be doing is investing heavily in the running of the league to improve the stability of all clubs and allow them to catch up to their level of professionalism.

Surely a move to winter could even bring in more young NBA players.

I can see teams sending youngsters between NBA seasons for a stint to get some more quality basketball in between June and September.

No to winter. Will be even more ignored than it is now - if that's possible. And will impact negatively on the currently successful clubs Perth, NZ, Adelaide and Melbourne because of the amount of football played there.

Im with ken on the fact that footy wont affect it...


Footy in everywhere but Melbourne is only for one game lasting for 3 hours each week. Its not that hard to schedule one basketball game around footys one three hour game each week surely.

With all the sports that are played during summer like cricket, tennis, soccer etc. I don't see how competing against football is going to be any different.

Paul, Perth & NZ went out & did exactly what Ken was talking about. Approached these so called moneybags & said "we're so & so and we're going to do this & that",
The money men didn't come to them.
The governing bodies job is to improve, promote & provide stability to all of the clubs.
Just because they're successful don't expect them to carry teams that can't operate well.

Baller#3, Well said.

"The money men didn't come to them."

Firstly, I know Blackwell came to the Breakers. Secondly, even if all other clubs managed to find one of their country's richest men to support them, it took Perth and NZ many years to capitalise on that, time that the NBL probably doesn't have at the moment without serious investment in the running and promotion of the league.

Its not so much the fixturing of NBL games when football is on - though that will be a big enough problem - its the amount of news given to basketball once all the AFL and NRL talk is done. The AFL pre-season competition is already dominating the sports news, and who cares about the pre-season? Not the media, clearly.

It cant get a look in during summer, and it will be even worse in winter from a scheduling point of view when they have to schedule games on nights other than Friday, Saturday or Sunday. Mid-week games in the NBL were not well received.

Its not the 90's anymore. The AFL today would kick the AFL of the 90's ass. The current version of the NBL wouldn't even be considered competition anymore, unlike when it was last played in winter.

Paul,
"time that the NBL doesn't have at the moment without serious investment in the running and promotion of the league".

Ken's put his hand up, told us what he'd do & even outline some very valid points of how to get the league back again.

Let's hope the ego's take notice....

The ideas are the easy bit, it's the detail and the execution that takes work. If Ken had a magic wand to go with his ideas then all would be well.

"What NZ, Perth and Melbourne should be doing is investing heavily in the running of the league to improve the stability of all clubs and allow them to catch up to their level of professionalism."

Some of these same people were the ones that pulled out of Brisbane and knocked back the model of smaller stadiums Paul.

Why can't we go for a duel model, have two divisions with in the one competition.

Metro Division
would consist of teams in big markets only. Something like 1 million population for each team minimum? Salary minimum of 1 million and maximum of 3 million to start, increasing as the league gains steam. Get some of the absolute best players not only from Australia but around the world, anyone outside an NBA starter should be a target for this league. Stadiums must be atleast 7,000 seats for a spot in this division to get the most spectators.

Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth and NZ would qualify for this currently. Could also easily get another Sydney and Melbourne team in the long run for an 8 team division.

Regional division
Consists of smaller market teams, as well as some second big city teams who want to remain in a cheaper league. Salary cap on 500k to 1 million, quality would be similar to what the league is currently, good Australians with some decent imports. Stadiums should be atleast 2,500 for this division.

Current teams in this model would be Wollongong, cairns, Townsville. Possible inclusions would include ACT, Tasmania, 2nd NZ, etc. looking to form a second 8 team division.

The league would play 2 games against each team for 30 game season. So regional teams still get to play the big markets etc so crowds will still roll out to see the big teams and players.

At the end of the season, the metro division plays off for the metro championship and the regionals go against each other for their own.

It's the best of both worlds

Ken speaks of a January commencement, surely he realises that nine months from now isn't nearly appropriate.

Baller#3 - I like that concept. Good idea. Maybe the NBL needs to think outside the box to suit its unique needs. The traditional Australian league method just isn't working for it.

18 mths +
Global TV deals
Negotiate global TV deals for the NBL, expanding into Asia and the USA.

China
Grow the NBL into China/Phillipines/Singapore through a Asian Championship or NBL teams playing some regular season games over there.




Really...?

He's just telling people what they want to hear.

Finally have the time to actually sit down and watch.

- He seems to think the only problem going up against AFL is head-to-head games. The NBL grand final got five seconds of coverage on Perth's 7 News last night. There was a clip of Ibekwe's shot, and a short clip of the team with the trophy. Almost a minute was spent on the Hawthorn-North Melbourne AFL pre-season game.
- He claims Luke Martin is a terrific player.
- He claims that "money doesn't win championships", despite the three financially best-off clubs in the league having taken up ten of the last twelve available grand final spots.
- He further supports this by claiming that the Yankees are evidence that money doesn't win championships. The Yankees have almost three times as many World Series wins as the next-best team, and twice as many appearances as the next-best team.
- He suggests raising the salary cap, ignoring that plenty of teams can't afford the current cap.
- And now it's just a ten-minute rant asking why the league doesn't just spend lots of money it doesn't have yet on people and things it can't afford.
- He suggests Townsville move to the TECC, which would require either negotiating a deal with people that don't exist, or paying rent that's expensive enough to cancel out the advantage of doing so, depending on which story you believe.
- He suggests doing deals with AFL clubs for some kind of joint membership. This one might actually be workable, although it's pretty lacking in any sort of detail.
- He thinks the league should stop spending so much on administration. Because apparently these ideas will all execute themselves.
- He claims there's plenty of TV networks willing to throw money at the NBL, and the NBL should demand they do so. Which...isn't true.
- He then insists we must switch back to 48-minute games, despite 40-minute games being something TV sees as necessary. Even the NBA is considering moving to 40-minute games.
- He says we don't need money from TV. Despite insisting on lots of things that cost lots of money and offering no way of paying for them.
- He seems to think the NBL can break into the US market. Apparently hasn't heard of the NBA.
- It's apparently not the role of commentators to discuss strategy. My head hurts.
- Full-time refs. Again, it's a good idea, but it's also so obvious that if the money was there, I'm sure it would've happened by now.
- The NBA has a big TV deal, therefore the NBL can get one. Uh...no?
- "Let's bring AFL people to games and have them promote us!" Why would they do that if we're playing in winter?
- I've lost count of the times he's insisted that the NBL "show its power" and "flex its muscles", which ignores the fact that it DOESN'T ACTUALLY HAVE ANY.
- We're apparently going to have ten teams within a year, whilst also kicking all the poor teams out of the league. I assume by "ten", he means "three".

People need to stop listening to this guy. Seriously.

koberulz, thanks - saved me watching it and confirmed that it's not at all must-watch after all.

The AFL-NBL partnership thinking seems to neglect the "what's in it for the AFL club?" angle. They have tens of thousands of members. Buddying up with a club that has a couple thousand has little benefit for them.

Same with the NBA. We are miles down their priority list, whatever people might say about our league pass and jersey sales. We just don't have the population.

The AFL-NBL partnership thinking seems to neglect the "what's in it for the AFL club?" angle.

#213 totally agree!

Anonymous 520127

"Why would China/Philippines pay to watch two Australian teams okay when their own league is better and more exciting?"

I agree that they probably don't want to watch NBL but I suggest but the reason is not that they are better. I think that you have never watched either league if you consider them better or more exciting (unless of course you enjoy watching hyped up US imports dunking on inferior local products playing little effective defence)

The crowds at games in China are generally poor but the TV audience is probably quite large as it is in the Philippines (cause you know the rest of the TV shows are basically crap)

Didnt Boty post this on his page a few months ago?.

Boti picks a side first, then decides that whatever that side have to say is right.

Some look at things that are, and ask why. T dream of things that never were and ask why not

No, I think it's Boti's love of the old school that often comes through very strongly.

I had a discussion with Boti about it when he posted Cole's ideas to his blog, and he basically justified it on the basis that yes, Cole is wrong about almost everything, but he's an NBL legend and therefore his thoughts should be heard.

Really? He might have to rethink his definition of insanity then.