This will give the NBL the kick in the ass it needs. THey can't wait around and keep saying 'Next season' every time they make a promise. Competition is healthy - they either need to put up or shut down.

NBL posted the statement on their FB account and are taking a little heat now...

Well deserved heat. I personally put the flamethrower to them in that status.

They are obviously butthurt by this little development. I suppose they can't just coast along sitting on their hands and expect to survive as the only show in town, hey?

Looks like we will need to see results for the NBL before 2017 or that will basically be that?

It's hardly a direct competitor GWB, even if it did happen to get off the ground. The NBL's challenges are far bigger than this.

It may not be a direct competitor, but if CLB does well and NBL doesn't, the NBL will no longer be a necessity in Australia.

GWB - you seem very firm in your enthusiasm for a league basically being put together on the fly, apparently without capital, with no TV deal etc.

If it works, and the NBL fails (goes under), then this will fail soon after. The fundamentals for both are wrong.

Everything depends on either very deep pockets (which the NBL now has to some degree and the CLB does not at this stage) or a great TV deal (not just a TV deal) which neither of them have.

The NBL clubs were apparently hemorrhaging paying BA 100K per year in fees, how are clubs going to front 350 to CLB?

Are there really a whole new set of investors out there ready to plunge 1-2m into a 15 week risk? A league not endorsed by BA, which will struggle to get quality referees as a result, which will struggle to get players as a result etc.

Anyone for smoke and mirrors?

"GWB, you are wanting to give the CBL a chance on the proviso they find investors who are willing to lose money to start, but also criticizing the NBL for not doing things properly when their biggest hurdle has been not being able to find investors willing to lose money."

NBL's biggest hurdle has been 2 decades of mismanagement. All I am saying, is the CLB seems to believe they have the money. They are talking like they already have the investors. If they do, then they give themselves a fair chance to succeed.

Now that the NBL has an investor with some business nous, I will be interested to see what happens with the league. I am by no means abandoning the league, I just want to finally see action this time. After so many years of broken promises, I don't think real changes can wait another season. CLB is a warning that, if they don't happen soon something else might come up. NBL's spot as Australias premier league could be in peril. All it takes is for CLB to decide to play traditional basketball, extend the length of the season, and to have those investors from the get go. I can't help but think they already have a few..

It's curious to observe that the CLB development is reminiscent of the 'tear it down and rebuild it from new' approach that Gaze bandied about a couple of months ago, when the NBL's future form was being questioned.

GWB - I disagree that the NBL has sat on its collective hands for 20 years. I think it's fairer to say there have been too many hands on the wheel and pulling in different directions at different times. Together with club level mismanagement, that management by influence (rather than common vision) has been the main reason there's been no clear and coherent model of what the league should look like and how it should operate. That deficiency at least is fixable in the Kestleman experiment.

Personally, I think it's good for the NBL to have the prospect of indirect competition from something like CLB. It provides even more incentive to make the experiment succeed. So any white-anting from within is likely to be less than otherwise might have been the case.

Gimmick league. Props for trying, but the guys trying to get this going are missing the point as far as why the NBL isn't good in this country. It is not the game itself, it is the administration of the competition. Everyone still loves the game. This is not a case of Test match or one-day cricket "not being an exciting enough format".

I'm not dissing the LK Group and I look forward to the changes they will be able to implement going forward.

My point was, these guys have come out with saying basketball needs to be "revolutionised" with an IPL / Big Bash type offering, which I think is off the mark. The game itself and the format is not the reason why the NBL has struggled in Australia, it is the poor administration of the competition.

Why was the $1m guarantee a debacle?