hoping you would continue to write wonderful and informative blogs.

I just write a follow-up blog post titled an ‘Open Letter To The NBL’ which I thought you all might be interested in:

http://preneurmarketing.com/uncategorised/saving-basketball-australia-and-the-nbl/

Cheers,

Pete

Thanks for all the great feedback.

I’ve jut put up a short video to YouTube which will be the intro to a new post I;m uploading in a day or three..

Check it out at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gX_XApxKeI

I’ll post here, when the “open letter to the NBL” is on the blog.

Pete

I was just curious as to a few questions:

1) What were crowd attendances in the 90s like, in comparison to what they are today?

2) What was television coverage of the NBL like on FTA (like, how many games were shown on FTA, or were games only shown into local markets (eg Sydney ppl saw Sydney Kings matches, Brisbane saw Brisbane Bullets matches etc.)?

3) What days/times were games shown at back then?

4) When did FTA no longer televise NBL matches?

5) If you were to schedule the matches, on what days/times would you have them and would you have all of them on FTA?

I used to be a massive NBL fan, but have not made it to a game for about five years. The last game I went to was a Melbourne Tigers game at Rod Laver arena … lucky to be 10% full! There was zero atmosphere, and way too much cheese for anyone to be able to enjoy the game … too much music, t-shirt giveaways, over-loud court announcements, etc, etc. At the time I though that it was so hard to focus on the actual game that was happening at the time, no one could actaully come away and say that they enjoyed the match.

The problem (I thought) was that the the home club (or the league) did not believe in their product, and they had to over-sell it with all of the other distractions! I would rather go and see my local BigV team, where I can focus on the game and the match-ups, and I’m sure other basketball fans would say the same.

Sure … have all of the “entertainment” aspects during the breaks and timeouts, but if the product is good enough, which it clearly is, let it stand alone and sell itself.

Okay, so I also think there are too many teams … Singapore in particular … what was the NBL thinking? I like the idea of one or two teams per town maximum, to improve the quality and build some long-term rivalries. And I love the idea mentioned above of linking each team with a state-level “farm” team, to build roster strength, and provide a pathway into the NBL.

Crazy Idea #1: Any chance of an NBA team doing a pre-season here to increase awareness and create a buzz? Maybe a practice game against some sort of all-star team over their off season?

I would love to see the NBL back on the main pages of sporting news, and am happy to contribute opinions if needed. I love hoops, and hope that my little boy will someday grow to love the game too. The game is beautiful … let it grow and exist without some of the unnecessary hoopla!

Greg
gregmond@yahoo.com

Basketball Australia desperately need another “Team USA Olympic 2000 warm-up or 80’s USSR” match series. Bringing Greece for example in a international period to Melbourne will create an atmosphere that will kick the NBL up the bottom. Or even China, as Australia has a large Asian population.

You mentioned how NBA players blog through the NBA website. There are NBL player blogs out there (http://jronfire.blogspot.com/) but these are not tied into the NBL website, which is an opportunity.

Anyway, good luck getting on one of the boards – basketball needs thinkers like yourself!

http://nbl.com.au/default.aspx?s=newsdisplay&id=74669