The inmates run the asylum no longer. That’s the result of basketball’s landmark vote on Saturday afternoon, which saw the NBL’s 10 club owners agree to hand over their power to a new Independent Board.
The significance of this cannot be understated. The owners have little idea of what the NewNBL will look like, and therefore know they may potentially be committing suicide by relinquishing their authority. Yet, for one of the few moments in Australian basketball history, the game’s interests prevailed over self-interest.
However, as South Dragons co-owner Mark Cowan told the Herald Sun prior to the vote, we have a map without any lines on it. With just eleven months until the new league commences, we have no idea what it’s going to look like.
Much has been written about the Independent Board possibly taking the soft option and following the A-league model. Basketball Australia CEO Scott Derwin told 1116 SEN on Saturday afternoon that this is not the case and there will not be a 1 team per town policy. If both the South Dragons and Melbourne Tigers meet the criteria, he said, they will both be in the league, adding he would be “very surprised” if they weren’t and even going as far as saying we could have a 12-team competition.
It seems that this was the line sold to nervous club owners too, with Cairns Taipans executive director Juanita O’Brien telling the Cairns Post:
“…Should both the (Townsville) Crocs and Taipans meet the criteria for the ‘new NBL’ going forward, both will be accepted on that basis,”
“That was certainly one of the first questions we asked.”
It’s easy for the Board to feed this line at the moment, for they know there was little chance of the vote being accepted if owners didn’t have some sort of assurance that they will be in the league. But the question may not be what Basketball Australia think, but what Fox Sports think. Last week it was revealed that if the reform went through, the broadcaster would offer a $35m five-year deal to show every game live. Basketball Australia will meet with Fox shortly to try and put the finishing touches on it. The crucial issue here is that the Fox deal will probably be signed before the Board even asks for expressions of interest for licences in the league. Surely Fox Sports are not going to sign off on a deal to show every game live without knowing how many games there will be each week. Surely this offer is conditional on a certain number games, and therefore teams, with speculation suggesting they want a carbon copy of the A-league model.
This is where the Independent Board must show that they really do control the game now. This reform is arguably basketball’s last chance to formulate a viable national league in Australia. Put simply, they cannot get this wrong. Therefore, critical decisions cannot be made by some Fox Sport executive sitting in their Sydney office saying, “do what the A-league did and we’ll give you 35 million.” Rather, these decisions must be made by the people who understand basketball. These decisions must be made by people who understand that the “1 team, 1 town” policy is not a panacea for all sports; it was a specific antidote to soccer’s circumstances, not basketball’s. These decisions must be made people who have faith in the new governing body to create its own blueprint that will be both attractive to television executives and suit basketball’s needs. If they’re not, the lure of a $35m deal will mean nothing if we’re back in our all-too-familiar nadir in five years time.
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