Basketball's reform a poisoned chalice

Credit must be given to basketball administrators for recently voting unanimously to merge Basketball Australia and the NBL and adopt recommendations set out by a wide-ranging review. It's clearly a step in the right direction.

However since the document’s release back in September, the sport’s interim administration has been disturbingly contradicting many of the review’s recommendations.

And that's not all, they are also seriously undermining the next administration (although we’re still waiting to hear when there will actually be a next administration.)

In order to win approval for the reform from current NBL clubs, the interim administration declared that clubs competing in the NBL this season will be guaranteed a spot in the new national league, provided they meet the financial criteria.

By giving this guarantee, they have left the new administration with little flexibility.

For example, even if the new administration sees fit to stay out of football codes’ “expansion wars” (in markets like West Sydney and the Gold Coast,) the Gold Coast Blaze could still walk up with a pile of cash and they’ve automatically got a spot in the new league.

A similar predicament would exist if all current clubs want in and consortiums out to revive the Sydney Kings and Brisbane Bullets emerge. Would broadcasters want to handle a 12-team competition? Isn’t it widely accepted that having 12 teams is too many anyway? What limitations would that put on expansion down the track?

If either of these scenarios were to eventuate, the new administration could be forced into making a decision that is not in the best interests of the game. It would hardly be a good start to the so-called “reform.”

Not only that, the guarantee has also made it much harder to give the perception that this new national league is any different to the previous one. We may just end up seeing the exact same teams, give or take a Sydney-based side, of course.

The interim administration is also pursuing an offer from Fox Sports to telecast the new national league and national teams for five years, bringing a healthy $35 million into the game’s coffers. This is another example of the interim administration going into areas they shouldn’t.

It’s a lot of money, yes, but the deal will no doubt be exclusive. If the sport pushes ahead it runs the risk of being frozen away in the oblivion of Foxtel, away from the mainstream fans that have so famously deserted the game.

Even beyond the “mainstream,” there are plenty within the basketball community that do not feel a connection with the NBL. The review has stated this. A lot of these types are the people that are avid NBA fans and are all over college hoops, but have no time for their “local” team.

Interestingly, as of next year, the NBA and college hoops will be shown free to anyone with a set-top box or built-in tuner on One HD, Channel Ten’s new secondary channel. It’s scary to think that American hoops would take a more prominent position than the new national league, especially given how things are now.

On the five-year front, it is worth noting that the two competitions this new league is likely to be modelled on – the A-League and netball’s ANZ Championship – both started out with one-year broadcast deals before moving on to bigger and better things.

If One HD isn’t biting (and their severe lack of local content makes that seem unlikely) then it would be far better strategically to opt for a one-year deal.

Basketball, sooner rather than later, needs free-to-air. This is too big a call to be leaving in the hands of an interim administration.

According to the timeline set out by the review, “key appointments” were supposed to take place in November. It is December already and there’s still an interim board and there’s still an interim CEO in the form of Scott Derwin.

Leadership was critical to the reform of football, which poached John O’Neill from rugby union (and has since poached Ben Buckley from the AFL.) At board level, Frank Lowy has been running the show. A lot of basketball fans may envy Lowy for his money, but it is his brains that should be desired most.

Just where is basketball's leadership? Where is our John O'Neill?

And it seems key appointments are not the only area that has been running behind schedule. The release of the review was delayed. Voting on the review’s recommendations was delayed. Question marks surround whether or not bids coming out of Brisbane and Sydney can be prepared in time.

Running on such a tight schedule puts the sport in a dangerous position. If history is anything to go by, this is a frightening proposition. Remember that the Razorbacks becoming the Sydney Spirit was a decision made on an short time frame. Allowing Tim Johnston to own the Sydney Kings was a similarly rushed decision. What about the move to summer?

In an article in The Australian last month, Derwin pointed to “shifting the competition from a winter to a summer league” as a key reason for the league's demise.

Curiously, Derwin and the rest of the interim administration have not seen fit to rectify that. The new national league will stay in summer, even though the advent of twenty20 cricket and the A-League has made the summer market all that more competitive.

A move away from summer would allow for quite a few extra months off, alleviating the aforementioned time constraints and, heaven forbid, there might even be enough time to see this new administration brought in.

But of course that would sound an awful lot like those crazy “season off” rumours circulating not too long ago. “Season off” are the two words nobody wants to say because nobody wants to hear them.

Just like none of the clubs wanted to be told their spot in the new competition isn’t safe. It seems that nobody is prepared to get on anybody’s nerves.

In that same article in The Australian, Derwin touted the possibility that the new national league may not have a salary cap. The current NBL has both a salary cap and a points cap, although the salary cap is too hard to police and the points cap is similarly inadequate.

However to simply give up on it would mean the league's credibility would take a serious hit. The extra resources brought about by the reform were supposed lead to a policed salary cap. This is another contradiction of the review and, frankly, it's just plain lazy.

Nobody ever said reforming an entire sport was supposed to be easy. It was supposed to hurt – no pain, no gain. By cushioning the ride for stakeholders and taking the easy option where possible, the interim administration is limiting the sport's potential.

Now is the time to get serious about reform. Let’s bring in the guys that will be running the show a year from now today and stop beating around the bush. And let’s hope they know how to make a tough call.

Readers, I'm happy to inform you I'm back and will be continuing blogging. Also, just as a bit of an "experiment," this article has been published on The Roar too.