How’s this for a joke? The NBL/ New Hawks Ownership group wants the Hawks fans to pay to get the Illawarra name back

I can’t believe it. Take away the name then say ”if we reach this unrealistic goal we’ll reinstate the name“??? what the f?

I went to games at the Snakepit, around 1995/6/7 until they moved to the new stadium (well overdue) in 1997.

I worked at the stadium for some Hawks games for years along with having season tickets between then and 2005 when my family group had health problems and some of our season ticket holder family members died.

i again got season tickets a couple years ago and when LaMelo came to town. I believe there was approx 2000 season tix holders.

as a community we’ve supported through bad times and good, giving whatever we can given the mediocre at best product the sub par owners have decided to put on the court. Asked to contribute financially to bail out of bad situations. Staff, players and creditors have been owed or lost millions of dollars...... then, a lifeline. Colangelo consortium buys the team. Then, a baffling decision is announced, the new name is Hawks. While every other team in the league has an associated city name, for some reason ours will have none. The battler.the only founding team remaining.

then, another baffling decision. Let’s get the public to buy memberships and try to hit a (unrealistic) target of 4379 members/season tix holders contributing $$$.....and in return, the city name will be given back.


well fuck that. Fuck your new Hawks owners, I’m out this time. I’m loyal to the team and that doesn’t include you. Youre not from here. Enough is enough.
 
I feel sorry for you mate, I would do the same if the cats did the same thing! money hungry this new ownership you thing mate?
 
It does seem weird they have set an arbitrary membership/corporate support figure (well not 100% arbitrary but it is just combining two random historical numbers to produce a figure which would appear unlikely in a normal season and impossible/impractical in this current COVID-influenced world).

What I find weird though is the disconnect between the first and third articles. The first article implies the ownership group has changed the name while in the third the group has stated “the league didn’t allow us to have that name” and Kestelman seems to back that up when he says in reference to the name “we are prepared to consider this request if there is sufficient support...”.

So who has changed the name? The ownership group or is it something the NBL has mandated?

As a dispassionate outsider playing devil’s advocate I can certainly see why there may be a push for change and an attempt to spread outside the current market.

If I was buying a business that had gone in to administration three times in the last 10 years then I would be looking to change things up. The third article states they have struggled to attract corporate support locally so I can see why ownership and the league would want to “rebrand” and try casting a wider net for sponsors. As they say repeating the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is madness...

Having said that I can certainly understand the angst this move would attract from local members and those corporate supporters they have had.

Not a great way to start a new ownership campaign!
 
Exactly Dave! No one wants to own up to who made the decision. My thought would be the new owners made it a condition of buying the team that this happened. Bizarre.
 
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