New NBL team next season

[Funkadelic]

South Dragons unveiled
Thursday, 15 December 2005 @ 1:47 PM
sportal.com.au

Melbourne will have two teams playing in the NBL next season, following the official unveiling of the latest club to join the league, the South Dragons.

The Dragons will be playing under the license of Cowan Basketball, who had the former Victorian Giant's licensed transferred to them in October.

The extra team will mean that the NBL will be more balanced with twelve teams overall in the competition, and Commissioner of the NBL, Rick Burton, believes that the new side will reignite the two team rivalry that used to exist in Melbourne.

"This will write a new chapter in Victoria’s proud basketball history. This presents a fantastic new opportunity for the Melbourne public and supporter base to get behind their teams," Burton said.

"Melbourne is well known for its interest in sport and this return of the second team is a reflection of the support and interest in basketball in Victoria," he added.

Majority owner of the new club, Mark Cowan, revealed that the choosing of the Dragon logo signified the way he wanted his team to play on the court.

"In choosing the name, we looked at the competitive set which consisted mostly of animals and decided that being a Dragon was not only a more powerful being than a Wildcat or a Crocodile but importantly in a one-on-one battle with a King or a Tiger a Dragon would win every time."

The team will commence its recruitment of a coach and its players immediately, as it looks to set up a successful side to kick off proceedings in 2006/07.

 

[chadjaja]

Will be very interesting to see how this pans out. The break even crowd for vodafone is something around 4,000. The Tigers would do well to move back now almost but its a risk that could kill the club if it doesn't go well. Lots of tradition going back a lot more than thier inclusion in the league mid eighties and it would be a travisty to Australian basketball and people like Ken Watson who gave thier lives to the team and program.

Victoria alway has had the strongest junior base in the country and is still the stranglehold of basketball even if the title is in NSW :wink:

Peter Fiddes was out of depth with the Giants and was doomed to fail. He has the biggest ego in Australian basketball and is in real life just a creepy bald guy that thinks he can buy cool. He belongs at home living with his mother.

There is certainly the market for this team especially if they market them right. Thats the main downfall for the league at the moment. Marketing is virtually non existant. Teams used to have full time school liasons etc and do clinics and other things similar. I know this intimately coz my mum used to be head of it all at the Giants and I eventually went on to do a few at the Tigers etc. Not with much luck though.

You need to get in at the grassroots and get kids to bug thier parents to take them to games. For years the Giants gave away tickets to schools but it paid off getting kids hooked.

These guys seem to have deeper pockets so I can see a more driven campaign for the team locally and with Pratts influence maybe a TV deal which would be the major factor in an NBL revival.

Look for more of an NBA look to the Dragons too.

I hope it does succeed from a fans point of view. There are plenty of players in the lower leagues more than capable of stepping it up on the next level and we may see some familar faces come back to the fold.

Big Luke would be a draw card at first but even then I still thinks he's pretty limited and not a franchise player. But a big read head with a mop top would be a promoters dream :wink:

The shift to summer neads to be looked at though. Its not about competing with the other codes. The 90's proved that they could quite easily co exist.

Lets get basketball in Vic back to where it should be. It all started here and the state has given so much to the sport already.