I work as a sports researcher, collating info on athletes, sports, competitions etc. I had the morning off work thismorning so I decided to use some of the stuff at work to find out a few things about the NBL. Some of the stuff my work had on the NBL was a bit scary, dropping crowd figures etc all the usual stuff, so i decided to go out on the streets of sydneys CBD and conduct a survey myself. 500 people participated, not a massive sample size granted, however still the results are fairly telling I think.

The scariest thing, When asked which team they knew if any... these were the results

Melbourne Tigers 24%
Sydney Kings 13%
Eastside Spectres 9%
Brisbane Bullets 7%
South Dragons 7%
Wollongong Hawks 6%
Canberra Cannons 6%
Hunter Pirates 5%
New Zealand Breakers 5%
Perth Wildcats 5%
Adelaide 36ers 4%
Geelong Supercats 4%
Cairns Taipans 2%
Townsville Crocodiles 2%
Singapore Slingers 1%
Sydney Spirit 0%

The bold teams no longer exist

Now, the thing about this is it really does show the declining rate of NBL advertising, the fact that people knew the kings, bullets, spectres and supercats show that this league was once known. The Pirates and the hawks are geographically close to sydney so it may possibly have something more to do with that. The thing that stands out for me is that 0/500 people knew who the sydney spirit were, for a team that is supposed to resurrect the sydney market and encompass all bball fans in sydney...well thats just disgraceful.

247 people had played basketball regularly within the last year, that is, in a local comp, wabl, youth league, junior reps etc basically once a week or more.

16 people out of 500 knew that sydney, brisbane and singapore had become defunct.

this one below i think shows the declining interest quite well

when asked if they had ever been to an nbl game, 461 said they had

how many of those had gone in the last 5 years.....

21

when asked for reasons on why, the responses ranged from nobody cared anymore so i stopped caring, its too hard to keep track of too (mike wrublewski would be angry to hear this) when the season changed when it was during the year i stopped following.


When asked how you have most recently heard of the NBL, or when you last saw it advertised

73% of people said they hadnt heard anything about the NBL in the last 5 years.

14% said in 2005 when the busses were driving around sydney with kings logos on them

6% when walking past the entertainment centre if there happened to be a game on that day

5% (just a touch scary) when the kings bloke got in trouble for rape (their words not mine in refering to former brisbane bullet and king to be import bryant matthews who was charged with *****ual assault before playing a game for the kings)

2% said when they were looking at the racing guide in the paper and they saw a story back there.

(it should be said though that there was very few people who could actually name the kings, they just knew there was a team)


This was a little different though, granted it could be put down to the olympics

87% of people knew who the boomers were

52% could identify a picture of pat mills

56% knew what NBA team Andrew Bogut played for!

make of these results what you will, this is just a small sample of the survey taken but the results seem telling



AGE GROUPS

13-18 24%
19-27 27%
28-37 30%
37+ 19%

I tried to get a bigger sample size of younger people, but due to the nature of sydneys CBD at 7-12 am, there werent that many around except for schoolkids travelling to school

nbl 0%

Funny how a guy from the street (no offense - just lack of a better word right now) can come up with stats that say the NBL is in trouble, but the big wigs continue to pull out the "all is good and hasn't been better" smoke screen of a lie.

Granted, the closing of 3 teams in the off-season has the potential to make the league more competitive with the best of the best out there, but that's if the league blows off it's stupid points rating system. What's the good of having all these awesome players if they can't fit into anyone's points cap??

But the bottom line is the league is in trouble for one reason and one reason only and this "self-made" survey has pointed it out magnificently:

A LOT OF PEOPLE DO NOT KNOW THE LEAGUE IS STILL RUNNING OR WHO THE TEAMS ARE!!!!

Bl00dy league big wigs would do well to come onto these forums and read what people are saying. Might actually HELP the league in the long run.

Ok rant over. Thanx.

i know the spirit exist, they were highlighted for a dif reason and i forgot to point it out, that reason being that nobody knew who they were

What sort of a whanker hangs around where no one wants him...

Pretty much everyone who matters...

How is mastercoach a guppy name?
Please, explain to the class queerboy.

btw - it's not just the two of us, the whole forum is sick of your sh|t & but the fact that you keep coming back proves that you're just an attention seeking wh0re. Well done wh0re. Well done.

Oxymoron

Are you r3tarded?
I didn't say "WHAT IS A GUPPY?" I said "HOW IS MASTERCOACH A GUPPY NAME?"
A docile fish, good on ya, Open your f*cking eyes.

You're a pistons fan, so what? You're still spending your time in a forum where noone likes talkin to you, it's pretty sad.

Yep, I can't handle talkn to sh*ts on here who twist words & don't answer questions properly because they get joy out of p*ssing other people off.