SA Footy

BASKETBALL management in South Australia has been forced to quit to prevent the sport's total financial collapse.

Treasurer Kevin Foley late yesterday gave the board of the Basketball Association of SA an ultimatum to quit by 11am today or face insolvency.

The board did not wait until the morning, giving Mr Foley a reply in his office in the State Administration Centre that it had accepted his tough terms.

Government sources said the board members had been "shell shocked" and "upset" by the move.

Badly in debt, the association has asked for another $1.5 million bailout from the Government.









Unless it gets the money, the future of the sport and the state's two major basketball teams - the 36ers and women's team the Fellas - is under threat by the end of this month.

Mr Foley told the board to stand aside for a government-appointed administrator - or receive no more funding.

"Without government support, basketball in SA will collapse," Mr Foley said.

"The administrators of basketball have badly let down their sport."

Financial corporate expert Bruce Carter, chairman of WorkCover and the man behind rescue bids for Balfours, Harris Scarfe and the National Wine Centre, will be put in control of restructuring basketball.

Mr Foley said many thousands of SA basketball players and their families would no longer be able to take part in the sport and the 36ers and the Fellas would not be viable if the offer was rejected.

"Liberal and Labor governments have given BASA every opportunity to get their house in order," he said.

"The situation has just got worse and enough is enough."

Mr Foley said if the board had not accepted his ultimatum it would have been "left to its own devices".


The latest problems came to a head after a meeting between Mr Foley and BASA in December last year, at which the board indicated it was looking at a loss for the current financial year of $280,000.

"They believed those losses were manageable," he said.

When Mr Foley returned from leave early this month, he was presented with an auditor's report advising the association losses for 2005-06 were more likely to be around $1.2 million.

"The report made it clear that the solvency of BASA is such that by the end of January, they could no longer trade as an organisation," he said.

Mr Foley said he was prepared to provide financial support, conditional upon BASA's board agreeing to stand aside.

"I have no confidence in their ability to administer basketball, particularly given what I consider to have been a completely inaccurate financial report in our December meeting," he said. "This is the sport's last chance to get it right."

There are more than 20,000 registered basketball players in SA, with as many as 100,000 playing in schools and competitions under the auspices of BASA and relying on BASA to help with coaching, venue payments and administration costs.

Basketball sources have blamed financial problems on mismanagement, lack of free-to-air television coverage of the 36ers, poor ticket sales, increased insurance expenses and a failure to meet sponsorship and fund-raising targets.

BASA borrowed $16 million from the Government to fund construction of its headquarters - now known as the Distinctive Homes Dome - in March, 1992.

It has struggled to repay debts and on several occasions has been forced to seek extra assistance - the latest a $2.5 million five-year package in 2002.

BASA chairperson Di Campbell last night agreed "significant change had to occur".

She said the board had been asked to remain until the end of April to facilitate restructuring.

I hadn't noticed any comments about this article in the Advertiser but it is the follows on from topics like NBL crisis - the 36ers being one of the main team is in the hands of the receivers.

I thought it was only BASA's board that was sacked, not the "35ers" board?
The 36ers are a profitable organisation and if wasn't for them BASA would have been in even more of the poo in recent years.

The 36ers are fully owned by BASA and they have the same boards. See the AGs report to Pariament which describes the relationships between the associations.

doggies4eva wrote:The 36ers are fully owned by BASA and they have the same boards. See the AGs report to Pariament which describes the relationships between the associations.

I know the 36ers are owned by BASA, I was just under the impression that the 36ers and the Fellas both have their own boards, ie president of the clubs, etc.

General consensus is this will be a good thing for the 36ers as they are a profitiable organisation and BASA kept draining income out of them to plug other holes.

Check out this link: http://www.audit.sa.gov.au/03-04/basa/chapt5.html

It explains the inter-relationships.

Basically there are 4 organisations and 1 cheque book.

The major assets of the group are the stadium and the 36ers licence. Trouble is if they sell the 36ers what hapens if the buyer doesn't want to play in their stadium? They are left with a worthless asset and huge debts.

Cheers for that link, I was kind of on the money saying the 36ers had their own board but I would only have been fully accurate if I said they had their own Committee of Management.

I (and a lot of others) honestly think that the 36ers could benefit out of this, if they became an entity in their own right and didn't have BASA sponging the money the 36ers make they could greatly improve IMHO.

PS Tassie, you're just bitter because the 36ers have won as many championship/premierships as the Bays and taken 50 less years to do it! Even more if you take the Bearcats NBL championship.

Wedgie wrote:Cheers for that link, I was kind of on the money saying the 36ers had their own board but I would only have been fully accurate if I said they had their own Committee of Management.

I (and a lot of others) honestly think that the 36ers could benefit out of this, if they became an entity in their own right and didn't have BASA sponging the money the 36ers make they could greatly improve IMHO.

PS Tassie, you're just bitter because the 36ers have won as many championship/premierships as the Bays and taken 50 less years to do it! Even more if you take the Bearcats NBL championship.

The link shows the 36ers are broke - they made a loss in 2002/03 (does anyone have more up to date figure?) and an accumulated loss of $600k up to that time. BASA went broke paying for the stadium built for the 36ers. The problems started when the stadium was built because the Wallys running the show back then couldn't do a deal with the entertainment centre and play there like they do in every other state.

doggies4eva wrote:The link shows the 36ers are broke - they made a loss in 2002/03 (does anyone have more up to date figure?) and an accumulated loss of $600k up to that time. BASA went broke paying for the stadium built for the 36ers. The problems started when the stadium was built because the Wallys running the show back then couldn't do a deal with the entertainment centre and play there like they do in every other state.

That's only because of the way that BASA present their figures as the 36ers are not officially allowed to show a profit as they are a "non-profit organisation". If you have a look at the 36ers figures over the last decade especially in regard to income received and just take rent paid to BASA for playing at the Dome into account they're miles in front.
The 36ers are an extremely good money makers and BASA would have been in 3 times the shit they're now if it wasn't for them draining off the 36ers over the years.
Also I'm unsure that "every other state" has their NBL teams playing at their Entertainment Centre. I can only think of Sydney and some regional teams that do that, Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane, etc don't.

I do agree however that the problems all began when the Dome and the Ent Centre were both built at the same time, a joint venture would have made big big sense.

Wedgie wrote:

doggies4eva wrote:The link shows the 36ers are broke - they made a loss in 2002/03 (does anyone have more up to date figure?) and an accumulated loss of $600k up to that time. BASA went broke paying for the stadium built for the 36ers. The problems started when the stadium was built because the Wallys running the show back then couldn't do a deal with the entertainment centre and play there like they do in every other state.

That's only because of the way that BASA present their figures as the 36ers are not officially allowed to show a profit as they are a "non-profit organisation". If you have a look at the 36ers figures over the last decade especially in regard to income received and just take rent paid to BASA for playing at the Dome into account they're miles in front.
The 36ers are an extremely good money makers and BASA would have been in 3 times the shit they're now if it wasn't for them draining off the 36ers over the years.
Also I'm unsure that "every other state" has their NBL teams playing at their Entertainment Centre. I can only think of Sydney and some regional teams that do that, Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane, etc don't.

I do agree however that the problems all began when the Dome and the Ent Centre were both built at the same time, a joint venture would have made big big sense.

A couple of points of clarification-

1. All the 4 entities (inluding BASA) are not-for profits organisations.
2. Strange it may sound but a Not-for -profit is allowed to make a profit. Many do. They are called that because they are incorporated with their primary objective being non-financial. In the 36ers case it is something like "to further the interests of basketball". Profit making is a side issue. I'm not sure but I think a team like the Crows would have a similar legal structure -and they make a profit.
3. I don't know enough about the NZ team but none of the other NBL teams own their own stadium. Incidently, in BASA's defence the situation was worsened a few years back when Netball was given their own stadium (at taxpayer expense) and moved out, robbing Basketball of the income they were receiving from Netball's tenancy. A case of too many stadiums for too small a market.

I agree with all that, an interesting discussion. Let's hope it can all right itself eventually and as I said hopefully this will be the start of something good instead of something bad.

Yes maybe something good can come out of it. I tend to agree with you Wedgie that the organisations may be better off with more independence from each other (BASA and 36ers) as they have tended to be run by a small group with lots of in fighting - resignations and little forward progress. The government will now have to make some hard decisions because the boards of the past avoided them.

Wedgie, this seems to be a debate between you and I. Doesn't anyone else care? It has the potential of causing the biggest changes down Findon way for many years!