Premier Peter Malinauskas calls for crisis talks on Adelaide Lightning amid fear WNBL could be lost to South Australia

Premier Peter Malinauskas has addressed Adelaide Lightning's crisis amid fear South Australia will be without a WNBL team for the first time in league history.

All Adelaide Lightning players have been released from their contracts as, for the first time in its history, the WNBL faces a season without a team based in South Australia.

And the issue has reached the highest political level in the state, with SA Premier Peter Malinauskas speaking out on the crisis.

Sources told Code Sports the WNBL had sought government support to help stand up a franchise in the City of Churches — and only its intervention could save the Lightning, now.

Failing an 11th-hour handout, the league’s eighth team will be in another state, ending SA’s 43-year affiliation with elite professional women’s basketball.

Premier Peter Malinauskas has scheduled an important meeting for Friday. Picture: Getty Images

Malinauskas told parliament on Thursday an “important … meeting being held at the highest level”, which would include state sports minister Emily Bourke, had been scheduled with the Lightning.

Malinauskas said the government was “concerned to say the least” about players being released from their contracts. He said the state government did not want to see the Lightning lost to the competition.

Lightning legend and former captain Rachael Sporn refused to believe her beloved club could fold.

Lightning legend Rachael Sporn, pictured with former teammate Carla Porter says the club’s plight is “devastating”. Picture: Supplied

“It’s really upsetting,” Sporn, a three-time Olympian who won four championships and two league MVPs with the Lightning, said.

“It’s so sad and I just feel for all the players. They are the biggest losers here.

“I just can’t envisage the WNBL without a team from South Australia, given the success of the Lightning but also the success of basketball in the state.

“We’ve produced so many Australian representatives over the years and it would be really disappointing if the club didn’t exist.

“Hopefully something can be worked out in the next few weeks so the club can survive, but it isn’t looking good and that is devastating.”

In a Thursday email, seen by Code Sports, Lightning boss Steve Wren informed all staff, coaches, players and their agents the club no longer had a place in the league under the ownership of development company Pelligra.

Lightning no longer has a place in the league unless the state government can intervene. Picture: Sarah Reed/Getty Images

“The WNBL have written to us saying they will not let us remain in the WNBL and, after me requesting that they tell us then who will run the Lightning, we have had no reply,” Wren wrote in his email.

“I think it is in the interests of all players and agents that I release all players today from the Adelaide Lighting Pty Ltd contracts and negotiations.

“It’s not goodbye as we will still see many of you but it is the end of the party we all had.”

Opals Paris Olympic bronze medal hero Steph Talbot, 21-year-old young gun Tayla Brazel and veteran guard Brooke Basham were among those players under contract with the Lightning. It’s understood the club had been in negotiation with rising star Isobel Borlase and sharpshooter Isabelle Bourne on a return.

Paris bronze medallist Steph Talbot is among the players released from their Lightning contracts. Picture: Getty Images

Wren had been at odds with WNBL officials during protracted negotiations over the conditions of new licensing agreements, which left many perplexed given Pelligra had tried to sell the franchise before deciding to hand its licence back to Basketball Australia.

He admitted he’d been an “agitator” to ensure clubs “got the best deal” under the new ownership structure.

Pelligra, last year, had attempted to sell the franchise before deciding to hand back its WNBL licence after losses of around $3 million in its three years of owning the Lightning.

Isobel Borlase was in discussions to return to the Lightning. Picture: Kelly Barnes

The club has spent significant money on player wages but was run on a skeleton staff, with some games understood to have attracted crowds of fewer than 500 fans – although the WNBL has refused to publish or provide official attendance statistics.

The WNBL’s new ownership consortium – led by Tesla chair Robyn Denholm’s Wollemi Capital and Larry Kestelman’s NBL – is determined to have an eight-team competition.

A source said a decision on that eighth team’s location and owner would happen quickly, given the need to open free agency, which has already been delayed.

A source said the league could “stand a team up overnight”, if need be, but there remained a number of outside parties interested in owning a franchise.

While Tasmania JackJumpers and Brisbane Bullets NBL teams are both in the throes of entering a WNBL team, there is an arm-wrestle between the two clubs and the league.

The WNBL wants one of them to step up this season but each wants to wait until 2026-27 to ensure they are adequately prepared.

A source said there were at least four separate parties who had expressed interest in a new franchise in Melbourne.

Victoria already has three WNBL clubs in Southside, Bendigo and Geelong but the city lost the Boomers prior to last season.

NBL club Melbourne United had considered purchasing the Boomers licence and is understood to have interest in a women’s team.

For 10 years from the WNBL’s 1981 inception, South Australia had three teams competing in the competition – West Adelaide Bearcats, North Adelaide Rockets and Noarlunga City Tigers. In 1992, the Rockets and Bearcats were out and Adelaide City Comets joined the Bearcats for that season.

By 1993, both were gone and the Lightning were born.

Three decades and five WNBL titles on, it’s looking like the end.

Originally published as Premier Peter Malinauskas calls for crisis talks on Adelaide Lightning amid fear WNBL could be lost to South Australia