NBL1: National Basketball League and Basketball Victoria join forces to launch new elite competition
With its opening tip-off a little more than a month away, Australia’s second-tier elite competition now has its name, brand and partner in place.
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With its opening tip-off a little more than a month away, Australia’s second-tier elite competition now has its name, brand and partner in place.
The National Basketball League has joined forces with Basketball Victoria to create NBL1, an elite winter competition that will replace the former South-East Australian Basketball League.
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The new league will take to the court on March 29, with a 15-round season culminating in a four-week finals series.
The basketball landscape in Victoria and Tasmania underwent a dramatic change late last year with the demise of the SEABL leaving clubs with an uncertain future.
But, after rapidly considering a number of expressions of interest, Basketball Victoria announced a new elite league featuring existing Victorian SEABL clubs — Albury-Wodonga, Ballarat, Bendigo, Dandenong, Diamond Valley, Frankston, Geelong, Kilsyth, Melbourne Tigers, Nunawading and Sandringham — plus Eltham, Waverley, Knox and Ringwood from the Big V.
Tasmanian teams Hobart, North West Tasmania (men) and Launceston (women) were also admitted along with Basketball Australia’s Centre of Excellence.
Basketball Victoria chief executive Nick Honey said the partnership with the NBL would ensure basketball’s continuing growth.
“Australian basketball is booming at both the grassroots and elite level and NBL1 will be a premier winter basketball league that will continue to grow the game,” he said.
“NBL1 is a fantastic partnership that will bring promotional and commercial opportunities covering both women’s and men’s basketball. The NBL has flourished in recent years under the guidance of Larry Kestelman and a partnership with such a high-calibre organisation presents an outstanding opportunity to deliver a premier winter basketball competition.”
NBL chief executive Jeremy Loeliger was excited by the potential for the new league to discover Australia’s next stars.
“NBL1 will showcase Australia’s best emerging talent and many other professional players,” he said. “NBL1 will strengthen the pathway from the junior levels all the way through to the NBL, WNBL and ultimately the Boomers and Opals helping develop the next generation of stars. Importantly it will feature both women’s and men’s teams, and be a league all females and males coming through junior ranks can aspire to play in.”
The announcement of the initial 18 clubs has also seen a number of longtime basketball rivalries reignited with the Knox Raiders again taking on the Kilsyth Cobras and Nunawading Spectres.
“We’re really happy with that and we’re really keen to promote those great historical rivalries,” Honey said when first announcing the elite league. “That real suburb v suburb is historically important.”
More about the new competition at www.nbl1.com.au.
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