Melbourne United could be hosting two of their 14 home games in Tasmania, according to The Advocate.
Tasmania doesn’t have an NBL team but hopes to have that changed in the near future. Should United pull off a deal to play some of their games in Tasmania — and it turns out just well — Tasmania could heavily benefit from that as in their best interest is to prove to the league that they are worthy of possessing an NBL franchise.
Recently, more and more talks regarding the potential NBL expansion have been taking place.
Basketball Tasmania chief executive Chris McCoy revealed talks involving the potential team and the Tasmanian Government ”have been going on for about a year.”
”It’s still early days, and I’m not sure if it will come off, but Melbourne United are very keen to bring two games down here,” McCoy said. ”They see the benefits along similar lines to the AFL models of Hawthorn and North Melbourne and it would be a great showcase for our sport.”
Born-Launcestonian Chris Goulding, the United star, would be given an opportunity to play basketball at the place where he was born as the expected venues for the games are Launceston’s Silverdome and Derwent Entertaining Centre, located in Hobart.
”If the numbers add up we would look at our own team and we know the NBL’s goal is to have a team in every capital city bar Darwin,” McCoy added.