In 2002, the Melbourne Tigers were fighting for survival when they identified an opportunity to attract supporters from their biggest rivals. Their plan to honour Brian Goorjian was blocked by the Victoria Giants, potentially changing the course of Melbourne basketball history.

In 2002, the Melbourne Tigers devised a plan that could have changed the future of their club.

The Tigers were emerging from financial administration, crowds were falling and the club had been forced to abandon its home at Vodafone Arena, now known as John Cain Arena.

Meanwhile, their cross town rivals, the Victoria Titans, were experiencing their own crisis.

An ownership change had seen the Titans return to their former Victoria Giants identity, with championship winning coach Brian Goorjian controversially released.

The decision left many supporters, particularly those who had followed Goorjian from his days with the South East Melbourne Magic, feeling alienated.

The Tigers recognised an opportunity.

During the early stages of the 2002/03 season, Melbourne planned to honour Goorjian with a presentation before one of its home games.

The Tigers’ CEO at the time acknowledged that the tribute wasn’t purely about recognising his achievements. It was also an attempt to attract disgruntled supporters of the Giants, Titans and particularly the Magic.

But the Giants had other ideas.

Club owner Peter Fiddes, whose sports apparel business supplied NBL uniforms, was behind a threat to withdraw a valuable sponsorship arrangement if the Tigers proceeded.

The proposed tribute was cancelled.

It was an extraordinary incident between two financially struggling clubs, but one that raises an intriguing question more than two decades later.

Could honouring Goorjian have brought enough former Magic, Giants and Titans supporters to the Tigers to restore their crowds, return to John Cain Arena and potentially alter the course of Larry Kestelman’s eventual ownership of both Melbourne United and the NBL?

THE MELBOURNE TIGERS WERE FIGHTING FOR SURVIVAL

During the early 1990s, the Melbourne Tigers were one of Australia’s biggest basketball attractions.

Led by Andrew Gaze, Lanard Copeland and Mark Bradtke, the club attracted enormous crowds as basketball enjoyed unprecedented popularity.

In 1994, the Tigers averaged 9,262 spectators per home game.

By the 2001/02 season, that figure had fallen to just 4,316, a decline of more than 53 per cent.

The Tigers entered financial administration in 2002 and required new ownership and management to remain in the NBL.

Their business model was subsequently overhauled.

Playing at the 10,000 seat Vodafone Arena, now known as John Cain Arena, had become financially unsustainable. The cost of staging games meant that even respectable crowds could result in losses.

The Tigers relocated to the much smaller State Netball and Hockey Centre in Parkville, a venue with a capacity of just 3,500 spectators.

The club renamed its new home The Cage, hoping to create a more intimate atmosphere and a sense of intimidation for visiting teams.

Management believed that attracting 2,000 supporters to a profitable home game was preferable to drawing twice as many spectators and losing money.

Membership numbers also demonstrated the club’s struggles.

The Tigers recorded just 1,262 members for the 2002/03 season, including 759 full season members, despite setting a target of 1,600.

The club had limited resources to attract new supporters and lacked the financial capacity to launch substantial marketing campaigns.

As the Tigers CEO admitted:

“We don’t have a great marketing budget to even print things up.”

Griffith University, 2005.

For a franchise that had only recently escaped financial collapse, attracting supporters from another Melbourne club could have provided a much needed opportunity for growth.

And across town, the Victoria Giants were creating exactly that opportunity.

HOW THE GIANTS AND MAGIC MERGER DIVIDED MELBOURNE BASKETBALL

The problems facing the Victoria Giants could be traced back to 1998, when the North Melbourne Giants and South East Melbourne Magic merged to form the Victoria Titans.

On paper, the merger seemed an ideal solution to the financial challenges of operating multiple NBL franchises in Melbourne.

The Giants had won championships in 1989 and 1994, while Goorjian had led the Magic to titles in 1992 and 1996.

Combining their playing talent, supporters, sponsorships and financial resources was expected to create one of the competition’s most powerful organisations.

Instead, the merger divided supporters.

The Victoria Giants CEO later described how badly the strategy had backfired.

The original expectation was that combining the two clubs would create something significantly stronger than either could achieve independently.

Instead, he said:

“One plus one made one and a quarter because a lot of people, sponsors and members fell out.”

Griffith University, 2005.

The club had failed to unite its two supporter bases.

On the court, Goorjian and former Magic players largely shaped the Titans’ identity.

Off the court, former Giants administrators maintained significant influence.

Despite reaching consecutive NBL Grand Finals in 1999 and 2000, the Titans struggled to overcome the divisions created by the merger.

By 2002, the organisation had entered administration.

A new ownership group led by sports apparel businessman Peter Fiddes, and largely associated with the former North Melbourne Giants, took control.

The Titans name was abandoned and the Victoria Giants returned.

Goorjian was also released, despite leading the team to first place during the 2001/02 regular season and winning the NBL Coach of the Year award.

For supporters who had originally followed the South East Melbourne Magic, the decision was another blow.

Their club’s name had already disappeared in the merger.

Now their championship winning coach was gone.

The Tigers suddenly had an opportunity to attract supporters who had been loyal to a rival basketball organisation for years.

WHY THE TIGERS WANTED TO HONOUR BRIAN GOORJIAN

Goorjian was one of the most recognisable figures in Victorian basketball.

He had won championships, established successful teams and developed a loyal following throughout his years with the Magic and Titans.

There was also an interesting historical connection to the Tigers.

Long before becoming the coach of their fierce Melbourne rivals, Goorjian had played for Lindsay Gaze and the Melbourne Tigers, including during their inaugural NBL season in 1984.

Honouring him could therefore have been presented as a celebration of Victorian basketball rather than an attack on another club.

But the commercial opportunity was obvious.

The Tigers already possessed a loyal supporter base built around the Gaze family, the club’s championship history and its strong Melbourne basketball roots.

What they lacked was growth.

Former Magic supporters represented an existing basketball audience that had already demonstrated a willingness to attend NBL games.

They didn’t need to be convinced to follow basketball.

They needed a reason to support a new team.

The Tigers hoped recognising Goorjian might provide that reason.

Even converting a relatively small proportion of those supporters into regular attendees or members could have provided valuable additional revenue.

More importantly, attracting supporters from outside the traditional Tigers community could have helped broaden the club’s identity.

It was an opportunity to build a larger supporter base without abandoning the Tigers name, colours or history.

For a financially struggling organisation with limited marketing resources, it was an unusually attractive proposition.

But the Giants were determined to stop it.

HOW PETER FIDDES BLOCKED THE TRIBUTE

When the Giants learned of the Tigers’ intentions, they complained to the NBL.

But this wasn’t simply an objection from one Melbourne club to another.

Giants owner Peter Fiddes was also the Australian owner of basketball brand AND1, and his sports apparel business had supplied uniforms to the NBL for many years.

His business was behind a sponsorship arrangement that provided NBL clubs with their uniforms free of charge.

That gave Fiddes considerable influence beyond his own franchise.

With clubs already experiencing significant financial difficulties, withdrawing an arrangement that supplied uniforms across the league would have created another financial burden.

According to information documented by Griffith University in 2005, the Giants threatened to cancel a joint sponsorship agreement involving a uniform supplier if the Tigers proceeded with the Goorjian tribute.

The threat placed the Tigers’ proposed presentation in direct conflict with a valuable commercial arrangement.

What began as an attempt to attract supporters from a rival club had become a dispute with potential financial consequences beyond Melbourne.

The pressure worked.

The Tigers abandoned the presentation.

The incident highlighted the extraordinary power dynamics within the NBL at the time.

Both the Tigers and Giants had entered administration in 2002.

Both needed to attract supporters.

The league itself had lost its major naming rights sponsor and free to air television coverage.

Yet rather than finding ways to grow basketball’s audience, the Melbourne clubs were fighting over the limited supporters who remained.

The Giants had effectively prevented the Tigers from attempting to build relationships with fans who had become disillusioned with their own organisation.

Whether the tribute would have succeeded is impossible to know.

One presentation would not have guaranteed membership growth, particularly given the Tigers’ limited resources to promote the club and maintain relationships with new supporters.

But at a time when the Tigers were searching for ways to survive, they had identified a potentially valuable new audience.

And they never got the opportunity to see whether those fans could be won over.

TWELVE YEARS LATER, THE SAME PROBLEM RETURNED

The Melbourne Tigers survived their 2002 financial crisis.

They rebuilt and went on to win NBL championships in 2006 and 2008.

The Victoria Giants were not so fortunate, withdrawing from the competition in 2004.

Goorjian, meanwhile, moved to the Sydney Kings, where he immediately delivered the club’s first championship in 2003 before completing a remarkable run of three consecutive titles in 2004 and 2005.

Despite the Tigers’ continued success on the court, their struggle to attract Melbourne’s broader basketball community never disappeared.

When Larry Kestelman became involved in the Tigers’ ownership in 2012, the organisation was still struggling to build a sustainable supporter base.

Speaking after the decision to rename the club in 2014, Kestelman revealed that the Tigers had just 400 members when his ownership group took over.

He also acknowledged that the Tigers identity had made attracting supporters from other Victorian basketball backgrounds difficult.

His solution was Melbourne United.

The club abandoned the Melbourne Tigers name and traditional identity in the hope of creating a team that supporters of the Magic, Giants, Spectres and other former Victorian NBL clubs could embrace.

The decision was fiercely opposed by many traditional Tigers supporters, including Andrew Gaze and Lanard Copeland.

But Kestelman believed the club needed to broaden its appeal beyond its existing fanbase.

In 2015, he went a step further, acquiring a controlling interest in the NBL and beginning a major transformation of the competition.

Melbourne United subsequently grew into one of the league’s biggest organisations, regularly attracting crowds to John Cain Arena, the very venue the Tigers had left during their financial difficulties in 2002.

And this is where the Goorjian incident becomes particularly fascinating.

THE SLIDING DOORS MOMENT

What if the Tigers had been allowed to honour Brian Goorjian?

What if that presentation had encouraged hundreds of disillusioned Magic, Giants and Titans supporters to start attending Tigers games?

Those fans could have become members, brought their families and helped introduce an entirely new audience to an organisation desperate for growth.

With sufficient additional support, perhaps the Tigers could eventually have justified returning to the 10,000 seat arena they had been forced to leave.

Perhaps stronger crowds, increased memberships and greater sponsorship revenue could have established a more financially sustainable organisation.

And perhaps the club could have grown into a team embraced by supporters from across Victorian basketball while retaining its identity.

Would that have changed the circumstances that led Larry Kestelman to invest in the Tigers in 2012?

Could the Melbourne Tigers name have survived beyond 2014?

And if Kestelman had never become involved with the Tigers, would he still have gone on to purchase a controlling interest in the NBL?

There is no guarantee a single tribute would have produced any of those outcomes.

The Tigers’ financial difficulties were substantial, and winning over supporters from rival clubs would have required considerably more than one presentation.

Kestelman’s later investment in the league was also shaped by factors extending far beyond one Melbourne franchise.

But the parallels are striking.

In 2002, the Tigers recognised an opportunity to attract supporters from rival clubs while retaining their own identity.

Their attempt was stopped when a rival club threatened to withdraw a valuable uniform sponsorship arrangement.

Twelve years later, Kestelman concluded that attracting those same broader Victorian basketball communities required replacing the Tigers identity altogether.

Both decisions revolved around the same fundamental challenge: how to build a sustainable NBL organisation beyond the loyalty of one traditional supporter base.

Perhaps the Tigers would always have struggled to convince former Magic and Giants supporters to embrace their club.

Perhaps Melbourne United was inevitable.

But the cancelled Brian Goorjian tribute remains one of the most intriguing sliding doors moments in Melbourne basketball history.

At a time when the Tigers were fighting for survival, they identified an opportunity to welcome their rivals’ disillusioned supporters and potentially transform their future.

The Giants stopped it.

And twelve years later, the Melbourne Tigers name was gone.

The great irony is that in 2014, Melbourne United set out to unite the very basketball communities the Tigers had tried to reach in 2002. Only this time, the Tigers identity was the price of admission.