Despite Freddie Mercury being a big deal at the cinemas right now, we didn’t hear Queen’s “It’s a kinda magic” playing from the speakers as a familiar black and white logo was unveiled at today’s announcement of the NBL’s newest franchise.
Instead we were introduced to the South East Melbourne Phoenix, the ninth NBL club set to join the competition for the 2019/20 NBL season and it’s vibrant new logo of green, black and white.
A promotional video was released to communicate the focus on the brand and align the club with the strong basketball history of the area which over the 40 NBL seasons has fielded seven NBL clubs.
NBL clubs based in St Kilda, Frankston, Nunawading, Eastside Melbourne, Southern Melbourne, South East Melbourne and Victoria all saw brief success in the national league during the 80s and 90s and although the Phoenix have noted that those teams paved the way for basketball in the area a decision to move away from that history has clearly been made.
In similar style to the Melbourne United moving aware from it’s ‘”Tigers” brand the club aims to appeal to multiple basketball associations in Melbourne’s south eastern suburbs. Today a a video telling “the story” of the South East Melbourne Phoenix was released, featuring players from Knox, Blackburn, Nunawading, Ashwood, and Box Hill Secondary School.
We’re the NBL’s newest team, come rise with us: https://t.co/litGQakOGF#RiseUpPhoenix pic.twitter.com/S1g2wxdjIT
— South East Melbourne Phoenix (@SEMelbPhoenix) November 17, 2018
Melbourne’s south east has long been a hotbed for basketball participation in Australia. Currently home to approx. 100,000 of Victoria’s 240,000 total registered participants and with the state government set to invest $126 million on improving the State Basketball Centre at Wantirna South it’s only sure to grow.
The State Basketball centre will be a big part of the new team’s identity with the club planning to play two games per season at the venue. The centre’s primary residents, the Knox Basketball program, having the largest junior domestic competition in the Southern Hemisphere makes it a business no-brainer. It is home to more than 5,500 players and 700 basketball teams each week and the effort to tap into this potential fan base is obvious with the club basing themselves there.
A decision to don the very similar green and white colour scheme of the nearby Dandenong Basketball Association, which provides basketball to approx. 800 domestic teams (9’s through to senior competitions), also shows where new owner Romie Chaudhari and general manager Tommy Greer’s heads were when selecting team colours and design.
The plan to tap into these two large markets doesn’t really have a place for the name magic, nor the black and white colours the 1992 and 1996 NBL championship club featured. Thus the Phoenix is now here.
Combining the Phoenix name to the location and colour scheme decisions communicates some kind of alignment to the history of basketball in the area, an effort to point out the new club will be rising from the ashes of the seven former NBL teams from the area.
Currently the State Basketball centre’s show court seats 3,150 people, far from what is required to house a profitable NBL team, but with current plans to expand that to a 6000-8000 seat mean’s in the next 4-5 years, having an NBL team permanently playing out of the area could be an option.
With population in the south east suburbs rapidly growing, presenting the option of live NBL basketball at your local stadium as opposed to live cricket or soccer games being 40 minutes drive into the city with traffic and parking fees, could be all that’s required to sway a few casual fans along the way.
The choice of the “Phoenix” as the team’s moniker is an interesting one. The Melbourne Phoenix used to be an Australian netball team that was replaced by the Melbourne Vixens, with one-third of junior basketball players in Victoria being female, is this another attempt to align with their target market?
The name is also used by the Wellington Phoenix in soccer’s A-League, something which fans are extremely vocal about, many not wanting another NBL team to be given a soccer name, referencing the Melbourne United.
The club have already announced former Melbourne United assistant coach Simon Mitchell will be the clubs first head coach and have announced they hope to sign a Victorian born national team player like Mitch Creek or Matthew Dellavedova to ensure the team’s success on the court.
“We’ve got players playing all over the world at the moment so whilst we can’t start conversations with players in the NBL that are contracted due to free agency regulations, we’ve definitely been out and about and starting conversations,” South East Melbourne general manager Tommy Greer told radio station 1116 SEN on Friday.
Another interesting move in the works is the proposed plans for Basketball Australia to move its Centre of Excellence from the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra to the State Basketball Centre also. It’s believed the only thing that needs to happen to make this a reality is the redeveloped stadium at Knox have facilities better than the state of the art training centre in Canberra which the COE shares with the NBA Global Academy.
If the Centre of Excellence, which is responsible for developing NBA stars Ben Simmons, Dante Exum, Patty Mills, Dellavedova and Creek was to move to Knox no doubt it would provide an incredible opportunity for the ninth NBL team to work alongside the players in that program on a weekly basis and much as the South East Melbourne program being aligned with the Nunawading basketball program for many years showed us, would likely to get “first dibs” on any young talent from that program.
The NBL fans wanted more teams and now they have it. Now it’s up to basketball fans to support it.
Dan Boyce is a die-hard Sydney Kings fan who grew up in Melbourne during the roaring 90's of Australian Basketball and spent far too much time collecting Futera NBL Basketball cards.
