When you think of Michael Jordan you think of the Chicago Bulls, not the Washington Wizards. Do you remember when Hakeem Olajuwon played for Toronto? No? I don’t blame you. Most people barrack for a team because of their players. When I started following basketball I went for New York because of Patrick Ewing and North Melbourne because of Darryl McDonald. For that reason I have followed those two teams (or future combinations of) for my entire life. Talk about brand retention, I’m sure plenty of food products would love that kind of loyalty.
Moving onto the NBL, which team do you associate CJ Bruton? Now that’s a tough one, seeing as Bruton Junior has played in no less than six teams (Perth, Wollongong, Canberra, Sydney, Brisbane and New Zealand) for only a short amount of time. This is seen a lot in the NBL, with players jumping teams like a dead beat dad jumps child support. Using data from SportingPulse* I have compiled player movements from 2000 to 2011 and the results are mind boggling.
There have been 585 recorded players who were in the NBL between those two years. Taking away the 277 players who only competed for one year, mostly made up of imports and end-of-benchers, which leaves us with 308 guys who have stuck around for at least two seasons. Out of those 308 players 174 of them changed teams at least once in that time frame or 56%. To make matters worse, 80 of those players (26%) have changed alliances at least twice. Think about that, over half of all multiyear players have changed teams at least once and a quarter at least twice. With these kinds of numbers brand loyalty is fighting a losing battle.
What makes players spur team allegiance? As strange as it sounds one of the main reasons is security. A lot of fringe players who are on one year deals aren’t looking to make lifelong friends they are looking to get paid, and if a different club comes along with a higher price they will have no qualms about jumping ship. Once they get that offer they can work out the rest of their life around the city they are moving to. I would rather get offered a contract from Townsville early than sweat on being re-signed by Melbourne which gives me security for at least another year.
This kind of team swapping creates a massive problem for clubs in that they have a hard time bringing in new followers and an even harder time in keeping them. The main way teams nab supporters is in their players. The public can identify with the players and root for their team. Just look at all the Lakers supporters who were wooed by Kobe Bryant or the Oklahoma City Thunder’s increase in popularity because of Kevin Durant. Those teams have built up support because they have held onto their superstars. An NBL example would be the Sydney Kings, when returning from exile, had a bankable star in Julian Khazzouh who they signed for two years. Signing him for multiple years gave the Kings the opportunity to build a stable team around Khazzouh while parading him around the media which gave the team a face that Joe Public could get behind.
Teams need to hold onto their stars, but being a lower league compared to international competitions it can be hard. Players constantly go to European clubs while imports are interchanged like cards in a poker game. One way of promoting club loyalty is for teams to get a ‘discount’ for re-signing players. Basing this on the points system of ranking players, teams would get half a point off whenever a player is re-signed, bumping up to a whole point when re-signed for four years. Half a point doesn’t sound like much but when three or four players are brought back then that frees up two additional points to be used on other players. That may be too much but giving teams an incentive to bring back players will be great for the team, the players and the community.
It’s hard for teams in the NBL to give long term contracts like in other sports, especially if you compare it to the NBA. However, something needs to be done to make teams grow together. Instead of bringing in a whole new team nearly every year a group who has been together for a while knows each other and plays better as a unit. There has been success stories like Shawn Redhage who has been in Australia (and Perth) for so long he has citizenship. Hopefully guys like Jerai Grant who has expressed that he wants to stay in Australia brings in more imports that see this as a new chapter in their life instead of just a pay check.
*www.sportingpulse.com – This data is incomplete but is complete enough to show trends.
(Sorry for the late update I didn’t have the time until today.)
No comments:
Post a Comment