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NBL gets bounce on ONE

TEN says the figures for NBL are a ten-fold increase on previous season opener.

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As some readers have been asking, here are the figures for NBL‘s return to ONE last week.

Friday’s match between Sydney Kings and the Tigers was watched by an average audience of 56,000 and a peak of 130,000.

TEN says the figures are a ten-fold increase on previous season opener.

Sunday’s game between the Adelaide 36ers and Perth Wildcats was watched by an average audience of 73,000 and a peak of 172,000.

Network TEN’s general manager sport, David White said: “This is an excellent result for the first round and reflects the work that went into launching the season by all involved. These early ratings are extremely encouraging and we look forward to playing a part in the continued growth of this exciting sport.”

Round 2 sees:
Wednesday, October 20 @ 5.30pm: New Zealand v Perth
Friday, October 22 @ 8.00pm: Wollongong v Townsville
Sunday, October 24 @ 7.05pm: Melbourne v Perth

  • Tagged with NBL

13 Responses

  1. The coverage was good but the quality of basketball has dropped.lack of highlights in the melb v sydney game.it would be nice to see more low angle court level shots of the game than the safe wide high shots of the game.
    Because so many of the players are unknown, viewers need player profile/back storeys shown in the pre game.kids need heros like gaze or copeland etc for this game to grow on tv

  2. @Donald – I also believe Ten/ONE have done a fine job of promoting the NBL. However, keep in mind the 25% (approx.) pay television subscribers dilute their pay television viewing habits across over 100 channels at any one time (potentially), so your 4 fold/ten fold comparison doesn’t stack up. I’ve no idea of the actual viewer numbers for the NBL when it was on Fox Sports but I’m guessing at any one time they were reasonably modest at best. Still, any increase in viewer numbers would be welcomed by the NBL.

  6. So good to hear ONE’s commitment to the NBL. For those who love the sport we don’t care about all the BS with Fox and TEN and SEVEN – we just want to be able to see our sport. I am in Brisbane so TV is my only option other than a road trip to the Gold Coast.

    The coverage itself was pretty good. Great promos and agreed there is some teething issues with graphics.

    I don’t ONE should be afraid to add some further more technical commentary – not just colour commentary. Maybe consider talking to a few of the great Australian Basketball heads as well as just ex players. Imagine a 10 minute panel before key games with Gaze, Maher, Goorjian and Brown (or one of so many awesome local coaches/ experts) talking shop about how they would approach the game/ key players.

    ESPN WSOP is a great example of the commentary that has enough for the diehards and the first timers.

  7. @Rhys, I believe about 25% of homes have pay TV, so if you get a 10-fold increase in actual numbers from a 4-fold increase in potential audience then I would see that as something to crow about. Obviously Ten have done a much better job of promoting it.

  8. Curious as to why the graphics (such as the score down the bottom left hand corner) look so bad.?

    Looks like they used a low res jpeg or something blocky pixelated mess.
    One HD is a beutiful channel to look at.
    Text can look awesome on it (refer to Nascar / NFL)

    But Netball / NBL seem to be using SD stuff?

  9. I have been waiting 8 yrs for the NBL to return to FTA. last time it was on was with the ABC in 2001/02 season and then completely transfered to Foxtel. ONEs coverage is very good, the opener and the graphics are ausome. Steve Carfino is still good and the addition of Brett Maher for the Adelaide home games is a good decision. Andrew Gaze still at his best. The only downside is that they dont have John Casey the voice of Australian basketball. David can you tell me if he is still with Foxtel or whether he is a free agent and why havent TEN snaped him up in the off season? That would have been a logical decision considering we dont have Clinton Grybas anymore, he was also good at basketball commentry.

  10. Thanks David.

    Yes. This seems a better start then first numbers suggested. Hopefully over summer the audience will grow. It would be interesting to see what an A-League game would get on a digital channel.

  11. It is good to see Ten/ONE rewarded for their support of the NBA by good figures, but in reality a ten fold increase over the previous season numbers isn’t much for them to crow about given it’s a comparison of FTA’s apples with Foxtel’s oranges.

  12. I thought the coverage was terrific and so glad nbl is back on fta!! The only thing is – the graphics are very small and hard to read if you don’t have a big screen!

  13. Goes to show that everything is relative. Some think a show is a failure if it doesn’t make the top 100 (or a channel is a failure if it’s only getting 1% most of the time), but obviously Ten are happy with this huge increase in audience.

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