KEY POINTS:
Work has started for a second New Zealand team to become part of the Australian National Basketball League.
The Wellington Saints have been conducting a feasibility study into the possibility since November. The criteria for the revamped ANBL will be announced later this week and the Saints have
expressed an interest.
Saints owner Nick Mills says a second team would be easy to include in the competition schedule. He says Australian teams could come over and play the Breakers on a Thursday, then travel to Wellington for a Friday or Saturday night game.
Mills says New Zealand has the depth for a second team. He says the Saints' current coach, Gordon McLeod, has coached extensively in the Australian competition and believes enough talent is available on this side of the Tasman.
The Breakers were given exclusive New Zealand rights for their first five years.
ANBL general manager Chuck Harmison said the sport's governing body, the Board of Basketball, was set to approve the criteria, which he expected to be distributed to interested parties by this Friday at the latest.
With the Sydney Kings, Brisbane and Singapore franchises falling by the wayside in recent months and the Sydney Spirit and Cairns organisations requiring financial support, the document is expected to include detailed and strong financial criteria.
Harmison was reluctant to specify a date by which the composition of the revamped competition would be finalised, but suggested it would be late February or March.
"We're going to be looking at probably no more than four weeks for submissions," Harmison said.
"It's going to take a little bit of time for people to put things together, but we can't let it drag on too long."
Harmison said his organisation had also experienced "superficial interest" from parties outside the current NBL.
"We've had phone calls from a number of different centres around the country," Harmison said.
"The usual suspects, Hobart, Canberra and even a second New Zealand consortium in Wellington."
He said he was aware of a couple of groups in Sydney who remained interested, but no potential buyer has yet emerged for the ailing Spirit.
Harmison recognised any potential buyer of the Spirit would require a "fairly substantial investment" for the remainder of the financial year, but stressed they could also save money if they picked up the Spirit's licence and met the new financial criteria.
"The Board would look at them as the incumbent owner of the Sydney licence and they would have a leg-up into the new league without having to pay a new licence fee," Harmison said.
"If nobody comes along and rescues the Spirit for the remainder of the season, then any submission that comes in from a Sydney consortium is going to be for a new licence and will attract the licence fee."
While keen to expedite the process, Harmison stressed the Board of Basketball didn't want to be rushed into selecting the successful applicants and run the risk of repeating previous problems.
"We will have a due diligence period, we don't want to make that too short and run into the same problem that we have over the last 30 years," Harmison said.
"So it could be another three to four weeks before we decide who is in."
The current ANBL comprises 10 clubs, but Harmison said the number in the new competition will be determined by the strength of the submissions.
"The Board has in their mind that we would need a minimum of eight teams, that is the number that has been bandied around," Harmison said.
"They haven't said that they are going to stop at eight or nine or 10."
- NEWSTALK ZB, AAP