Mat fears for Hawks' future

By Basketballby Tim Keeblemat Campbell
Updated November 5 2012 - 7:39pm, first published January 25 2009 - 10:19am
Mat fears for  Hawks' future
Mat fears for Hawks' future

Wollongong captain Mat Campbell has opened up about his fears for the Hawks' future, claiming professional basketball in Australia is set to become a "rich person's game".Speaking with typical honesty and passion after Saturday night's heartbreaking two-point loss to Townsville, the 14th-season guard admitted the writing was on the wall for the Hawks following last week's release of the criteria for the "NewNBL"."It's really disappointing," Campbell said. "This is the 14th season for me and I've played the most games for the club, and it's starting to hit home that there's probably not going to be a Wollongong Hawks next year."Clubs applying for inclusion in the 2009-10 season, which starts in October and runs for 18 weeks, will be required to have a guaranteed $1 million in the bank up front, plus another $500,000 in capital.Wollongong has long been one of the NBL's poorest clubs and team owners can't afford to meet the costs involved in the new competition.Interested parties have to lodge applications with Basketball Australia by February 27. Successful bids will be revealed in March. Campbell, who has spent his entire career with the Hawks, conceded the club's outlook wasn't good."It's devastating from the point of view that I want to keep playing, but not only that, because this club's got a lot of good history. You're talking 31 seasons and there's not many professional teams that can hold that length of time," the 32-year-old said."Cookie (coach Eric Cooks) spoke about some people before the game, club stalwarts like Tom Penrose and Dave Leskie, guys that have passed away who put their heart and soul into the club."There's so many people out there, the volunteers, the board members who have put houses on the line. That's one of the really sad things about it. The community put in to save us the last time (a year ago) and everyone got right behind us, but the criteria's just not giving us a chance."Unless you've got a millionaire backer somewhere, you're just not going to have a team, and that's disappointing from a basketball point of view. It's turning into a rich person's only game."While he is a realist, Campbell hasn't given up all hope. He believes the Hawks could yet survive with the right financial support."Our program and the way the owners have set it up, it's got a chance to really succeed and work with an injection of TV rights and some government funding," he said."You look at that criteria and the million-dollar guarantee you need in cash, not many people can say they've got a million dollars sitting around not in a business of some sort, and you've got to have that available at any stage."It might work. Hopefully it works. From the players' point of view, the million-dollar guarantee is a good thing for us because we're guaranteed we're going to get paid if the club goes under, but the other thing is are we going to have enough teams to get through?"I'm disappointed from our point of view here, but for the greater good of the game, if it works I'm all for it."

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