Hawks need to do business: luminary

Wollongong Hawks luminary Chuck Harmison believes the ailing club has to concentrate on building stronger relationships with the Illawarra business sector if it is going to survive its latest financial crisis.

The Hawks have until next Monday to fight their way out of voluntary administration or face the prospect of folding.

The club has received pledges of financial support from various sources over the past few weeks and general manager Kim Welch hopes to make promising announcements in coming days.

Harmison played nine seasons with Wollongong and served as the club's general manager from 1997 to 2004.

He took on the role of NBL operations manager in 2004, staying in the job for almost seven years and also briefly filling in as chief executive.

Harmison was the WNBL general manager for a season and has been working with Basketball Australia for the past 18 months as the general manager of high performance.

A Hawks life member whose retired playing jersey hangs from the WIN Entertainment Centre rafters, Harmison spoke at length to Welch last week, emphasising the need for a well-planned and committed approach to attracting sponsors.

"It's like any business, you have to generate sales and revenue," Harmison said.

"You just can't rely on results, you can't rely on word of mouth or media or social media to sell the message and get the message out there. You have to go out and sell your product. I've been harping on that for a number of years. Some of the clubs embraced it, but most haven't and that's why they're in the position they're in.

"If you've got 5000 seats and you can figure out how to sell those as membership seats before the season even starts, you're three-quarters of the way done to having a successful financial season.

"The perfect example is what they've done in Perth. It's easy to sit back and say they've got a rich owner who invested in them, but they took a chance and hired a whole bunch of sales people, and that's something NBL clubs have never done. They've always been reluctant to invest in that part of the business. They're more interested in investing in players.

"Perth had 10 or 12 people on the phones eight hours a day, day after day. They went from 4000 members to 11,000."

Harmison came away from his meeting with Welch feeling "quietly encouraged".

"I wanted to see what sort of a plan they had going forward and see what they've got in mind in corporate terms and how to sell out the WEC and boost their season ticket membership, because that's always been the key.

"I had a good chat with Kim and he's reaching out to a lot of different corporate places, but they need to build some affinity with the IBA [Illawarra Basketball Association] because I don't think there's a great relationship there, and there should be.

"They've got a plan and certainly there's noises being made by the owner [James Spenceley] that he's getting some wins on the board with some corporates and co-investors. You can only believe what you've been told and see the results, so hopefully they'll come through."

Harmison was the Hawks' general manager when the club won its only title in 2001 and says attracting sponsors is hard work.

"We faced the same challenges the Hawks face now - getting bums on seats, generating corporate revenue and selling season tickets," he said.

"We had the luxury of [former owner] John [Carson] having a business where he could tap into a lot of his suppliers and business associates and sell them on the idea of supporting the Hawks.

"We put on a good game night, so they thoroughly enjoyed it and got some return from their investment through John's business.

"The landscape's changed a little bit in 14 years.

"Things have gotten tighter economically, we've had a global financial crisis, the Sydney Olympics sucked a lot of money out of the market. Sponsorship dollars are really hard to come by."

Harmison said relationships with sponsors were a constant work in progress.

"There has to be a value proposition. You can't just say the community needs to support the team with nothing coming back," he said.

"There's a genuine desire in the community to keep the team going but there has to be something in it for the community. When you invest money you want some sort of return, whether that's something as simple as a good night out, a sign at the venue or value for your season ticket dollar. That's up to them to decide what that is and sell those benefits to the community.

"As a life member, as someone who spent a good part of my life working for or working with the Hawks, I'd hate to see the club go. It's a great asset for the community and it'd be a very sad day if it had to fold."