Wins on the court have been hard to come by but recent investments in South East Asia has Illawarra Hawks general manager Mat Campbell confident of the club's long-term future.
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In the last week it was announced that Hawks owner Jared Novelly's Crest Sports and Entertainment is the lead investor in the burgeoning East Asia Super League.
Novelly also confirmed a major investment in the Brian Goorjian-coached Bay Area Dragons.
Campbell saw these investments as a major positive for the Hawks' future on and off the court.
"I think what it does is it shores up the long-term viability of the club," he said.
"From our point of view the investment that the ownership group is now showing into South East Asia shores up who we are as the Hawks.
"It proves that they are serious about trying to make our team a long-term sustainable investment from their point of view and I think it is pretty exciting from our end to see that they have committed in that space.
"Hopefully it does end up being that some players see the advantage of showcasing their skillset maybe in our league to maybe then go across to that Super League or vice-a-versa maybe a Super League player decides that they want to come and play in a better quality league as far as competitiveness and decide to come to us.
"There is some avenues to potentially get some talent out of it but more importantly it opens up doors into the agents who are dealing in that space."
Campbell added the owner's decision to appoint Stu Taggart as the Hawks chief executive officer, showed the ownership group was committed to the Illawarra.
"The fact that [the owners] are also bringing on Stu Taggart as the CEO, I think that is a good sign that they are here to stay and they really want to make it work," he said.
"I think the fans and the corporates around the Illawarra can breathe a little sigh of relief that we are here to stay but obviously from a club point of view we still need commitment, we still need members, we still need sponsorships to make it viable long term.
"I think the fans and the corporates around the Illawarra can breathe a little sigh of relief that we are here to stay.....
- Hawks general manager Mat Campbell
"I think Stu will be able to get out there and reiterate that message and reiterate the message about who the Illawarra Hawks are and have been over the last 45 years."
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Agron Latifi
Wollongong born and bred. I love reporting about the Illawarra region and have been doing it for more than 20 years. I've moved into sport recently after covering the education round for the last five plus years for the Illawarra Mercury. It's been a great pleasure.
Wollongong born and bred. I love reporting about the Illawarra region and have been doing it for more than 20 years. I've moved into sport recently after covering the education round for the last five plus years for the Illawarra Mercury. It's been a great pleasure.
