Basketball: NBA lockout hurts Basketball NZ's bottom line

The NBA lockout is having a serious effect on Basketball New Zealand's bottom line, with the national organisation potentially missing out on about $300,000 of valuable funding from the TAB.

The betting agency provides a levy to all of New Zealand's main sporting organisations, depending on wager turnover and margin on their respective sports.

The TAB provides the New Zealand Rugby Union more than $1 million annually - the Rugby World Cup alone earned the NZRU about $500,000.

Last year the TAB paid $3.5 million in levies to national sporting bodies.

The standoff between the owners and players of America's lucrative basketball competition is entering its fourth month and the first six weeks of the competition have already been cancelled. There is no sign of when or if a resolution might be reached and no betting on games means a vastly reduced levy for BBNZ.

Betting on the NBA provides about 80 per cent of the TAB's levy and BBNZ's chief executive Tim Hamilton said the organisation was having to cut back as a result of the lockout at a time when they were trying to grow the game on the back of the success of the Breakers in the ANBL.

"The money from the TAB has been useful in sustaining our business,'' Hamilton said.

"We were looking forward to that TAB money promoting and furthering the game but clearly the NBA lockout is going to severely strangle that funding and it will definitely have an impact on that.''

The TAB levy provided about 10 per cent of BBNZ's income, a "significant'' amount, Hamilton said. No job losses would occur as a result of its loss, but the promotion of the game, especially at grassroots level, would suffer.

"It holds you back in terms of growth and development. We were looking to grow that [grassroots] side of the business and that [money] was going to help sustain that model and the board and Basketball New Zealand will have to look at that ... I will say it puts us in check again for the future.''

The NBA lockout, which is directly affecting some of the wealthiest athletes in the world, began on July 1. The main issues dividing the owners and the players concern revenue sharing and the structure of the salary cap. All pre-season games and the first six weeks of the 2011-12 season have been cancelled.

It is the fourth time such action has been taken and the 1998-99 season was shortened dramatically due to a six-month lockout.

Hamilton said a resolution would be welcomed by BBNZ but he had doubts about how quickly the season could get up and running if it was resolved.

"If an agreement was reached and play began, then I suppose we would recalculate what that would mean for us but at the moment we are having to prepare for what could be no season.

"Having talked to people in America, it does take a long time to come back from that. Previous lockouts have proven that it really impacts on the sport long term so the consequences from that potentially will continue for a while.''

Hamilton said his organisation had strong links with the TAB and had been kept informed of the situation, which had allowed him to budget accordingly.