NBL pushing ahead with JackJumpers club sale

The sale of the Tasmania JackJumpers club could be completed before the start of the new NBL season according to league owner Larry Kestelman.

Speaking at the announcement that Mitsubishi had rejoined the NBL as a sponsor after a 23-year break, Kestelman said the process to privatise the league-owned JackJumpers was underway.

He said ownership would be offered to Tasmanian investors first before looking offshore, with some home state interest his preference.

“We’ve started the process, the IM (Information Memorandum) and all the information is done and we’ve put that out to Tasmanians first so there’s quite a lot of interest out of Tasmania,” Kestelman told AAP.

“We’ll probably give them another week or so to put forward expressions of interest and then we’re going to go to the wider world.

“We hope over the next six months to announce new ownership, whether it’s 100 per cent or we retain some of it I’m not sure but we’re certainly looking forward to bringing some new people into the team.”

Kestelman said there was no financial pressure to find new investors for the Tasmania team, which is profitable.

Also a success on the court having reached the grand final in their debut season in 2021 and semi-final stage in last season’s playoffs, the NBL is looking to reinvest back into the league to grow its fanbase both domestically and abroad.

The sale will be the first of an NBL club since the Perth Wildcats were bought by Sports Entertainment Group (SEG) in 2021 for a reported fee of $8.5 million.

“They’re a profitable club, which is sport is unusual, and very financially sustainable,” Kestelman said.

“It’s a great success story.

“It was always our intent to start the club ourselves but as a league we don’t want to own and operate a club so I think it’s the right thing for us to do.

“We wanted to make sure the club was set up the right way but it’s the right time to make the transition.”

Kestelman said the NBL was still looking at expanding beyond the current 10 clubs, and hoped to announce the new location for a team within 12 months.

“We’re in a privileged position where we have every state wanting another team, we have new opportunities from so many major centres so it’s for us to currently assess where we can open a club next.

“We can only have so many so it’s just assessing where and when but there will definitely be growth in the NBL from a club level.

“We want an aggressive expansion and I can see us being 13 to 15 clubs over the next five years.”