It’s full steam ahead as Jets plan relaunch
The hard work really begins now for the Nbl-bound Manawatu Jets, although they’re more than happy to do it.
The Jets’ application to return to the National Basketball League was accepted this week and now it’s full steam ahead to get the team up and running again.
Board member Dave Craig said to start, new general manager Piers Finch, a Jets player between 2008-11, would be out talking with sponsors and businesses.
‘‘We put a pretty lean business model together and we need to start focusing on some fundraising,’’ Craig said. ‘‘We’ve got some events planned to get the community engaged.
‘‘Probably towards the end of the year we’ll get a head coach then starting to work out what the team will look like. It will be based on local players and a couple of imports or a couple of New Zealand marquee players.’’
Craig said they would look at having a coach in place in four to six weeks, but the expectation it would be a locally based coach.
Since the Jets pulled out of the league at the end of 2015 with financial difficulties, they worked on paying off their legacy debt and since they decided to work towards returning to the league, they have gone down the route of being a community based team.
It’s a simple method that should get them more of a connection with people in the region and must have resonated with Basketball New Zealand.
The team and coaching staff will be mainly made up of players from Manawatu, something that was lacking in their last year in the league, and they will continue their junior coaching work.
With their community focus,
"We want to create a sense of team culture and when you put the team singlet on it means something." Board member Dave Craig
they want most of the team made up of Manawatu basketballers, where fans know the players.
The team is likely to be made up of younger players who have been performing well in school or agegroup basketball recently. Craig said there is talent around, but the makeup of the team will be up to the coach.
‘‘The only directive they have from us is 80 per cent of the team has to be local.’’
With a team of youngsters, the Jets are unlikely to vye for the title in their first year and could struggle against stronger teams.
‘‘We want to create a sense of team culture and when you put the team singlet on it means something.’’
The sponsors who backed the Jets are Humphries Construction, Property Brokers, Mcdonalds Manawatu, Courtesy Ford and Palmerston North City Council.
But they will need more support. Getting a naming-rights sponsor is still a way off.
‘‘That’s the whole plan for us sustainability around making sure the team is here in the next decade, not just the next couple of years. We’ll be pounding the pavement getting the community to come help us; they’re the one that asked for us to come back.’’
Craig said they weren’t trying to re-create the Jets brand, just breathe some life back into it.
The NBL will start in April, being pushed back by the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games and the season will run until August.
The Jets were one of the inaugural NBL teams in 1982. They had stints in the second division in 1983, 1984 and 1988,but were in the top tier until 2015.