Spark drops the Boroughs ball

They were launched with great fanfare and hype about ‘‘encouraging local exercise’’ and providing ‘‘community activity’’ but Spark has bailed out of its ‘‘Five Boroughs’’ basketball courts project.

The company is still funding the project, but has handed over all responsibility, project management and delivery to council.

The telco giant launched the Boroughs campaign in 2014 with promises of five high-tech, high-spec basketball courts across Auckland, connected to sister courts in the United States.

But the company was soon hit with problems and delays, and although the first court in Otara was finished last year, project management for the remaining four was handed over to Auckland Council in September.

‘‘We weren’t really experts in that field . . . The key learning there is that we should have partnered with the experts,’’ Spark marketing general manager Clive Ormerod said.

The Auckland Council now says three courts are expected to be finished by the summer, but Spark’s budget blowout means the technology used to promote the project won’t be delivered.

‘‘We’re disappointed in taking too long or taking longer than we had hoped on the first court and we’ve been really transparent on why that’s happened and what we learnt from that,’’ Ormerod said.

Basketball New Zealand has criticised Spark for not thinking the project through.

Chief executive Iain Potter said that although Spark’s intentions were good, it should have worked with the basketball community.

‘‘There are people who are experts in community sports facilities that would offer excellent guidance . . . around how to best fund, build and operate sports facilities.

‘‘Good on them for choosing basketball, I sincerely hope they can get it back on track because it would be a great gift that people would love.’’

Otara-Papatoetoe Local Board chairman Fa’anana Efeso Collins said kids there had been looking forward to using the technology, and were disappointed.

He had told Spark the project could not be ‘‘just a marketing ploy’’.

‘‘If you’re going to get involved in this community, this is about long-term partnerships with us.’’

Auckland Council is on track to deliver courts in Albany, Avondale and Victoria Park in about six months but they won’t have the live link connections to their American ‘‘sister courts’’, which made them ‘‘The Boroughs’’ in the first place.

Ormerod said Spark had decided not to go ahead with the feature, based on community feedback.

‘‘For me the story here is that the local communities are going to be getting something that is going to be theirs, to make that space far more enjoyable, or to give ballers in those areas somewhere to play.’’