Cricket billion breaks bank

OPINION: The most mesmerising Australian sportsman since Shane Warne, David Campese and Wally Lewis were at their height?

I’m going to go with Ben Simmons. Have you ever seen anything like him? I never have. This bloke is a rookie, going up against veterans of the NBA, and making them look ordinary! In the first two games of the play-off series with his Philadelphia 76ers, he has posted the best stats for a play-off debutant since... Michael Jordan. But again, the mere stats don’t do justice to him.

It is the way he plays, the fact that he looks like he is on fastforward, while all around him have their shoes stuck in a marsh of honey; the fact that he seems to leap like Nureyev from three or four metres out, casually dunk it, and then without so much as a fistpump, run back to his position.

He seems a buttoned down sort of bloke, still closely follows his AFL team in Melbourne, and gets tickets for his high school mates when they are in the States.

On the strength of his play this season, the young Australian will all but certainly be named rookie of the year, and his team – coached by one of Australian basketball’s favourite adopted sons, Brett Brown – just might go all the way. Therein, see, lies quite a story. See, back in 1987, the young Brett Brown, with a great college basketball career behind him – and a little coaching under his belt – decided he really liked the look of both Australia and our booming basketball game.

Now, given the coaching legend of the day was one Lindsay Gaze, father of young basketballing prodigy Andrew Gaze, why not see if he could offer his services as an assistant coach?

Cold-calling Mr Gaze, Brown was impressive enough to be given an interview, and was soon installed indeed as Lindsay Gaze’s assistant at the Melbourne Tigers, learning from The Master. Lindsay wanted humility not hubris; hard-work not hot-dogging; knuckling down, not noise. He wanted a team that was just that, filled with players who would work for each other, not themselves. He wanted, frankly, players in the image of his son Andrew, and Brown learned a great deal about what the successful ingredients were for a great basketball coach and team.

His backpack long ago put away, a great coaching career well launched, Brown went on to marry a fine Australian woman, and raise fine Australian kids.

One of his and Lindsay Gaze’s charges in those early years with the Tigers was a great American college player from Oklahoma, David Simmons, who also married a fine Australian woman, Julie, who was a Tigers cheerleader, and had Australian kids – the secondyoungest little tacker of whom was Ben, who grew up with a basketball in hand, and watching the last six years of his father’s sterling 13 year NBL career, finishing in Newcastle.

Brett Brown, meanwhile, having learnt all he could from the great Gaze, went off to coach North Melbourne, and won an NBL title with them, before doing the same with the Sydney Kings.

Shortly after the turn of the century, Brett Brown was so highly regarded he moved back to the USA to work under America’s answer to Lindsay Gaze – the most respected coach of the NBA – Gregg Popovich of the San Antonio Spurs and his understanding of the game grew further.

Brown always kept an eye on Australian basketball, and was instrumental in recruiting Patty Mills, the Indigenous player who still now plays as a point guard for the Spurs.

Brown coached the Boomers at the 2012 London Olympics, before signing on in 2013 to be the head coach of the 76ers at a time they were the lowest ranked team in the NBA. Pausing only to pay his dues and successfully push for Lindsay Gaze to have the tremendous honour of being inducted in the USA Basketball Hall of Fame, Brown started building the 76ers.

In his first season, they won just ten matches and had a

26-match losing streak, and over his first three seasons they averaged just 16 victories.

Last season, though, they won

28 matches, which was to the good. To the better, Brown also signed from the draft that little tacker, Ben Simmons, the son of his former charge at the Melbourne Tigers.

David Simmons had great memories of Brett Brown’s coaching at the Tigers and was thrilled that his son would be in the care of such a good man, embodying all the values he had learned from Gaze.

True, young Ben was out through injury for the whole first season, but Brown knew he would be great when the time came, and it has come this season, and how, as Simmons dominated the comp as a rookie like no-one since LeBron James!

All up, Brett Brown’s partnership with young Ben Simmons has been extraordinarily successful for both of them. Just as Ben is in line to be rookie of the year, Brett Brown is a good chance of being coach of the year.

The final part of the jigsaw puzzle is that Ben’s parents have moved to Philadelphia, into an apartment just down the road, and make him breakfast every morning he is in town, helping to keep him grounded.

He embodies humility not hubris; hard-work not hot-dogging; knuckling down not noise; he is part of a team that is just that, filled with players who work for each other.

Go Brett Brown. Go Ben Simmons. Go you Philadelphia 76ers! And take a bow, Lindsay Gaze, now 82, living in Melbourne and cheering them on. Quietly.

VAN DIJK

Southampton’s healthy economic position is largely down to the sale in late-December of Virgil van Dijk for $99 million — a world record for a defender.

However, Southampton allowed him to go too late, the Dutchman’s protracted move to Liverpool probably better off having been settled in the offseason rather than six months later. It proved to be an unwelcome distraction, with Van Dijk starting the season training alone after handing in a transfer request.

When he did return to the team in mid-September, Van Dijk clearly wasn’t at his sharpest or best.

WHERE ARE THE GOALS?

Only one team — last-place West Bromwich Albion — has fewer wins than Southampton’s five from 33 games and only four teams have fewer goals than Southampton’s 33.

The fact that Charlie Austin is the top scorer with seven goals in all competitions, even though he has missed more than three months because of injury, is telling.

Argentine coach Mauricio Pellegrino was hired in June and it was hoped he would bring more entertainment than had been provided by his predecessor, Claude Puel, who led Southampton to eighth place in the league and the League Cup final.

He couldn’t, and was fired in in March after winning only one of his previous 17 matches — that coming against West Brom.

RUN-IN

Hughes is unlikely to have enough time to turn it around. After their draw at Lecicester yesterday, where they grabbed a point, they have what looks like benign matches against Bournemouth, Everton and Swansea.

Their last match is at home to already-confirmed champion Manchester City.

‘‘There are 12 points left and we need 11 of them,’’ Hoedt said. ‘‘It’s a tough ask.’’

If it doesn’t happen, Southampton will be back in the second division for the first time since 2012. Australian eyeballs are returning to Super Rugby but it will not be enough to guarantee a fat cheque from broadcasters after Fox Sports shelled out A$1.2 billion for cricket, a leading broadcast consultant has warned.

GMS principal Colin Smith says the pay broadcaster will have less money to spend on rugby after smashing open the piggy bank to secure cricket’s headline content in Australia for the next six years.

‘‘I think [Fox Sports] will want rugby but it’s not necessarily going to be a significant increase if there’ll be an increase at all,’’ Smith said. ‘‘A whole lot of money was taken out of the system with [the cricket] deal and with massive increases in the deals for AFL and NRL, while they’ve clearly over paid for football.

‘‘There is more downward threat for Rugby Australia than there is upward pressure. The question is how do [RA] reinvent the [Super Rugby] model to make sure it’s attractive, to bring back fans and eyeballs and therefore encourage broadcasters to pay.’’ Smith’s comments come despite solid signs the move back to 15 teams in Super Rugby has arrested the ratings decline across the competition. Fox Sports is reporting a four per cent ratings uplift after eight rounds and a three per cent rise for Australian home games.

The early rounds were most promising, before numbers softened when the NRL and AFL started in March.

Sanzaar boss Andy Marinos said the uplift was also reflected in South Africa and New Zealand.

‘‘What we’ve seen so far this year in terms of ratings is an adjustment and it’s certainly been a lot more positive than in 2017,’’ Marinos said.

‘‘There’s been a renewed interest and the upside is that we’ve also seen a lot more competitive games from all teams.

‘‘My initial engagement with the broadcasters has that it’s been stable and steady on their platforms so we’re no longer in a continual downturn. So we’re reasonably happy so far.’’

The gains, while modest, may prove crucial for Rugby Australia. Its current deal with Fox Sports and Ten, worth A$285 million

(NZ$303m) over five years, does not expire until the end of 2020. But due to the test and international components of the deal Australia and its Sanzaar partners will spend this year formulating a preferred model before taking it to market in about 12 months’ time.

To that end, RA boss Raelene Castle has brought on board consultant Michael Tange, who forged a career with sports marketing firm Repucom before it was acquired by Nielsen Sport. Tange was presented to RA members at its annual general meeting last week and will draft Australia’s response to the Sanzaar strategic review, which is understood to canvas a number of options for the next iteration of Super Rugby, including expansion, further contraction, and the status quo.

Smith says Tange has his work cut out given the broadcast climate at home and abroad. Much of the

148 per cent uplift in the current rugby rights deal was delivered by a fierce battle between UK broadcasters Sky and BT (Sky won). In a potentially ominous sign for southern hemisphere rugby, Sky and BT recently agreed a sharing arrangement for English Premier League rights and secured a 16 per cent cost reduction for their troubles.

‘‘You would expect there will be reductions or a plateauing in the price of content across all markets,’’ Smith said. ‘‘It [the EPL deal] is the first indicator that the UK market has reached a tipping point.

That will have ramifications for Super Rugby.’’

The Super Rugby discussions will again raise the prospect of Australia going it alone or asking New Zealand to jettison South Africa at the provincial level and enter into a trans-Tasman competition.

‘‘What you can’t do with this is adapt the ostrich management style,’’ Smith said. ‘‘If Rugby Australia don’t do their homework on what Super Rugby competition is in the best interests of Australia and its broadcast partners, then they’re going to end up killing the sport.’’

On the strength of his play this season, the young Australian will all but certainly be named rookie of the year, and his team – coached by one of Australian basketball’s favourite adopted sons, Brett Brown – just might go all the way.

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Sydney Morning Herald