National Basketball League (Australia)

National Basketball League
Founded	1979; 45 years ago
First season	1979
Country	Australia; (9 teams)
Other club(s) from	New Zealand; (1 team)
Confederation	FIBA Oceania (Oceania)
Number of teams	10
Level on pyramid	1
Domestic cup(s)	NBL Cup
Current champions	Melbourne United ; (2020–21, 6th title)
Most championships	Perth Wildcats; (10 titles)
Commissioner	Jeremy Loeliger
President	Larry Kestelman
TV partners	Australia: ESPN; 10 Peach; New Zealand: Sky Sport; Online: Kayo Sports; NBL TV; 10 Play;
Website	NBL.com.au

The National Basketball League is a basketball competition in Australasia. It's current sponsor is Hungry Jack's, so it is also known as the Hungry Jack's NBL Championship. It is the top-level basketball competition in Australasia. The Singapore Slingers once played in this league, meaning it is the first Australasian sporting league ever to have a team from Asia. The league started in 1979, and its most successful time is during the 1980s and 1990s. However, it started to struggle in the 20th century. At the start of the 2004/05 season the league had a deal with Fox Sports of Australia. On September 18, 2007, the National Basketball League had Hummer as their sponsor. one HD started broadcasting in 2010, the first time a game has been on TV for eight years.

Clubs

Current

Defunct

Naming rights

1979 to 1987: none
1988 to 1991: Hungry Jack's
1992 to 2001–02: Mitsubishi^[1]
2002–03 to 2003–04: none
2004–05 to 2006–07: Philips^[2]
2007–08: Hummer^[3]
2008–09 to 2009–10: none
2010–11 to 2012–13: iiNet
2013–14 to 2016–17: none
2017–18 to present: Hungry Jack's^[4]

Broadcasting

Since 1995, the league has had a broadcasting deal for paid programming with Fox Sports of Australia. For free TV, they were first sponsored by ABC from 1979 to 1987. Then they were sponsored by Seven Network for three years, and then from Network Ten from 1992 to 1997. From 1998 to 2001, they were again sponsored by ABC. The league did not have free TV for almost a decade, until in 2010 when Network Ten HD started broadcasting. This contract ended in 2015. The current broadcasting rights are owned by SBS.

NBLxNBA

NBLxNBA is an annual series involving clubs from the NBL and the National Basketball Association (NBA) of the United States. The series started in 2017 for each league's 2017–18 season, and each season includes between three and seven games. The games have previously always been held in the US and Canada, and are normally held during September and early October.