Going global: Sixers set sights on Chinese market

When Grant Kelley first took over ownership of the Adelaide 36ers in 2016, the club had barely 1,800 members.

Fast forward 10 years and a 36ers game has become the hottest ticket in town, with a record 8,600 members signed up, and another 3,000 on the waitlist.

Over the past three seasons, dating back to December 2023, the Sixers have rattled off 41 consecutive sellouts at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre, emphasising the impact they are having on the community.

"We've created a game-day product that has been ranked for many years now as number one in the NBL ... and we've kept prices down. An average family ticket is $75 for four people – if you compare that to the AFL, I believe it's roughly double that," Kelley said to The Advertiser.

The hard work and incredible rise hasn't gone unnoticed, with Executive Director, NBL Group, Larry Kestelman praising the club.

"The results speak for themselves – the sort of growth they have experienced in their market shows that they're leading the way for a lot of the other NBL clubs," Kestelman said.

"This is for me an absolute benchmark, and it shows what you can do when you bring all the elements together, on and off the court, and you have an owner and CEO who's dedicated and working their butts off on the business of sport – that's what can be done."

Read more >> NBL sets sights on Asia

Now that Adelaide has enjoyed such great success, Kelley, whose dream is to deliver a fourth championship to Adelaide, is developing plans to take the brand global.

The 36ers recently launched its Chinese Basketball Academy, a program that will host its first cohort of up to 20 talented Chinese basketballers next year for further development while studying at Woodville High School.

"We're going into a market where China's got about 300 million basketball participants ... it's the number-one sport in the country," 36ers chief executive Nic Barbato said.

"We're going in there and seeing whether there's genuine partnerships we can establish. But also, we wanted to look at potentially playing annual games, both here and in China, against CBA (Chinese Basketball Association) teams. There's a very strong domestic competition there, and there's a lot of money in the game."

NBL26 runners-up Adelaide open their campaign on Saturday, September 19 against Melbourne at John Cain Arena.

Read the full story here >> Adelaide 36ers emerge as $62m powerhouse of NBL