Indian men's and women's teams to join 2025 NZ basketball competitions

By Christopher Reive

The New Zealand National Basketball League (NBL) and the Tauihi women’s league are set to welcome an Indian presence.

New teams are expected to be added to both the men’s and women’s competitions in 2025 after a memorandum of understanding was reached between Basketball New Zealand and the Indian National Basketball League (INBL), with the new additions being backed by owners of the latter.

Sky head of content and fandom Justin Nelson, a former general manager of the NBL, told the Herald discussions had moved quickly after he was approached by the owners of the INBL about two weeks ago.

The initial inquiry was about the Rapid League, where teams play shorter games of four-minute quarters that double as a curtain-raiser for their main NBL clashes, but soon progressed.

“As we continued to talk and discuss opportunities, it went a fair bit further than that and now we’re heading into hopefully what’s an exciting opportunity for everyone involved,” Nelson said.

“It’s opportunity in both countries. Obviously, these teams are based here in these competitions, but I think it also gives us a wonderful opportunity as a sport to take New Zealand to the most populated country on the planet.

“That’s not just basketball, but that’s tourism and business and education and agriculture, IT culture, you know, New Zealand culture. It gives us a great opportunity to showcase our country through a wonderful vehicle like sport that connects communities around the world.

“It gives us a great opportunity to take New Zealand into India and showcase who we are and what we can do.”

Final negotiations are now in progress, however, Nelson was confident those would conclude within the next four weeks.

The proposed expansion would see one new team in both the NBL and the Tauihi women’s league, which would largely be filled with Indian talent but would include roster spots for imports and Kiwi players. The new teams would take the men’s league to 12 and the women’s to six.

There is no set location for the new teams in place yet, however, Nelson said South Auckland was the “priority” at the moment.

“It’s been fairly quick, but our intentions to expand through Australia and/or Asia have been fairly well documented over the last three to six months,” Nelson said.

“Certainly the initial focus on expansion was in Tauihi with the changes that we made to that competition a few months ago, but the opportunity has come up to also do that in the NBL.”

While India has emerged on the global sporting stage through the cashed-up Indian Premier League (IPL) and Major League Cricket tournaments, Nelson said it was up to those involved to turn the partnership into a winner.

“There’s nobody standing over us with a chequebook saying ‘come our way’. This is very much about people with a really positive vision for men’s and women’s basketball, both here in New Zealand and in India,” Nelson said.

“I think what we’ve seen with our competitions here in New Zealand over the last five years is we’re very ambitious. We’re very innovative and we’re building strong business connections.

“Hopefully, what comes of this is an opportunity to keep growing these competitions.”

This article was first published on nzherald.co.nz and is republished here with permission