Nuggets back in 2020 too big a risk

Angela Ruske
Angela Ruske
Those little things all add up.

And they all take time.

That was the main stumbling block in getting the Otago Nuggets back on court for 2020.

It was confirmed this week the franchise's re-entry to the National Basketball League had been delayed until 2021.

The Nuggets had until Wednesday to meet the provisions laid out when their entry to next year's league was granted a month ago.

While there were hopes that would be done, Nuggets spokeswoman Angela Ruske said it was not something to rush.

"We would love to have got it over the line for 2020, but not compromising the sustainability and the quality of what we were offering," she said.

"It became very clear that doing some of the documentation and things that were required just wouldn't be done in time.

"We're risking too much to give it the nod this year. As I say, quality is more important and we want to be in this for the long-term."

The group would move forward with securing funds to employ someone to find sponsorship. She hoped to secure $100,000 over the next six months, or at least $60,000.

There had been positive feedback from people with connections to sponsors and it was now a case of tying things together.

The initial funds would come from crowd-funding, in which people are being asked to make a $1000 pledge to create a start-up fund. It was hoped to find from 35 to 50 of those.

That was the main snag that had delayed the operation.

It had taken three weeks to get the documentation ready to send to Pledge Me, a pledge website.

Pledge Me then took another three weeks to get back to the group approving it.

However, everything was now legally in place to launch it.

She said the group had doneplenty of work laying foundations.

That included producing a memorandum of understanding, a business plan which needed a complete budget and marketing plan among others things, the legal documentation, starting the company and bank account - and so on.

Getting that set up properly was important before actively seeking funds, so as not to rush and miss out on potential sponsors.

"You think something will take a couple of days; in the end, it takes a couple of weeks.

"Your hands are tied. You can't move forward with one until the first part of it is done.

"You can't open a bank account until the company registration is done and then you can't do that until the constitution is done.

"There's just a lot of little things that, every time you have a hang-up, it's another two or three weeks it holds it back."

She said it also came back to having volunteers driving the operation, which was why it was important to employ someone.

"It all took time. Especially when people are overseas and in different places.

"That's again where it boils down to the volunteers versus someone employed to do it.

"It's something that gets done when there's time to do it."

Despite that, she was confident the team would be on court for the 2021 season.

 

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