Seven NBL owners off the fence to back Kestelman

• Seven owners end 18 months of neutrality and back Larry Kestelman
• They told CODE Sports they feared the fight was hurting franchise valuations
• The NBL has added Graeme Samuel and Len Komoroski to its board

Seven NBL club owners who spent nearly 18 months on the fence have taken a side, backing Larry Kestelman's league and disowning the breakaway owners' association formed by Illawarra, South East Melbourne and Perth.

Adelaide, Brisbane, Cairns, Melbourne, New Zealand, Sydney and Tasmania gave a joint statement to CODE Sports.

"This new 'owners association' has been created by three owners who have a long-standing legal fight with the league," a spokesperson for the seven told CODE Sports.

"This group are not representatives of the majority of NBL club owners, and their views do not reflect the views of the other seven owners.

"Creating a separate, independent group to advocate for clubs is not necessary. We already have strong, open and collaborative lines of communication with the league."

The reason the seven moved now is the most revealing thing in the whole story, and it is not principle.

Owners said they had grown tired of the repetitive negative publicity around the fight, and feared what it was doing to the league and to franchise valuations.

Ten clubs are assets, and an 18-month public brawl prices them.

"We don't want it to be an us versus them mentality but, at the same time, we don't want this to go on any longer, we want it to be over," one owner said on condition of anonymity.

Hawks owner Jared Novelly, Phoenix owner Romie Chaudhari and Wildcats owner Mark Arena are seeking to unseat Kestelman, accusing him of conflicts of interest, governance failures and a lack of transparency.

The NBL has made significant governance changes, the spokesperson said, and has appointed two serious outsiders to its board: Len Komoroski, the former chief executive of Rock Entertainment Group, which owns the Cleveland Cavaliers, and Professor Graeme Samuel AC, the former chair of the ACCC.

The same spokesperson added that the seven "will always push for full transparency throughout the sport and all bodies associated with it", while calling themselves "fully supportive of the work the NBL is doing to grow our game".

NBL chief executive David Stevenson made the structural argument.

The league already runs a dedicated owners' working group that meets monthly to discuss strategic priorities, commercial opportunities and the direction of the competition, and he said the NBL remained open to constructive dialogue with any club.

The legal history matters because it is regularly misread.

On November 20, 2025, the NSW Supreme Court permanently stayed the proceedings Illawarra and South East Melbourne had brought against the NBL, finding the clubs had breached their licence agreements by going to a public court at all. Clause 14.3 sends disputes to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland.

The court's stated purpose was "to make sure that any disputes between the clubs and the NBL are resolved confidentially, not in public litigation that could damage the NBL competition as a whole".

That decided where the argument is allowed to happen. It decided nothing about whether the three are right.

Both clubs signalled an appeal. Kestelman, for his part, has never moved. Offered a route out by Novelly last year, he answered in five words.

"The NBL is not for sale."

All ten owners will be in one building at the NBL Blitz in Bendigo in early September, the only time this season that is true. NBL27 opens on Saturday, September 19, 2026, with Melbourne United against Adelaide.

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