WNBL revamp 'deja vu' for Aussie hoops

• WNBL undergoes major rebrand under Larry Kestelman and Robyn Denholm with parallels to NBL’s 2015 transformation and revival
• League aims to simplify fan engagement and highlight female athletes
• WNBL poised to attract global stars and returning Aussies

Today, I have deja vu.

Deja vu with what the WNBL is experiencing right now.

My first few years in the NBL, were almost exactly what I felt like the WNBL was the past couple of years, which is the league was getting harder and harder to keep track of. Even as a basketball person, who has kind of always known what was going on and was watching games, it felt like it just got more difficult in recent years.

But then all the sudden Larry Kestelman has come in and taken over, just like he did a decade ago when the NBL was on it's knees. This time it's also with Robyn Denholm, but it's almost a carbon copy of what happened when Larry bought the NBL in 2015.

Now their crew takes over and we have this big rebrand. It was needed, I think the league is going to get a facelift instantly. It will be easier to keep track of and it'll be easier for us as a sport, to put these exceptional female athletes first, like they deserve.

The WNBL has been one of, if not the best women's sporting league in Australia.

It has been notorious for developing talent. Talent that goes overseas, whether that's to the WNBA, Europe, the NCAA or somewhere else and our women's national program has excelled on the world stage for a long time.

However, despite all of this, I actually felt like the last few years the WNBL lost its way, as harsh as that sounds. It's been by no one's fault other than it needs some juice behind it, it needs someone to come in with a fresh look on it.

Ultimately, that's what Larry did with the NBL. He came in, put some money into it and when he took it over said "I actually believe in this product, I'm going to put some investment into it, put my flavour into it and do what I think it needs".

That's where the WNBL is at right now.

For me, as a basketball fan and someone who's also passionate about the women's game, it's an exciting time.

With this new ownership group, you don't come in and rebrand a league like this if you don't have big plans and don't believe in the product and that for me is why it's exciting. I'm excited for the girls to get the credit they deserve. We have great Australian talent who play all over the world, great imports coming out here, and now hopefully we can see that start to shine and really push our women's league back to what it is.

And that's the best women's sporting league in the nation.

As far as the revamp goes, I wouldn't expect wholesale changes and all of the sudden you're walking into a completely new place - it's going to be a process. But from my memory of when the NBL completely changed, you could feel an immediate difference instantly in terms of certain improvements in areas around the game. Certain game day experiences, the broadcast - you could see the wheels in motion.

Note it did take three, four, even five years for those changes to really kick in and now look at where the NBL is.

The WNBL has never struggled to attract talent from around the world to play here, whether that's WNBA imports or whatever. Look now, the Perth Lynx have just signed Chinese superstar Han Xu. So, those kinds of signings will give the revamped league a sugar hit but I think over time you want to be able to attract the absolute best Aussie talent, who are on big money elsewhere, back here.

The likes of Alanna Smith, Ezi Magbegor, Sami Whitcomb and more.

I think when changes like this happen, you have got to have some understanding that you're not going to be able to challenge the overseas offers in the forseeable future. It's still not even possible on the men's side - some of the money on offer is just not possible to match.

But for those players who go from the WNBA to Europe, it's an extremely long year. So, the best thing you can do is actually show how the league is changing and moving forward in a positive direction. Then coming back to Australia, where it's better conditions, it's not as tough schedule wise and you have the obvious pros of living here - that's where it can be enticing for those stars to return, even if the money improves but is still lower than overseas contracts.

Players can actually say "well hang on a second, it is worth coming home for the conditions and the money actually measures out to be something that I'm really comfortable with and I don't want to go overseas now". I think we can get to there but you also have to understand that across the world right now in multiple sports, there's different leagues popping with a lot of money and if you're an athlete right now, you have to be switched onto that because it's a forever changing scenario you don't want to miss out on because it is money that feeds families and can feed families for multiple years.

The other part people have got to remember, which is the greatest thing that's happened to the NBL with the marketing is, we've also shown the ability for people to go from the NBL to the NBA.

I think the WNBL probably has that even more than the NBL. You can see it now because a Jade Melbourne will go and guard Caitlin Clark in the WNBA and then she'll come back and be playing for Canberra. You can genuinely see that and be up close and personal with someone like Jade at a WNBL game.

My last point is, there's so much hype around women's basketball at the moment and one massive part is the Caitlin Clark effect, which I asked Jade about on our latest edition of 'Cut to the Jase'.

And with that, I think the WNBL may be able to do another thing the NBL did, which took our league to another level and that's have marquee players. Where can we take that? How much does it cost for a Caitlin Clark to play WNBL for three months? I'm just throwing these things out there. But that's where the NBL went with the marquee player rule and NBA players. It'll be very interesting what some of these WNBL teams can do over the next few years.

But lastly, I'm just excited. I'm excited as a basketball fan to watch some more world-class basketball, I'm excited for the WNBL to take a new and positive direction and I'm excited our girls finally get the opportunities female basketballers have deserved here for decades.