Perth Wildcats owner Mark Arena has revealed Wildcats players routinely train at high schools on weekends – along with confirming he contemplated buying Perth Glory.
Perth Wildcats owner Mark Arena has revealed Wildcats players routinely train at high schools on weekends – along with confirming he contemplated buying Perth Glory.
Speaking at Business News Success and Leadership breakfast at Crown Perth on Tuesday morning, a candidly passionate Mr Arena outlined the facility strain placed on both the Wildcats and Perth Lynx teams at the Bendat Basketball Centre in Mt Claremont, and his desire for both clubs and the greater community to have access to a more spacious and accommodating venue.
Aside from several state and club-based representative matches held at Bendat throughout the year, the venue is also home to the NBL1 West-based Perry Lakes Hawks, which boast a full compliment of junior West Australian Basketball League teams along with senior men's and women's teams, who are all semi-professional.
“I think we’ve all been caught up – along with all the teams in Australia – in the fast growth of people playing basketball, which is great,” Mr Arena told the room.
“And we don’t have a proper home. It’s shared. And the Lynx has the same issues.
“People are always surprised to hear that we have to train on the weekend at high schools.
“We get booted out and pretty frequently, on school holidays, we get kicked out and get sent to high schools as well.”
Mr Arena said this situation really suprised him.
“It’s been the most frustrating and surprising thing since I’ve taken over the Wildcats,” he said.
“So I’m keen to work really collaboratively with a number of different parties, local and state government, around putting a proposal together for a dedicated facility for both the Wildcats and Lynx to share.
“It’s super challenging from that perspective. I think we share the gym facilities of the Western Force next door – which we have an hour a day, to give you an example.
“People are just surprised of a professional sporting team having that environment, and that’s the thing I’m basically most passionate about fixing as soon as I can.”
While not drawn on where the purpose-built facility could potentially be located, Mr Arena made it clear it would be a facility which could be used by the community, given both Wildcats and Lynx players don’t train or play at all hours.
“I can’t really go into exactly where we are going to put the proposal up, but I can say that we want to put it in with state and local government funding support,” Mr Arena said.
“Wherever the Wildcats go, the Lynx are going to go as well, and we’ll sort it out between ourselves {in terms} of who uses what or have multiple courts that can be shared.
“I’m less worries about that, as we already do this at Bendat.
“And when you think about the season, it’s only six to seven months of the year, so there’s a huge amount of time the community can use it, or an NBL1 state-based team can use it.
“Then there’s also people play nights during the week. Our guys are not going to be training at night during the week, so there’s a huge amount of availability and we can build a facility which solves a problem we already have.
“We don’t have enough courts for kids. There are huge waiting lists across Australia, it’s not just a WA problem.”
Earlier this year, the husband and wife duo of Christian Hauff and Jodi Millhahn purchased the Perth Lynx women’s team, following a brief caretaker period from Basketball WA, which is the state’s governing body.
While extremely complimentary of the entire Lynx organisation and what they bring to basketball on and off the court, Mr Arena floated the idea of one day both entities to return under the same ownership umbrella.
“I think from a commercial offering perspective, you can then offer members the chance to be a member of both clubs and attend both games,” he said.
“We’ve got obviously a pool of members we can then advertise Lynx memberships to, we can have corporate sponsors who can sponsor both men’s and women’s teams, I think is important.”
Mr Arena acquired the Wildcats from Craig Hutchison-backed Sports Entertainment Group in July for a total enterprise value of $40 million.
Courtesy of his investment vehicle company, MT Arena Capital Investment, Mr Arena secured a 52.5 per cent stake in the club for $21 million on August 14.
He will likely increase his shareholding to 90 and 100 per cent by 2026 and 2028 respectively.
However while Mr Arena has always loved his hoops, the Wildcats owner is also a big fan of the world game.
So much so, the man who grew up supporting Perth Glory looked into the possibility of buying the club when it needed someone to step up, following the departure of Tony Sage last year.
Mr Arena told the room he elected to put his ownership dreams towards basketball over soccer, due to his view of the National Basketball League having greater stability in recent times.
“Growing up, I was actually a Perth Glory supporter above the Wildcats,” he said.
“I actually did investigate looking at the Perth Glory before there was a change of ownership.
“I would say that I didn’t even see under the hood. Just if you read in public about what’s said about the [A] League… I think the NBL, we always want improvement from any league we’re a part of, and the NBL is no exception.
“But I think it’s [A-League] has had some challenging moments. Given the popularity of football, or soccer, globally, we’ve just not been able to replicate that success in Australia.
“And I’m not sure how they cross that versus basketball. If you think of the journey of the Wildcats during the 1990s – probably all of us were a lot younger and remember Ricky Grace, Andrew Vlahov, Scott Fisher, James Crawford… those guys were super successful.
“At that time, the league was a basket case. The league was on the border of bankruptcy {and the} Wildcats were the only successful team.
“It was the reason why the Wildcats were pretty much winning every season.
“And then, basketball kind of became less popular, wasn’t in a great place. And then Larry Kestleman, billionaire who created Dodo internet, bought the league and it’s coming back really, really, strong again.”
Mr Arena said he still wanted the Glory to enjoy sustained success and hopes they can bring home some championship silverware in coming seasons.
