After a record-breaking Grand Final last season, Basketball WA’s Chief Basketball Officer Tyrone Thwaites believes RAC Arena is the best way to attract new fans into the NBL1 West.
In 2024, the NBL1 West hosted their women’s and men’s Grand Finals at RAC Arena – bringing in an NBL1 record 6460 fans at the home of the Perth Wildcats.
Related: West Grand Final returns to RAC Arena
Thwaites was the head coach of the runners-up women’s Cockburn Cougars for that game, and is now taking on a new role of overseeing the event for 2025.
The West made a major change to their Grand Final fixture for 2024, originally splitting the women’s and men’s games across a Friday night and Saturday to combining them into one night at Perth’s best basketball venue.
Related: The must-watch games for the 2025 NBL1 West season
This allowed for the record crowd, and with West setting the benchmark, Thwaites believes other conferences will try to recreate the magic this coming season.
“We suspect in due course, other states will likely follow in our footsteps,” he said on The Sports Connection.
“Which is a wonderful thing, to see other states emulating what the West is doing. It probably just continues to reinforce that West is best.”While amplifying the local associations that participate in the Grand Final is the priority, Thwaites explained that the venue provides the West a major opportunity to attract new “casual” fans into the state basketball ecosystem.
“What’s more important is the casual fans, who want to get the experience of what an NBL1 Grand Final looks like,” he said.
“It might be a (Perth) Wildcats fan who maybe doesn’t participate in an affiliated association, but loves the experiences of a basketball gameday and how entertaining that can be.
"There also the people we are targeting as a part of this event to showcase how much of a spectacle the state league is here in Western Australia and how it leads the nation in so many different areas.”
Grand Final ticketing information will be released in the new year.
The NBL1 West starts on April 4, stay up-to-date with all the latest news via the NBL1 social media pages.
