The National Basketball League is Australia's top-level professional basketball competition.
The league commenced in 1979, playing a winter season (April-September) and did so until the completion of the 20th season in 1998. The 1998/99 season, which commenced only months later, was the first season after the shift to the current summer season format (October-April). This shift was an attempt to avoid competing directly against Australia's various football codes.
There are currently 13 teams in the league, with teams in most capital cities (all except Canberra, Hobart and Darwin), regional centres Cairns, Townsville, Gold Coast and Wollongong, as well as New Zealand and Singapore. A second Melbourne club, the South Dragons, entered the league in season 2006/07. The NBL has also become the first Australian sporting league to field a team from Asia with the Singapore Slingers playing in the 2006/07 season. The Gold Coast Blaze joined the competition this 2007/08 season.
The league's best years were arguably in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but it has struggled recently and many teams have downsized to smaller venues to cut costs. A number of clubs have folded or ceased to compete in the competition. The previous major sponsor of the NBL was Mitsubishi Motors. Mitsubishi, which left its sponsorship when the ABC ceased televising NBL basketball games left the NBL close to folding.
Despite these issues, at the start of the 2004/05 season the league struck a new television deal with Fox Sports in Australia and a multi-year naming-rights sponsorship deal with electronics manufacturer Philips. In 2007, Philips announced they would not continuing their naming rights sponsorship after the current contract ends in June in response to the NBL wishing to increase the sponsorship deal. On September 18, 2007, the NBL announced Hummer as their naming rights sponsor for the 2007/08 season.
Most teams have historically featured at least one and usually two American imports; teams are limited to having two non-Australians on the roster at any one time. Some of these players have moved to Australia permanently and become Australian citizens; a few have even played for the Australian national team (under a rule that allowed one naturalized player to compete for a national team).
