Giants future secured at Trafalgar
The Nelson Giants will keep playing at the Trafalgar Centre after a deal allowing them to retain food and beverage income.
The future of the longest running National Basketball League club was under threat after a policy change last year giving centre contractors Community Leisure Management (CLM) exclusive food and beverage rights at the centre.
The club’s coach and general manager, Mike Fitchett, told the Nelson City Council that the loss of income from the canteen, bar and corporate hospitality areas at their 11 home games would “likely kill the Giants” next year.
The basketball community in Nelson and around the country rallied to support the Giants, including a 1200-signature petition.
On Friday, Nelson mayor Nick Smith announced a “pragmatic solution” giving the Giants an exclusion to the centre food and beverage policy.
A similar exclusion would apply to the Dancing for a Cause event that had also faced an uncertain future at the centre because of the policy, and to the Te Tauihu o te Waka a Maui Māori Cultural Council Kapa Haka group.
Smith said Nelsonians had huge pride in the Giants and the prospect of them not being part of the city was untenable.
He said the variation of the contract had only been possible with the goodwill of CLM, which had overseen an increase in the use of the centre that costs ratepayers a net $2 million a year to run.
Smith said the variation meant the council would pay more to CLM to run the council-owned centre. In effect some of the savings the council had made by negotiating a lower price with CLM in return for exclusive food and beverage rights last year would be given back to the contractor.
The extra amount paid to CLM was commercially sensitive, but the council said it would still be less than under the previous contract.
Smith again acknowledged that the council made a mistake by not consulting with the Giants and other anchor tenants before negotiating the policy last July.
Fitchett said the Giants always had a passionate fan base but the club had been overwhelmed at the outpouring of support from Nelson and across the country.
Former Giant, Tall Black and club owner Nenad Vucinic had been in touch straight away to ask “what the heck is going on”.
Having its immediate future secured at the centre was a “huge relief”, Fitchett said.
Smith said the variation would run for the remainder of the CLM contract until July, 2027, but the council would conduct a strategic review of how the centre operated in future.
He favoured a hybrid model under which the centre operator had the support to secure national and international events but community organisations were also catered for.
Some community organisations would be disappointed to miss out on the exclusions to the current policy, Smith said. But the council would be talking to community users during its wider review.
CLM Nelson community venues manager Mark Mekalick said the company valued its partnership with the Giants who were a big part of the Nelson community “so it wasn’t a hard decision to make”.
United States-based Davy Chen, founder of KiwiHoopers which helps young Kiwi basketballers in the US, started the petition for the Giants because he said the NBL could not afford to lose its oldest club.
“This is a win for all of the New Zealand basketball community,” he said.
The Dancing for a Cause fundraiser for the Nelson Tasman Hospice, which raised a record $670,000 this month, had concerns that the extra costs under the changed food and beverage policy at the centre would put the future of the biennial event at risk.
By Warren Gamble, Nelson Mail
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