Halfway through 2025 😅 

Not sure about you, but I welcome the 20 minute halftime break as we go into H2! Time has flown!

In the spirit of looking back and doing a bit of self inventory on Australia Startup Basketball and also looking forward, here are some stats on H1 and some upcoming rocks for H2.

In Jan to June, we:

• Hosted 12 open runs in 4 cities

• Launched Adelaide for the first time

• Held our largest ever tournament in May for 120+ players (video in case you missed it).

• Hosted a sponsored lunch after our tournament

• Designed our logo, brand, and first ever jersey

• Played at the Brisbane Bullets High Performance Centre for the first time…amazing facility

• Saw 269 players at these events

• Scaled the community to 611 in total, and growing!

Based on feedback, new opportunities, and the spirit of challenging ourselves, we’re looking at these ideas for H2:

• Hosting a run in conjunction with SomethingTech in Brisbane in Aug and with SXSW in Sydney in Oct.

• Securing sponsored jerseys in Brisbane for SomethingTech^ thanks to Zeligate!

• Running another tournament in Q4 where your startup (or fund or group) enters a team of 4-5 with the chance to play others and be crowned king of the court! More details to come but we’ve heard a strong desire to enter in your own team for a tournament and to amp up the competition.

• Our first ever event with a charity component in Melbs on July 22nd! Details and rego link here but the tl;dr is that all bball rego fees will be donated to the Leukemia Foundation as part of the World’s Greatest Shave and thanks to court sponsors M8 Ventures and the community building legend Paz Pisarski! You can donate here if inclined: www.worldsgreatestshave.com/fundraisers/pazpisarski/2025.

• and more ball runs.

ALWAYS BE CLOSING…& TESTING! 

Like any good startup, we’re always testing and June saw 29.4% of you wanting Z to pass you the ball more. Well, sort of.

We tested a new “VIP Ticket” model at 20-30% higher cost than our standard ticket pricing and 10/34 tickets sold in Sydney for 2 runs were at this higher cost.

Says a lot about our community’s appreciation for what we do…or their neediness for more shots…or Z’s lack of passing. We’re digging into the KPIs for now. 🙂 

QUICK REMINDER

If you attended our monumental event in May, please take a few minutes to share your thoughts and feedback through the below feedback form 🌱 

As always, below is what you’ll find in this newsletter.

• Info on our upcoming Events + Hoop Runs (3x upcoming in 3 cities!)

• Community Wins + Movement

• SportsTech and Ecosystem Updates
  

See you on the court,

COMMUNITY SHOUTS 🔈️ ❤️‍🔥 

$1.5M Reasons to Celebrate!

Congrats to frequent Sydney Hooper Ben “Mr. FinTech” Ford for joining MogoPlus and on their recent $1.5M Raise featured in StartupDaily this month. Read more here.

Franko Ali is at Airtree!

Congratulations on making it real with the Linkedin annoucement one week ago.
Rooting for you and your future content always.

Startup your own Chapter of Startup Bball! 

Don Mander has been a champion of a player in Brisbane for more than a year and now the champion for our Gold Coast Chapter of Australia Startup Basketball. If you’re keen to run your own cohort in your town, reach out to us on where/how we can support you.


Lunch Time Startup League? 

Our partners at Wollemi Capital Group have connected us with Hoops Capital East for our Sydney runs over the last year and this wonderful facility in Moore Park is offering our ASB members court bookings for $120 + GST/Hour if anyone is keen on a booking or even starting up a Lunch Time Startup League!

Just email [email protected] and mention we sent you!

🦄 SPORTSTECH NEWS 🦄

We are leveling up and there are no signs of slowing down anytime soon.

Speaking of Levelling up…

The prophecy is real.
Imagine we see the Ronaldo and Messi legacy play out as well.
Catch this beautiful one foot dunk from Bronny on a fastbreak.

In other NBA news, more ways to train, watch and play with robots.

A snippet from the above linked article -
The NBA’s Physical AI initiative is teasing 4 robots:

• A.B.E. (Automated Basketball Engine): A tireless rebounding and passing robot that maximizes shooting drill efficiency by eliminating downtime, allowing players to focus on repetition and precision (Spearhead, 2025). 

• M.I.M.I.C. (Motion & Intercept Modular-Interface Coordination): An AI-driven coaching assistant capable of simulating defensive schemes and replicating real-game scenarios, providing instant, data-rich feedback to players and coaches. 

• K.I.T. (Kinematic Interface Tool): A social AI companion designed to support player morale and mental wellness, fostering team camaraderie and psychological readiness. 

• B.E.B.E. (Bot-Enhanced Basics & Equipment): Focused on player preparation and recovery, B.E.B.E. manages equipment logistics and tailors recovery programs to optimize physical readiness. 

Beer and Basketball

For all our ballers in Brissy and those who will be at the end of the month [31st July] - be sure to checkout this 3×3 event by Hahn, and maybe even get a win!
PS. we don’t endorse the consumption of alcohol, let alone while playing basketball 😁 

Sport is moving more into the digital.

Supercoach offers a fantasy game product, rumored to be number 1 in Australia. And with this recent acquisition, fantasy leagues across four majors sports down might be experiencing some hardcore growth experimentation in the next few seasons.

AI increasingly taking over operational load in the Olympics

From the standard performance and training aid, to increasing the variation and volume of content, to reducing environmental impact and managing broadcasts - the humans behind the traditional games get to chill a bit more than before thanks to AI.

Football Robots show up and show out.

Fully Autonomous. No drones. No human controlling actions and thoughts. Just a few humanoid robots getting their tekkers on. Allbeit a tad shaky, we are en route.

Imagine Wemby gets humbled in 5 years by a 8 foot humanoid baller, drafted by the Timberwolves.

Absolute scenes.

REMINDER ! NBA IN OZ IN OCT

The NBA is coming DOWN UNDER -
Click here to buy tickets and checkout the website if they haven’t already sold out.

NFL IN OZ JOB ALERT

Since you’re into sports, wanted to share this jobbie job we saw OPEN in Melbs…click the image to see the full post.

UPCOMING EVENTS 🫡 🦾 🦿 ⛹️ 

More of the good stuff.

If you miss out this time - you’ll always find the next event in your inbox and through this newsletter…though we’ve noticed less and less signups when using the Lu.ma invite function so may resort to direct emails in future if the trend continues.

MEL 🏀 JULY 23rd 9AM @ MSAC. https://lu.ma/execygnu

BRIS  🏀 JULY 29th at 8:30AM @ QUT: https://lu.ma/qphay20k

GC  🏀 AUG 13th at 10AM: https://lu.ma/co38c4f9

SYD 🏀 WE’RE LOOKING FOR A LOCAL HOST! CONTACT US and we’ll set the event up in Luma, invite you as cohost, help with marketing, and you’ll get a free run + $10 toward future runs just to show up and welcome people and yell at them to hustle like Z does. 🙂