NBL considers taking punt on Thoroughbred Park for Canberra Cannons home

The NBL visited the capital last week to look at possible indoor arena locations, with Canberra Racing's redevelopment proposal opening the door for it to be one possibility.

NBL chief executive Jeremy Loeliger said there were four locations they were currently looking at as possible venues if they go with Canberra for expansion.

Obviously the AIS Arena was one, along with the University of Canberra and Andrew Barr's latest site for an indoor venue - the Civic pool site.

They visited the home of Canberra Racing last Wednesday to have a first-hand look at the site of a proposed $2 billion redevelopment.

With the final make-up of the proposal still being finalised it would be relatively simple to include an indoor arena as part of the plan.

They lodged their Territory Plan Variation with the ACT government towards the end of 2021, meaning the two-year consultation period will conclude later this year.

Loeliger said Canberra was one of a number of unsolicited bids they were looking at for their next expansion - with Darwin and the Gold Coast others in the mix.

"The racetrack is one that's being proposed as a prospective development site and you hit the nail on the head - the university and the AIS are certainly others," Loeliger told The Canberra Times.

"And there's probably another as well that's been flagged as being of interest to a different party.

"The physical infrastructure is one of the fundamental determining factors as to where we might want to put a licence and when you've got three or four different alternatives in the one city there's two different ways you could look at it.

"One is that you're spoiled for choice and the other is that there's not a single voice speaking on behalf of everyone as to where this thing should go.

"So there are some competing interests within the territory.

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"We're just trying to get as much information as we can from as many interested parties as possible and see if we can start piecing together what a business case would look like for an NBL team in Canberra."

AIS Arena's currently undergoing $15 million of work to have it back online by the end of the year, having been shut since the start of the pandemic.

NBL owner Larry Kestelman has previously said that wouldn't be enough to have it fit for a Cannons return, with $50 million needed for that.

Loeliger said it was far too early to say which site was the leading contender.

Regardless of where an NBL-quality arena was built, he said it would need significant investment - either from a government or another avenue.

"The University of Canberra has expressed interest - that's still got a long ways to go - and we're in the very early stages of surveying what an opportunity at the race course might look like," Loeliger said.

"It's great to have options, but all of them would require support from ... a territory government or some kind of local proponent over and above just it being a venue played in.

"There needs to be a real narrative behind the sustainability of the team in the longer term.

"We're just in the early stages of assessing the infrastructure component, but there's a lot more still to take place."

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