The Perth Wildcats basketball team could be forced to play a key game away from its regular home of RAC Arena due to a scheduling clash with a Kylie Minogue concert.
The Wildcats are the anchor tenants at RAC Arena, which has a capacity of 13,500 for basketball games. The owner of the team, Mark Arena, has today issued a statement criticising the “absolutely ridiculous” decision by RAC Arena to lock out the Wildcats from the venue during the first week of the NBL Finals.
Australian pop star Minogue is due to host one concert at the arena on February 15. The Wildcats’ final game of the regular season will be against Adelaide on Friday (February 7).
The Wildcats are currently third in the table going into Friday’s game. If the team remains third, it will earn play-in hosting rights against the fourth-ranked team, likely to be played next Tuesday (February 11).
The Wildcats would not be able to play this game at RAC Arena, as Minogue has the venue booked out for the entire week. The team could be forced to play a potential play-in fixture at the Perth High-Performance Centre (Perth HPC), which has a seated capacity of just 4,000.
The Wildcats noted that the team’s last four home games have attracted an aggregate attendance of nearly 52,500. The club lists 10,837 members, and more than half of these would miss out on a ticket if the play-in game was relocated.
Arena said: “We have an issue unfortunately with RAC Arena. I love Kylie, but Kylie is coming to town and RAC Arena has basically booked out the whole week. It’s not a done deal but basically she’s playing on Saturday night and they’ve booked the whole week. RAC Arena in their infinite wisdom has decided, we’re going to book the whole of the first week of finals out at RAC Arena.
“I’m super disappointed, super mad. We’re the anchor tenant there. You do really well on the ladder and you want a home-court advantage, and we’re going potentially to Perth HPC. The amount of members that might miss out on this, I feel really bad for them and I’m just as mad as they are. It was quite a heated conversation with RAC Arena. I’m super frustrated with it; we’re supposed to be the anchor tenant there and I don’t feel like we’re being treated that way.”
Canadian rapper Drake is due to perform back-to-back gigs at RAC Arena tomorrow (Tuesday) and Wednesday, before the Wildcats’ game against Adelaide on Friday. Bryan Adams will then play at the arena on Sunday, with Minogue the next scheduled event six days later.
If the Wildcats finish second in the table, they would not need to play at home until after the Minogue concert. The team could finish anywhere between second and fifth.
The Wildcats last played at Perth HPC during the 2011-12 season.
