"We're back to being a credible proposition," he says. We sit quite literally at the tip of his empire: a dozen of his companies are headquartered physically below us. "It gives the sport credibility – a trickle-down effect that is certain to rub off on the domestic competition. Larry Kestelman (pictured, right) – the owner of Australia’s National Basketball League – has employed architect Nonda Katsalidis to redesign Hobart’s Derwent Entertainment Centre. Michael Bleby Senior reporter. (John Donegan/1826 for Domain). In a sense he's happy to gamble on one day securing both a commercial victory – and a legacy. "Just pick a bag," he said. The league sold about 82 per cent of its seating capacity for the 2016-17 season, with 725,749 tickets accounted for. A man sits alone on a folding chair at centre court, smiling. Soccer did not rise simply on the back of a reinvented A League, or even because of the largesse of Frank Lowy. “It became time with the family, an uplifting experience,” Larry says. But it's good noise, good trust. “No half measures here.”. (Aussie rules is presumably a meat pie, soccer a lamb roast and cricket a snag in bread.) Vacant bleachers on a TV screen will send a negative message. He says he lives "in the honour of his parents", and that the most important thing in his life is to set an example for his son. Lemanis played for the South East Melbourne Magic during the magical 1990s, but he now characterises that era as the "so-called" heyday of the sport. One floor down, on level 15, sits the office of Acquire BPO, a "business process outsourcer" (a call centre with 7000 staff in the Philippines), along with its subsidiary Shore Solutions, and a rendered graphics company called Animation1. Andrew Gaze, Australia's greatest basketball player, was shocked when the identity of the outfit he had played for from 1984 to 2005 was stripped away. At 50 storeys high, South Yarra's Capitol Grand will be the tallest building outside the CBD. The answer is his son, Justin, 23, who began playing at eight and is now the marketing manager of the NBL. “I did the research, spent three months speaking to every association, mums and dads, and put together a business case that my father ended up buying into,” Justin says. And in 2016 he rebuilt the Brisbane Bullets, which is owned by the league (in other words, by him). "One person at a time, one battle at a time," he shrugs. “He believes in me and trusts me, which is scary, but reassuring at the same time. Larry Kestelman (pictured, right) – the owner of Australia’s National Basketball League – has employed architect Nonda Katsalidis to redesign Hobart’s Derwent Entertainment Centre. Kestelman asks, eating his scrambled eggs with tomato and feta, the refracted light from the water dappling the wood panel walls of his boat. "As an example, the Sydney Kings in 1992 went through the whole year with sell-out crowds of more than 10,000," he says. ", Visibility is the primary focus of the league right now. So he stands, finds an operations manager and raises the issue. ), Larry Kestelman is on a mission to turn the National Basketball League into a going concern.Credit:Kristoffer Paulsen. An entire bay of empty seats. We've gone from the depths of despair to a position of immense optimism. His millionaire businessman father, Larry Kestelman, admits that his own passion for the sport also has familial roots. Boris Rosenvasser, Kestelman's right-hand man, started with him at Dodo in a sales support role and is now chief operating officer of the LK Property Group. Lemanis argues the NBL has rapidly become one of the world's toughest competitions. Players went overseas to compete, supporters drifted and sponsors fled. "The imports used to come down here and drop 50 points in a game," says Lemanis. The 50-year-old owner of Australasia's professional men's basketball league, the National Basketball League (NBL), didn't coax China's national basketball team here to play in friendlies – this one against the Brisbane Bullets on the Gold Coast – only for viewers at home to think no one cares. "It's just not the way I operate." "It's gut-wrenching." ", Good for his future plans, too, for bringing big international clubs to play here. “I expected just a basketball game.” Instead, he was wowed by the accompanying entertainment, the corporate aspect, and especially the predominance of families having fun. Keryn Nylander, Tasmanian communications consultant and … "My mum is 82 and she'll be here with her friends in a few weeks," he says, "so it'll become a floating retirement community. By the 1990s Michael Jordan was the pre-eminent star athlete on the planet, but in an era without live streaming sport, Australian audiences could only catch glimpses of his talent on the nightly news. And before the NBL could nurture any nascent audience, the football codes awoke to the orange-ball threat and began playing more of their own games at night. "There must be a way to do it. Last week, the NBL announced the return of Champion as the league's new official on-court player apparel partner, replacing the Larry Kestelman owned First Ever. Larry Kestelman chairs the Melbourne-based private equity firm Queens Lane Capital. ), A little more than two years later, head office has switched from survival mode to an aggressive expansionist stance. "Let's not pretend we can win," he says, smiling. "The majority of my friends I've known for a long time. "Coming from Russia in 1979, everybody presumed you and your parents to be KGB. Justin Kestelman calls it “my first highlight basketball memory” – being 10 years old, on the Gold Coast, hanging out with the Melbourne Tigers. The 2019 FIBA World Cup in China and the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo are only a few years away. Larry Kestelman is on a mission to turn the National Basketball League into a going concern. A potted history of the NBL might be instructive here, because although basketball was a basket case when Kestelman found it, the league was not always this way. ", He arrived in Australia when he was 12. window['fe-co-email-widget-fe-co-email-widget_1'] = {"position":"middle","hasSeparators":true,"theme":"domain"}; Pre speech nerves, least the range looks ???? Kestelman will fund the trip. Kestelman is the son of NBL and Melbourne United owner Larry Kestelman, the man credited for the rising popularity of the sport in Australia. https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/22/media/larry-king-children-died-trnd You understand what tough is when you come from nothing. Our Members The Foundation is a member-based organisation. That's what you do – you work. LIVE Press Conference with NBL Executive Director Larry Kestelman and Commissioner Jeremy Loeliger #NBLFinals #NBL20 ... We're a family sport. If Justin feels any obligation to succeed, it’s as much to himself as to his father. ", They spent six months in Italy, in Ostia, a small seaside town on the edge of Rome. “How do you offer a sporting product and a streetwear product? He works the vessel hard as a satellite office, mobile hotel, roaming function centre and more. That’s what really propelled our relationship, talking about something we both have such a passion for and a vested interest in.”. It's better than shovelling shit or cleaning toilets, but it's not easy… It's hard work. Nov 9, 2020 – 12.01am. I loved pinball. "Basketball is roast chicken," he says. Tasmania Mental Health Minister Jeremy Rockliff with NBL executive director Larry Kestelman at Kingborough Sports Centre in Hobart, Australia on July 9, 2019. A premium parking bay there recently sold for $200,000, while the biggest apartment – 550 square metres with a 200-square-metre balcony – is valued at around $25 million. He says he named the leviathan ship Vegas because everyone's reaction to that shimmering desert city is a smile. Landing in Melbourne was confronting. Watching people threading necklaces with red coral, he would collect the tiny leftover fragments and make little bracelets to sell on the pier over the Tyrrhenian Sea. Either way, if you follow athletic pursuits in this country, you'll soon come to know him as the white knight of the NBL. In the all-important Melbourne and Sydney TV markets, the entrenched AFL and NRL easily held the sporting gaze away from basketball. The Owner and Executive Chairman of the NBL Larry Kestelman said: “Unlike other sports, basketball leagues do not derive the bulk of their revenue from broadcast agreements. if you look around the stadiums and lose in our venues, it is very much fun. #OTTNO, A post shared by Justin Kestelman (@justinkestelman) on Apr 1, 2018 at 12:45am PDT. Members include Australian telecommunications service providers, uniting to increase the charitable contributions of Lots of it (estimated worth: a lazy $750 million). “We used to have those awkward moments of silence where you don’t always connect. He did the same thing two or three more times, still working as an accountant. NBL owner Larry Kestelman. And bloody hell, it was so much harder than I thought. ", Kestelman met Pahor five years ago, and was married for two decades before that to Liana Kestelman, also an accountant. Staff scurry, spectators shift and it is done. He has spent the past two decades building an AU$749 million empire, a … "We're all on a mission. "Well," he says, issuing his demand through a pause and flat stare, "we need to fill them. ", With the NBL, Kestelman is close to getting what he wants. https://www.finestresidences.com/agent/larry-kestelman-lk-property (Kestelman now owns 94 per cent of the NBL, after all the clubs bar Perth agreed to a recent share buy-back in exchange for a slice of media revenue. As that decade ended, the popularity of the NBA and NBL began to dip. The NBL was founded by former national coach John Raschke in 1979 and grew quickly, seemingly in lockstep with the rising popularity of the behemoth National Basketball Association in the US. Kestelman is the son of NBL and Melbourne United owner Larry Kestelman, the man credited for the rising popularity of the sport in Australia. As a new NBL season dawns, he looks forward to sitting together as a family, including his 83-year-old mother, and seeing other clans enjoying a couple of precious hours together. 'Credit:Jono Searle, Gaze, who now coaches the Sydney Kings, says one of the most important but intangible things Kestelman has brought to the game is his ability to promote it. Kestelman points out that, in Victoria at least, some were being held in front of a couple of thousand people at the State Netball and Hockey Centre. Greece, he points out, won a European championship in the 1980s and was enveloped in basketball mania: "If the Boomers could finally break through and win that Olympic medal, look out.". "Got a beautiful heart. "I was more interested in fitting in. While establishing and selling Dodo was his biggest success, Kestelman's wealth has been built on diverse sources including offshore call centres, city construction companies, an amusement centre in outer suburban Dandenong, a pair of home security firms and a sports betting website. We received, and not to over-exaggerate, that is the actual number that … Jewish by birth but not at all religious, Kestelman is a member of none of Melbourne's exclusive boys' clubs – except the Huntingdale Golf Club. Such stories are not uncommon. There are nine in the US league right now (and more on the way) including Patty Mills (San Antonio Spurs), Thon Maker and Matthew Dellavedova (Milwaukee Bucks), Dante Exum and Joe Ingles (Utah Jazz), Aron Baynes (Boston Celtics) and Mangok Mathiang (Charlotte Hornets). NBL owner Larry Kestelman. Larry Kestelman chairs the Melbourne-based private equity firm Queens Lane Capital. Larry Kestelman, founder of Dodo, is targeting international luxury retailers for part of his $500m Capital Grand, Melbourne apartment and retail project and may look at property projects in Asia. As a teenager, Justin was teased as ‘Dodo Boy’; what he wore became his vehicle for expression. 'What I want is to set this up as a successful and sustainable sport,' says Kestelman, 'a place for true local heroes. ", Kestelman took over in early 2015, agreeing to pump $7 million in operating capital into the league once club owners allowed him his non-negotiable demand of a controlling stake. The standard of play was good but many games were back in those old tin sheds. "This is my way of giving back to the Australian community," he says. The private equity interests of Melbourne-based entrepreneur Larry Kestelman are believed to be close to striking a deal to buy the Australian fashion retailer Pas Group. "I'm not saying the sport would have disappeared without me. As a Ukrainian migrant, he was cajoled by his cousin into giving basketball’s spectator experience a try in the 1990s, and it shocked him. The entire league, according to Financial Review, sold for $7 million to Larry Kestelman in 2015. "You can see it in dreamland, but probably not in this land – where the football codes have such a cultural stronghold.". Kestelman himself grew up on soccer and ice hockey, but as he watched his boy play basketball each week and took the teenager to NBL matches, he, too, began to love a game that was once described to him as "the roast chicken of Australian sport". ", With just one child and no siblings, Kestelman often talks about the importance of family. Larry Kestelman is on Facebook. Kestelman became a lifelong basketball fan 18 years ago when he first took his family to a Melbourne Tigers NBL game as guests of his cousin, Michael Slepoy. Only soccer is bigger. https://www.finestresidences.com/agent/larry-kestelman-lk-property The NBL fed on that void, and by the early 1990s hoops were hot. The Brisbane Bullets play the Chinese national team in a friendly on the Gold Coast in July. The league has been rebranded and heavily marketed. He cannot have that. Kestelman plans on being there. I won’t fail him, and I won’t fail myself.”. ", Kestelman seems ready. Editorial: All in all, it’s a good deal. '. And I love the way it makes me feel.”. Kestelman has good reason to believe in ascendance: it's his life story. "Exactly. Justin manages all operational aspects, briefing his father about the business weekly. It comes after speculation emerged last month that a high net worth family was circling Pas Group. He offers freely his view that basketball can become the number-one sport in Australia. I can see the trajectory," he says. ", Born in 1966 in Odessa, in what was then Soviet Ukraine, Valarie (Va-lare-ree) Kestelman wanted it badly. “If you like the jumper, wear the jumper; if you like the whole outfit, you do you. "You would hear people had gone to jail," Kestelman says. In the tumultuous history of the NBL, more than 30 clubs have merged or folded. So hard. First Ever’s slogan – “You Do You” – is a veritable declaration of identity. She was working in an IT sales role and helped him find some staff, so he asked her: "What do you want to do in life?" He will live in the grand penthouse above it with his partner Anita Pahor, founding patron of the Red Cross Society of Women Leaders. It is the perfect place to hear his rags-to-Rolexes tale (although as far as watches go, Kestelman prefers the rose gold Audemars Piguet on his wrist today). The board will be chaired on an interim basis by owner Larry Kestelman and comprise the following members. It means the likes of Chris Goulding and David Andersen (two of the best players in Melbourne) will go head to head with Russell Westbrook and Paul George (two of the best players in the world). But I'm a wog. Our members cover the Foundation's running costs so that funds raised through Telco Together activities and events can be used to support community programs supporting Australians in need. (The average six-month NBL contract is now $132,000.) "It was done quietly. "It's a little bit of unreality, but it's real. "It's a different ball game. Bruce Yan/South China Morning Post via Getty Images. This past off-season, for instance, Torrey Craig crossed from the Brisbane Bullets to the Denver Nuggets. We're selling entertainment. Developer Larry Kestelman has quietly listed the North Fitzroy site of his proposed $140 million office project. "But we've gone from the depths of despair to a position of immense optimism. Opinion. In 2012 he bought the Melbourne Tigers (now Melbourne United) with his cousin and Dodo co-founder Michael Slepoy. "You find enough people you like and all of sudden you have this gang. (The interview has been edited for clarity and length.) There might have been another crazy dude willing to take this on. But I felt I had to do something.". "Certain NRL clubs weren't attracting those numbers.". He's gambling his reputation on the resurrection of a competition that only three years ago was on the brink of collapse. Combine them with family, my boat, basketball – that's happiness.". "The main act is the basketball – but what happens around it just as important. Now finally, a championship! "I don't agree with it," he said at the time. Explore {{searchView.params.phrase}} by color family {{familyColorButtonText(colorFamily.name)}} Growing up an only child in the small port city on the Black Sea, he was carefree but poor; he collected discarded chewing gum wrappers and swapped them with mates like trading cards. Apparently a ticketing snafu is responsible for the empty seats. The US imports came here then and dominated, whereas now they play for experience in a hardened league. Opinion. Larry Kestelman shoots basketball and property goals in Glenorchy. Once, after a business win, he took Akoka for a ride in his Ferrari to Chanel. "It's hard to describe," Gaze says. Lately, that vested interest has added another dimension – apparel group First Ever, which Justin is heading – to the suite of companies Larry Kestelman oversees from his 16th–floor penthouse office in Albert Park. Former teammate Lanard Copeland was blunter still: "It makes you sick to your stomach. You'll find a way to get what you want – or you don't want it bad enough. Buying the Melbourne Tigers in 2012, then the National Basketball League itself in 2015, has taken that “connection” to another level. If you're granted an audience with Kestelman, it's not unusual for it to be held here. Dan then visits the office of Larry and Justin to talk about how the Kestelman family became involved with basketball in the first place. He drives a Bentley but prefers his Lamborghini, which he opens up at speeds of 245 kilometres per hour on Sandown Raceway. Their lowest-paid player gets what our whole team gets paid. The result was the HR firm Wall Street, where Akoka is now managing director. The size of the workforce, not including club staff or players, has quadrupled to over 500. Picture: ZAK SIMMONDS. Kestelman's best guess is that the NBL will turn a profit in the 2019-20 season, his fifth year in control. On level 12 is the NBL. "He is a control freak," says his son, Justin, laughing in the boardroom of the LK Group, the family business. In 2015 he spent $7 million on a 51 per cent stake in the league itself. He would know. "), Yet his closest business partners are almost as important. The only problem was the absence of TV viewers. That's how he sees the game, incidentally – as showbiz, akin to a concert experience. ", Kestelman was unmoved. ... family … "Have you watched Australian Ninja Warrior?" You might as well have come from the moon. While trying to renew an expired TV deal, Kestelman says he was "laughed out the door" by Channel 10. "I thought, 'Surely I can set this up as a proper, sustainable business,' " he says. He's done all of this with no guarantee that the league will ever be profitable. It’s not every day that you get to speak to the head honcho of a professional basketball league and one of the most successful entrepreneurs in Australia, so we made sure we asked Larry (and Justin) all the tough questions like… “He’s sent me the message that I’m not his target demographic; he reminds me often that he’s trying to make it cool again.”, Mood ???????? "I can't imagine that," Kestelman says, staring out the window. "Gee, it's going to be a hard task – maybe the biggest challenge in Australian sport," says businessman David Hill, the former ABC boss, head of Soccer Australia and one-time chief of the North Sydney Bears NRL club. Perhaps the name rings a bell from the latest Australian Financial Review Rich List,on which Kestelman ranks 85th with an estimated wealth of $749 million. Now, with grandstands filling once more, exposure on both Foxtel and Channel Nine and the huge figure of Andrew Bogut returning home to play out his twilight years, not to mention stars like Ben Simmons, Patty Mills and Joe Ingles giving Australian basketball global credibility in America’s NBA, his vision is coming together. He didn't sign up the likes of Ladbrokes and Chemist Warehouse only to see their valuable sponsorships ignored. Whenever a new venture needs services such as IT support, accounting work, HR, web design or publicity (including the NBL), Kestelman calls on that family of companies. NBL Owner and Executive Chairman Larry Kestelman stated: “We are thrilled to welcome Champion into the NBL family during a very exciting time for the sport. He's really selling a story.". "He won't give anything to anybody. Media Release – Tasmania JackJumpers, 9 December 2020 Board Unveiled As Tasmania Jackjumpers Continue The March The Tasmania JackJumpers are pleased to announce the members of the club’s inaugural board. After that he spent more time each season in a courtside corporate box, with his son and cousin and friends, cheering alley-oops and reverse lay-ups. Now." ", The Brisbane Bullets play the Chinese national team in a friendly on the Gold Coast in July.Credit:Getty Images, He guesses my first line of inquiry: "I'll begin by asking the question: Why basketball?". "She works across the more affluent part of the charitable sector," he says. “There’ve been a few sleepless nights worrying about how to make it sustainable, but I feel we’re coming out the other end now,” Larry says. A similar moment is approaching for basketball. Kestelman was born in the Ukraine in 1966 and migrated with his family to Australia at age 12. It was there that the young Kestelman showed his first entrepreneurial spark, in a place where it was common for immigrants to sell assorted Russian goods such as chess sets, binoculars and boxes of condoms. "I can't sit around and do everything by committee," he says. His late father had 52 unsuccessful job interviews before landing work as a draftsman at the GM Holden plant in Fishermans Bend. Crucial competitive baselines have been established in officiating and player salary. Our Members The Foundation is a member-based organisation. Learning the game and loving it, he continued funnelling money into the club as needed, until buying the team in 2012 seemed like a natural progression. Under a new three-year agreement, Champion will not only design brand new team jerseys for the 2020/2021 NBL Season, they will also provide a range of NBL club streetwear that fans can get their hands on.

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