{"id":597550,"date":"2026-04-10T08:59:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T08:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/597550\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T08:59:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T08:59:11","slug":"hobarts-swisherr-hoops-academy-to-close-doors-after-five-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/597550\/","title":{"rendered":"Hobart\u2019s Swisherr Hoops Academy to close doors after five years"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hobart\u2019s Swisherr Hoops Academy will close its doors this weekend.<\/p>\n

The closure ends a five-year run at the former K&D hardware building at 103 Melville Street, one of the city\u2019s busiest basketball hubs.<\/p>\n

The academy has built a community of 12,000 active customers.<\/p>\n

It will host its \u2018Shed A Tear for The Shed\u2019 farewell on Saturday, with a celebrity versus media match, charity fundraisers and a special birthday party.<\/p>\n

The closure follows the University of Tasmania\u2019s decision to sell the building, which Swisherr had leased for five years.<\/p>\n

\"\"The Celebrity vs Media basketball match will headline the farewell weekend events<\/p>\n

Co-owner and former Tasmanian premier David Bartlett said the venue\u2019s run had been transformative.<\/p>\n

He runs Swisherr with fellow co-founders Anthony Stewart and Mark Nash, a former NBL player.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been just the best journey of our lives,\u201d Bartlett told Pulse.<\/p>\n

He said the academy\u2019s purpose had always been clear.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had a really clear purpose, which is to help young Tasmanians find their pathway through to work or further learning through their passion for basketball and that\u2019s just been so rewarding.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Former premier David Bartlett said being involved in Swisherr has been the time of his life<\/p>\n

The facility has hosted 400 visiting teams over its five years.<\/p>\n

It also helped build university basketball programs that saw UTAS claim both national titles in the University Basketball League last year \u2013 the first university to do the double.<\/p>\n

Saturday\u2019s line-up includes a celebrity versus media match.<\/p>\n

Players include Speak Up Stay Chatty\u2019s Mitch McPherson, former NBL star Wayne \u2018Big Mac\u2019 McDaniel, MLC Bec Thomas, Labor leader Josh Willie and Luca Brasi\u2019s Tyler Richardson.<\/p>\n

\"\"Musician Tyler Richardson will take to the court<\/p>\n

A highlight will be a 10th birthday party for Grace, who celebrated her fifth birthday at Swisherr the week it opened.<\/p>\n

The day will also feature exhibition games from community groups including the all-inclusive Stars disability basketball team.<\/p>\n

It will close with a three-point shootout where the winner takes home a $20,000 ball return machine.<\/p>\n

Swisherr will continue running academy programs from Elizabeth College, Kingborough Sports Centre and its Launceston SHOTLAB site.<\/p>\n

\"\"University of Tasmania\u2019s decision to sell the building has forced the venue closure<\/p>\n

But Bartlett said the Melville Street community atmosphere would be hard to replace.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou come up here on an evening after school and it\u2019s just jammed with kids who aren\u2019t paying money \u2013 they\u2019re just here to hang out and be part of it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The closure comes as Basketball Tasmania has warned the state needs at least 31 additional courts to meet surging demand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hobart\u2019s Swisherr Hoops Academy will close its doors this weekend. The closure ends a five-year run at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":597551,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-597550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=597550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597550\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/597551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}