{"id":654614,"date":"2026-05-07T02:51:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T02:51:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/654614\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T02:51:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T02:51:18","slug":"push-grows-for-federal-funding-for-new-hobart-basketball-facility-amid-court-shortage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/654614\/","title":{"rendered":"Push grows for federal funding for new Hobart basketball facility amid court shortage"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Hobart City Council is asking the federal government to stump up millions for a new basketball facility, warning that without funding, hundreds of young players and families will be left without a place to play.<\/p>\n

The council is seeking between $9 million and $12.5 million to help deliver the $25 million New Town Bay community basketball facility.<\/p>\n

The planned facility would be a four-court indoor complex built on council-owned land.<\/p>\n

The state government has already committed $12.5 million, and the council says the project is \u201cshovel-ready\u201d, with concept designs complete and planning underway.<\/p>\n

\"\"Push grows for federal funding for new Hobart basketball facility amid court shortage<\/p>\n

Acting lord mayor Zelinda Sherlock said the project was an urgent investment in community health and inclusion.<\/p>\n

\u201cBasketball participation in Tasmania is booming, but our infrastructure has not kept pace,\u201d Sherlock said.<\/p>\n

\"\"The Hobart City Council said the $25 million facility is shovel-ready. Image \/ Supplied<\/p>\n

\u201cGreater Hobart faces a serious shortage of indoor courts, and without action in this year\u2019s federal budget, hundreds of young people and families will continue to miss out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Basketball participation in Tasmania is growing by around 10% a year, but planning work has identified a shortfall of 16 indoor courts across the capital.<\/p>\n

The city currently has no compliant indoor basketball facility for community use, forcing clubs and schools to rely on private venues or travel elsewhere.<\/p>\n

Hobart Phoenix Basketball Association\u2019s Stewart Williamson said the shortage was holding the sport back.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur association supports more than a hundred teams each season, but we simply don\u2019t have a permanent home,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe recent closure of the Swisherr Hoops Academy in Hobart in April this year has acerbated this facility and court shortage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Basketball Tasmania CEO Ben Smith said it was \u201cextraordinary that a sports club the size and scale of Hobart Phoenix could even imagine functioning without a home court or clubrooms and yet that\u2019s what all the basketball clubs in southern Tasmania and Launceston do\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s time for that to change and this would be a great first step,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"\"The planned four-court complex would be built on council-owned land at New Town Bay. Image \/ City of Hobart<\/p>\n

The council compared the project to Launceston\u2019s recently opened $62.5 million Northern Suburbs Community Recreation Hub, which received $46.3 million from the state government and $15.1 million from the federal government.<\/p>\n

Independent Elwick MLC Bec Thomas said the project deserved bipartisan support.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not a \u2018nice-to-have\u2019. It\u2019s a must-have,\u201d Thomas said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur young sports people deserve places to play. Our community clubs deserve certainty. And our growing population deserves access to the same sporting infrastructure being delivered elsewhere in the state.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Hobart City Council is asking the federal government to stump up millions for a new basketball facility,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":654615,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-654614","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\/654614","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=654614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/654615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}