Damian Barrett

Probably a surprise that they're disbanding the Stars brand.

Like, it's the more established of the two brands, I think, and they've got the greater fandom.

If there is a deeper fandom, we'll talk about the fandom in a moment.

So that was a surprise.

The way they rolled it out was unusual.

Like, if you address the staff and tell them, well, I'm only going what I read, so there'll be inaccuracies in what I've read because you read it by stealth, but they've told the staff what's happening and how it's going to play.

before they've told the players or before they've rolled this out publicly.

And once you tell a range of people, it's as good as gone.

So I'm surprised the name's gone.

I would have thought it had enough equity to hang on to and surprised that they...

Now, the players weren't probably involved or considered as part of it.

I don't know.

I think it's hard to establish a new brand, having been down that path ourselves with the Melbourne Mavericks.

We're very proud of where the Mavericks has got to and the fandom that we've created and the brand and identity, and we're two weeks off a potential final series.

But it is hard yards building a brand from scratch.

So that's not to be underestimated, particularly when you've got only six weeks to form connection with an audience.

Yeah.

I talk a bit about trying to babysit your fan base in the off-season.

We do that in netball for 38 weeks.

It's a long time.