As the State Basketball League enters its 24th finals series, the League continues to enjoy strong growth with the season being one of the closest on record on court and plenty of encouraging signs off court.

At the conclusion of the regular season, attendance figures have risen by 17.85% to over 66,000 throughout the twenty weeks of regular season action.

Average home game attendances have risen from 308 per game in 2011 to 363 in 2012 with 11 out of 14 clubs enjoying increased attendance led by Goldfields and South West.

Those figures have also extended to increased popularity in the Kickz101 Grand Final tickets with sales to the men’s Grand Final up over eight per cent from the same time last year.

In addition to increased attendance figures the SBL website, launched in 2009, continues to provide the league with a strong online presence.

Website traffic is up 6.82% so far in 2012 with the leagues online home on track to surpass its highest yearly numbers of 1.29 million page impressions set back in 2010.

Live Stats, another popular product launched back in 2009, continues to be popular with all stadium broadcasting full statistics at 30 second intervals.

In 2010 the SBL launched our social media presence which continues to grow on a daily basis with over 3,000 combined Facebook and Twitter followers.

Each week the SBL Facebook page reaches over 4,500 unique people through our social media activities and it has just surpassed 2,500 likes, more than any other state league in Australia.

In 2011 the SBL joined Twitter and with nearly 500 followers, the presence of teams and players on the network gives fans a unique way to interact with players on a daily basis.

This year the SBL commenced weekly game broadcasts on 91.3 SportFM which have proven to be popular with supporters, whilst exposing the SBL to a new sporting audience.

In addition to the weekly game broadcasts the League has also enjoyed a dedicated radio show on SportFM since 2009 which is regularly the most downloaded winter podcast on the SportFM website.

This weekend the league will also enjoy even more coverage again with both SportFM and Sonshine FM broadcasting games.

91.3 SportFM will broadcast the Cockburn Cougars and Perth Redbacks match live on Saturday night from 7:15pm while the Lakeside Lightning and Goldfields Giants clash will be live on 98.5 Sonshine FM.

Fans can tune in to both games on their radios, online at sportfm.com.au or sonshinefm.ws or use the free SportFM iPhone App or the “Tune in Radio” App for Sonshine FM.

The SBL would like to thank its clubs and their dedicated group of staff and volunteers for their continued efforts in growing the SBL throughout 2012 and beyond.

Article by Grant Lauterbach (www.carstereo.com.au)