Perth Wildcats will be forced to play a home final at their former Mt Claremont home if they finish third on the NBL ladder after RAC Arena was booked out for nearly a week as part of the build up to Kyle Minogue’s upcoming concert.
Furious Wildcats owner Mark Arena has lashed RAC Arena for not keeping their home court available for the most important time of the year. Minogue announced her Australian tour last September and locked in RAC Arena on February 15 as her first location.
The Wildcats will play their last game of the regular season on Friday night and Bryan Adams will perform on Sunday before the stadium is handed over the Kylie for the following six days.
That means if the Wildcats beat Adelaide on Friday night and finish third on the ladder, they will have no option than to move a play-in game to Perth High Performance Centre – formerly HBF Stadium and Challenge Stadium – on Tuesday February 11.
More than 13,000 fans have often attended Wildcats game this season, but nearly near two thirds of those people will be locked out of Perth HPC, which has a capacity of around 4500.
“I’m super disappointed and angry,” Arena told The West Australian.
“We are an anchor tenant at RAC Arena and are having to play at a sub-par venue as a result. I’m really frustrated with RAC Arena given they have booked such a big period of time during our finals series. They should not have booked this period time for a booking anywhere during this finals series.
“We give them a lot of money. It’s nothing against Kylie. I’d love to go to her show, but I am super frustrated. We are in the finals, we’ve worked really hard all season. We are deserving of home court advantage and because of their scheduling it is not going to happen.
“It’s pretty close to locked in. If we finish third we will host the first play-in and as it stands now, the likelihood is on the Tuesday night we will play at the Perth HPC. We’e going to have to go out to our members and say first come, first served, unfortunately.”
The Wildcats can still finish second on the ladder but must thrash Adelaide and then have Melbourne United lose by a big margin against South East Melbourne on Sunday to make up the 1.16 percentage points difference.
If that happens, the Wildcats will qualify for the semifinals and will play at RAC Arena later in the month. If they finish fourth, their play-in game will be played on an away court.
But if they remain in third spot or drop to fifth, they won’t have access to their home court.
“I think it is a disadvantage. How big I am not sure,” Arena said.
“Perth HPC is a small intimate venue. We have a 9-5 record at RAC Arena this season. We haven’t played at Perth HPC for more than a decade. It’s not ideal. But I imagine being small and intimate with 4000-4500 fans, it will still be a home court advantage.”
The Wildcats haven’t played at the Mount Claremont venue since 2012, with Shawn Redhage’s block on CJ Bruton to seal a Game 2 grand final victory the last-ever Perth sequence at the venue.
The venue holds fond memories for Cats veteran Jesse Wagstaff, who won the first of his six NBL championships there as a rookie in 2010.
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