SINCE leaving the ownership box of the Perth Wildcats, Andrew Vlahov has not strayed far from the hardwood parquetry of Australia’s basketball floors.
The four-time Olympian and three-time National Basketball League champion’s sports events and marketing business, RV Sport, was created in 2007 out of a desire to garner a higher profile for the Australian Boomers in a crowded sporting landscape.
Mr Vlahov teamed up with former Sydney Kings owner and Macquarie Bank executive, Paul Robertson, to establish the company.
Its first event in 2008 pitted the Boomers against the Iranian national basketball team over a three-game series.
Since then, RV Sport has grown to preside over tournaments featuring national teams from Argentina and China, with the YouYi Games against China now becoming a much-anticipated fixture on the Western Australian sporting calendar.
RV Sport has also extended its reach to cover NBL pre-season tournaments, ultimately culminating in the Cable Beach Invitational, the international basketball event that brought Chinese basketball legend Yao Ming and the team he now owns, the Shanghai Sharks, to Broome late last month.
Despite a hiccup on the first day of competition, when games had to be rescheduled due to moisture making the court surface unsafe to play on, Mr Vlahov said the Cable Beach Invitational was a resounding success.
“What we did in Broome we got right,” Mr Vlahov said. “Sure we got the time wrong on the first day, but the actual event was so well received and had Broome buzzing, I know we got it right.
“When I sat there and saw the full house, the sunset and two great teams going at it, being beamed live into Asia, to me that was one of my key dreams fulfilled.”
Mr Vlahov’s vision is only getting bigger. The Cable Beach Invitational is locked in for four more years and has created interest from other South-East Asian nations, including basketball hotbeds Taiwan, Philippines and Malaysia.
“They’ve all heard about it now and they’re all ringing me up asking how they can get involved,” Mr Vlahov said.
“From a tournament perspective, it’s a great tourism piece, but I also want to make it a high-level competition.
“One of the things I’d love to do is to attract a team from Europe to come out. We’ve got some good connections over there as well, so that’s not totally out of the realm.”
RV Sport, however, is not just about basketball. Mr Vlahov said the scale of the commercial opportunity was massive, particularly in China, where there were more than 200 million basketball players.
Mr Vlahov said RV Sport was extending its relationship with the Shanghai Sports Bureau to conduct a junior basketball, athletics and swimming event, the Friendship Games, in January.
The Friendship Games, which will be held for the next five years, will feature 50 athletes from Shanghai competing against 50 WA junior athletes from the metropolitan and regional areas.
The final result of these tournaments, Mr Vlahov said, was the cultivation of lasting business links.
“That’s probably been the driver in setting up our events,” he said. “Clearly, they are sports tourism events, but I’ve always been a huge believer in sport being a great engagement tool for business.
“A lot of people see sport as a way to deepen a trade relationship. While sometimes sport does lead to commercial opportunities, it’s also a way to enhance the relationship that currently exists.”
That’s a view that’s been well received in the business community, particularly the resources sector.
Mr Vlahov said Atlas Iron’s David Flanagan and Mineralogy’s Clive Palmer, two executives with extensive business links in China, had been extremely supportive of his efforts.
With another high-profile WA resources entity set to sign on as corporate supporter of the Friendship Games, and continuing support from state government agency Eventscorp, Mr Vlahov said evidence was mounting that RV Sport’s long-term strategy was resonating throughout the state.
“I’m giving it a fair crack and I think there are people in the business community that appreciate that,” he said.
“They agree that sport is one of those things that you can add into a great relationship we already have with China on a trade basis.”
Those contacts and networks, Mr Vlahov said, were set to drive RV Sport to new frontiers.
“We’re evolving,” he said. “We’ve been approached to do things outside of sport, like theatre and music, because of our relationships, but I think if I was to define the company’s role, it’s really to be of great service to Western Australia.
“We’ve got some significant plans, which we hope to pitch to the right people on how to develop events regionally.
“To me there is a clear gap in the market between what’s available on a funding basis and what’s wanted by the community in general.
“We hope to be that bridge in delivery. We’ve got the expertise, we’ve got the relationships and I think we can deliver something that’s quite significant.”
