Women's National Basketball League
The WNBL Logo
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| Formerly | Women's Interstate Basketball Conference (WIBC) (1981) |
|---|---|
| Sport | Basketball |
| Founded | 1981 |
| Inaugural season | 1981 |
| President | Paul Maley |
| No. of teams | 8 |
| Country |
 Australia
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| Continent | FIBA Oceania (Oceania) |
| Most recent champion(s) |
Townsville Fire (2nd title) |
| Most titles | University of Canberra Capitals (7 titles) |
| Sponsor(s) | Wattle Valley |
| Level on pyramid | 1 |
| Official website | WNBL.com.au |
The Women's National Basketball League (WNBL) is the pre-eminent professional women's basketball league in Australia. It is currently composed of eight teams. The league was founded in 1981 and is the women's counterpart to the National Basketball League (NBL). Several WNBL teams have NBL counterparts. The Adelaide Lightning, Melbourne Boomers, Perth Lynx, Sydney Uni Flames and Townsville Fire are the current WNBL teams sharing the market with an NBL team (although the University of Canberra Capitals and Dandenong Rangers shared a market with the Canberra Cannons and South Dragons respectively, before both NBL teams became defunct).The current champions are the Townsville Fire.
In August 1980, West Adelaide Bearcat Coach Ted Powell, after an encouraging exchange of letters with St Kilda's Coach Bill Palmer, called a meeting at the Governor Hindmarsh Hotel in Adelaide. In attendance were Ted, North Adelaide Coach Kay McFarlane and Noarlunga Coach Brendan Flynn. At this meeting it was decided to approach three Victorian teams (St Kilda, CYMS and Nunawading) with the idea of forming a home and away Interstate Competition.
The six team's delegates all met and confirmed the new League at the Town and Country Motel in Sydney during the 1980 Australian Club Championships.
The meeting resolved to form a two-round competition between these teams to be held in July and August in 1981. The basis for the idea was that many of the top sides in both States wanted a varied competition from their standard State League as well as a suitable preparation for the Australian Club Championship, which was held on an annual basis for the top 24 teams in the country. There was also much excitement with the formation of the Men's National League in 1979 and the women felt that one of the best ways to develop the game was to provide more opportunities for the best players and clubs to play against each other more regularly.
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