WEXPO
Bob Turner
Chairman, Squadnet, Executive Chairman, Blacktown City FC
Bob Turner is one of Australia’s most recognisable and respected sports personalities.
Best known for his basketball coaching, marketing and administration, Bob is renowned throughout many businesses and sporting organisations for his marketing and management ability and his pioneering work with NBL teams the Canberra Cannons, Newcastle Falcons, Singapore Slingers and the Sydney Kings. Bob developed marketing and sponsorship programs that set the standard for the NBL during the early 80’s and early ‘90s.
He was honoured by the NBL in 1999 as a Hall of Fame inductee. His personal success as a basketball player, coach, marketer, administrator and businessman combine to make him an authority and excellent speaker on a variety of issues including team building, motivation, success and leadership. Bob has built a unique skill set over 43 years in Australia and has proudly earned a reputation as 'Mr. Have A Go'!Bob has been actively engaged as Head Coach, General Manager, Managing Director and part owner of four NBL teams and in 2010 was the driving force in the resurrection of the Sydney Kings. His media profile and access to high profile decision makers in the sporting, political and business arenas, combined with strong credibility and hard work ethic, has produced an individual with proven ability to tackle a challenge. Those skills were put to the test in 2006 with the creation and implementation of the Singapore Slingers, one of the last team to join the NBL. The Slingers are now playing in the ASEAN Basketball League (ABL) the first professional sports league for the ASEAN block of countries, a competition pioneered by the Slingers and Bob’s Chairman Tony Fernandes of AirAsia.
Bob Turner came to Australia from the USA in 1976 to play basketball. He stayed, became an Australian citizen, and forged a highly successful career in sport and business – as a player, coach, marketer, manager, motivator and professional sport owner.
1995 was Bob’s seventh season as head coach of the Sydney Coca-Cola Kings and the last of his fourteen seasons overall as a head coach in the National Basketball League. At that time he was the second most successful active coach in the league – 223 wins at 61.3%Through a distinguished coaching career Bob is one of an elite group of coaches to be awarded the prestigious NBL Coach of the Year Award twice, in 1981 with the Newcastle Falcons and in 1985 with the Canberra Cannons.
Bob is also one of a handful of coaches in the forty year history of the National Basketball League to win more than one championship, guiding the Canberra Cannons to back-to-back titles in 1983 and 1984. He was also the youngest coach in NBL history to win an NBL Championship. This illustrious record stamps him as one of the greatest coaches in the history of the National Basketball League (NBL). In 1999 he was inducted into the NBL Hall of Fame.Over the years, Bob has combined his leadership and marketing skills to promote a variety of sports including Baseball, Gymnastics, Lawn Bowls, Speedway and Basketball. In 2003 he put his talents to work with Sports Marketing and Management (SMAM), a company responsible for the sponsorship programs for the Australian Olympic Committee, Commonwealth Games and Australian Swimming.
In July 2004, Bob was appointed General Manager of Sporting Spectrum – one of Australia and Singapore’s leading event management companies at the time. Sporting Spectrum’s expansion into Asia is what led Bob to one of his biggest challenges, the Singapore Slingers.On March 14th, 2006, the NBL announced the inclusion of a Singapore based team to the League, a franchise totally pioneered, negotiated and structured by Bob. Two months later, on the 23rd of the May the Singapore Slingers were unveiled tipping off their first game on the 20th of September of that year. Bob was Managing Director and a principal shareholder in the organization with the team making the NBL playoffs in their first season.
The Singapore Slingers withdrew from the Australian League in July, 2008 in preference to playing games in the Asian region, initially through a ‘Challenge Series’. Bob, the Slingers and their Chairman, Tony Fernandes from AirAsia, were instrumental in the successful launch of the first professional sports league for the ASEAN block of countries in any sport, the ASEAN Basketball League (ABL). The Slingers played their opening game of the ABL on October 11th, 2009, against the Brunei Barracudas in the 11,000 seat Singapore Indoor Stadium.
In February, 2010, Bob turned his attention and skills once again towards resurrection of the Sydney Kings as General Manager. The team re-entered the NBL competition on October 16, 2010 playing to a full house at the 10,400 seat Sydney Entertainment Centre. Despite a losing season on the court, in the last game of the season the Kings played in front of 9,535 to lead the NBL in average attendance, web traffic and merchandise sales. As General Manager, Bob was the driving force in re-establishing the credibility of the iconic Sydney Kings brand.
Following the re-building of the Kings franchise, Bob joined forces with one of his other sporting passions, baseball, and set about building the profile and acceptance of the Australian Baseball League as Chairman of the Sydney Blue Sox and Chief Advisor to Baseball NSW.
In June, 2015, Bob became Chairman of Sportsyear, the Number One brand in Australia for the provision of sporting fixtures around the World and data compiled through the ‘Sportsyear Engine’. The Annual ‘Sportsyear Report’ was launched in December, 2015, in conjunction with the release of the 2015 Sportsyear Diary!
Bob joined the Sportstek team in April, 2016, as Executive Chairman of the Advisory Board with responsibilities to develop the Basketball and Diamond sports nationally as well as grow the development of Academies in NSW.In May of 2017, Bob was head hunted by Not for Profit BREED Australia to become their Managing Director. He took on the challenge to rebuild BREED into a ‘Community Innovator Breeding New Beginnings’.
In May, 2019, Bob joined CEO and Founder of the West Sydney Wolves, Ronnie Khalil, as the General Manager of Madcorp Australia, the organisation responsible for the Wolves. Together they commenced to build a team to make the Wolves far more than a basketball association.In February, 2021, Bob was appointed Executive Chairman of Blacktown City FC. Bob accepted this challenge to build the historical club into a major sporting team for Blacktown and fill their Home Stadium of 5,000 on a regular basis.
In June, 2021, Bob was also head hunted as Chairman of a new sports software – Squadnet. The app is designed to assist community sport as a communication tool in line with its slogan ‘club sport made easy’!Bob is married to Dr. Alison Turner and has three children – Jason, Rachel and Megan.
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