Start a new Midnight Basketball location

Midnight Basketball is more than just a tournament — it's a powerful community-led, low-cost, volunteer initiative that creates a safe, fun, and positive space on Friday and Saturday nights for all local teenagers to come together, make new friends, get active and build confidence — all while stepping away from social media and in to real-life connections. It’s more than just basketball — it’s about laughter, learning and teamwork.

Ready to walk the talk and give local teens something real? Then we are ready to help you make it happen. With our upgraded and simplified easy-to-use online Tournament System, we’ll guide you every step of the way. Let’s work together to create something incredible and fun for your community.

• Visit About Midnight Basketball to learn how Tournaments run.
• Confirm you have indoor basketball facilities (minimum 2 courts).

Step 2: Complete the simple online application

• Ready to make a difference? Complete the simple application and we will get in touch within a few days to talk through next steps.
• We provide, at no cost to you, access to the Midnight Basketball Tournament System which automates the Tournament running, registration, scheduling and much more to help you plan and run a launch event and get your first Tournament underway. 
• We will also provide a personalised local public community website that auto updates from the Tournament System. 
• And training, Tournament help guides and ongoing support from our national team - who bring the collective experience of over 250 Tournaments nationally over 10 years - to help you every step of the way. Summary overview of running a Tournament

  Summary - getting your Tournament started

  Getting Tournaments started

  MANAGEMENT TEAM (MT) RECRUITMENT- Initial roles to run Community Forum: Chair, Volunteer, Logistics and Marketing Managers. You can recruit remaining positions pre, during, post Community Forum as you get started, identifying individuals with suitable attributes and experience as you proceed. Ensure diverse group of individuals and organisations across community and business sectors to form your volunteer MT.

  Refer Tournament System homepage for help:

  • Help for Volunteers > Role descriptions - Management team
  • Help for Management Team > Summary of Tournament set up > Build Volunteer and Support depth and diversity.

  COMMUNITY SETUP - Chair completes Community details screens.

  COMMUNITY FORUM – Plan and run Community forum – a public launch event to build profile and gain wide support. Refer TB > Logistics > Marketing > Mkt info > Campaigns

  PROGRAM PARTICIPANT - we will help you find an appropriate local organisation to sign agreement with MBAustralia.

  TOURNAMENT SETUP - INITIAL REQUIREMENTS

  • Includes stadium and tournament dates, completed in Tournament Builder.
  • Checking public community page info is correct - www.midnightbasketball.org.au/Communityname.
  • Online registrations will be opened: Tournament night volunteers / Players (Parents/Legal guardians to register Players)
  • Run recruitment campaigns (Refer TB > Logistics > Marketing > Mkt info > Campaigns ): Recruit Tournament night volunteers and Tournament players

  TOURNAMENT SET UP – FINALISATION

  • Rest of setup requirements completed in Tournament Builder - Tournament night manager selected and trained.
  • All agree that ready to run - local Management Team and Program Participant, along with MBAustralia will help ensure all ready to run a professional and exciting Tournament.

  RUN YOUR MIDNIGHT BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT - using the online Tournament System to manage.

  CELEBRATE - You’ve successfully completed your 1st Tournament!

  CONTINUE TO NEXT TOURNAMENT - you are now Midnight Basketball experts and can set up and run your Tournaments with ease using the online Tournament System!

  MANAGEMENT TEAM REVIEW - Conduct online review provided to help address any issues as needed. Recruit new Management team members if needed.

  Updated 20251020-2

  And here is some more support we provide for you

  Support provided by Midnight Basketball Australia

  Aside from bringing together the collective experience of over 250 Tournaments around the country over 10 years, we are here to help wherever we can.

  Midnight Basketball Australia is committed to continuous improvement of the Tournament Model in response to community needs and the provision of items we can provide through national partners, sponsorship arrangements, pro bono expertise or other innovative means. From amazing enterprise technology to fantastic Tournament and Marketing kits, we want to get the Tournaments off to a great start by providing communities with a heap of support and these will grow as we re-launch and grow the brand.

  What we provide to communities to run Midnight Basketball

  Midnight Basketball Australia provides communities with the following items, subject to available resources:

  • A professional Midnight Basketball kit: team singlets, bags, display banners, volunteer lanyards, player awards and trophies.
  • Skills sessions support and advice.
  • MBAustralia staff visit each community during the initial two year period and ongoing as required, for initial community forums to help spread the word, Management team and Tournament night volunteer team training and as otherwise required for the purposes of helping, assessing and supporting outcomes and effectiveness.
  • MBAustralia available for radio, newspaper, podcast and other interviews and talks when pre-agreed.
  • Zoom, telephone and email support before, during and after each Tournament as required.
  • Evaluation - loads of ways for you to evaluate the performance and outcomes of your Tournament.
  • A dynamic, online, enterprise Midnight Basketball Management System providing an out of the box solution which includes:
  • localised dynamic public website with automatically updated Tournament information
  • online registration for players and volunteers
  • leaderboard results, local contacts and more
  • automatic rostering, scheduling, collection, analysis and management of data and much more
  • manuals / guidelines, auto-checklists and all relevant systems, forms, materials and templates - helping you to run a great tournament
  • automated online reporting including graphical spatial data management
  • dashboards and checklists and other portfolio support for Management team to manage each Tournament and their individual portfolios
  • marketing, media and public relations support, including Media Pack (to support media and photo shoots), an automated marketing portal with checklists, templates, and other support for generating local marketing and media material

  What is provided to Players on Tournament nights

  • Entry - Midnight Basketball is free for all participants
  • Team uniforms (player singlets) - worn all night including the basketball games
  • Nutritious, great tasting Dinner, Skills sessions, Basketball, Bus home (these are provided by local Midnight Basketball community).

  
  Updated 20230731-1

New community application form

Thank you for your time and interest.