With my colleague Nick Nurse away on holiday this week, it has fallen to me to continue our crucial planning for next season at the Brighton Bears.

I should have some encouraging news from off the court to tell Nick on his return from a tropical beach in the Far East.

One of our main concerns here at the Bears has been to stage as many matches as possible at our premier venue, the Brighton Centre. We make no secret of that, even though we enjoy our visits to the Triangle and know it is a highly regarded venue around the league.

You cannot beat one of our big nights at the Centre, especially with a decent game on court, as I am sure any of you who experienced such occasions last season will agree.

I met with Steve Piper at the Brighton Centre and it was all very encouraging. We have six confirmed Saturday night dates and we are also looking at four Fridays and four Sundays.

It looks like the majority of our home games could be there next season and we will be taking as many good dates as we can.

They are also completely re-configuring the floor, which may not sound too exciting but will make a big difference to the players, I can assure you.

Another key part of our development as a club is television exposure. With the demise of the ITV Digital network, the hope is that the BBL might move to terrestrial ITV next season. They now have the rights to the league.

That implies a reasonable chance of ITV1 or ITV2 showing the BBL next season. Nothing has been confirmed but that is the direction it appears to be going and we certainly hope that is what happens.

Although our ratings could have been better for our games on Meridian last season, I would certainly not say the TV people were discouraged by the fact we did not hit the 100,000 mark.

They know they need a regular slot and proper promotion to make something like that work. Ours was not a regular programme, nor was it promoted through the channels it could have been.

Our next league meeting is in the third week of May and will determine whether we go back to one division rather than the two conference system. The single division looks to be on the cards right now.

As revealed in The Argus, Sterling Davis became the third Bear to turn out for Oklahoma Storm in the USBL and I understand hit 17 points in the recent defeat at St Joseph's. He is very much part of the set-up there along with Albert White and Randy Duck.

If there is one encouraging thing to be taken from that as far as we are concerned, it is that the three guys clearly get on well. The fact they are playing on the same American team is no coincidence.

Whether they all come back remains to be seen, though Randy is under contract for two more years. I would not expect further news about team re-building just yet. Although Leicester this week set the ball rolling by signing Malcolm Leak from Newcastle, it is still very early for clubs to be putting their line-ups together for next season.

All the same, I am sure there will be a few people in Sussex logging on to the Oklahoma Storm website in weeks to come.

I know Nick has been a long way from his laptop and mobile so will not have been conducting Bears business.

Football fanatic that he is becoming, however, I dare say he found a bar somewhere showing the Manchester United game on Tuesday. I just hope he knew what the away goals rule was all about.

Romek Kriwald is a director of Brighton Bears