British Basketball League

British Basketball League

Current season, competition or edition: 2016–17 British Basketball League season
The BBL logo, featuring the Molten GG7 match ball
Sport	Basketball
Founded	1987
Inaugural season	1987–88
President	Sir Rodney Walker
No. of teams	12 (BBL Championship)
Country	United Kingdom
Continent	FIBA Europe (Europe)
Most recent champion(s)	Newcastle Eagles (7th title)
Most titles	Newcastle Eagles (7 titles)
TV partner(s)	BBC Sport
Level on pyramid	1
Domestic cup(s)	BBL Cup BBL Trophy
Official website	www.BBL.org.uk

The British Basketball League, often abbreviated to the BBL, is the premier men's professional basketball league in the United Kingdom. The BBL runs two knockout competitions alongside the BBL Championship; the BBL Cup and the BBL Trophy, as well as the post-season Play-offs.

The BBL is not to be confused with the English Basketball League (EBL) or the Scottish Men's National League, which effectively form the second tier of British basketball. There is currently no promotion or relegation between the English and Scottish leagues and the BBL because of the franchise system in use in the BBL, although several clubs have been elected from the EBL in recent years.

Currently the League consists of 12 teams with representation from both England and Scotland. Member franchises of the BBL jointly own the league,^[1] and a chairman is elected by the teams to oversee league operations. The head offices are located in Leicester,^[2] where the country's oldest team, the Leicester Riders is also based.

In 2012 the BBL, along with several other basketball governing bodies including England Basketball and basketballscotland, united to form the British Basketball Union, an organisation created to promote the commercial development of basketball within Great Britain.^[3] In partnership with England Basketball, the BBL launched a women's league in 2014, branded as the Women's British Basketball League (WBBL).^[4]

History

See: List of British Basketball League seasons

The British Basketball League burst onto the British hoops scene in 1987 as the game's foremost clubs opted for a franchise-based competition without promotion or relegation. Seeking to improve the sport's image through greater professionalism, the BBL fast became the benchmark for quality competition in the UK

In 1988 Portsmouth emerged from the pack to clinch the inaugural BBL Championship title but the following year saw the famous Kingston side of the late 80s and early 90s win the first of three back-to-back league crowns.

The 1990s also saw a growth in popularity and commercialism of the league. Television crews and sponsors such as Peugeot, Lego, Playboy and Budweiser came flooding in, as did the crowds. The Manchester Giants opened the 1995–96 season in front of a record 14,251 fans at the Nynex Arena against the London Leopards – a record crowd that stood for a basketball game until 2006 when the NBA started staging pre-season games at the O2. London Towers, Crystal Palace and the Greater London Leopards ushered in an era of capital success in the mid-1990s and in 1999 a Conference format was introduced, which was mirrored by the NBL the following season. For three seasons the cream of the north and the south followed an American-style system with London Towers invincible in the South.

A single-league BBL returned in 2002 and five different franchises won the Championship title in the five years after that. However the new millennium also saw a series of drawbacks for the BBL. The collapse of ITV Digital cost the league dear, with many franchises struggling to recover from the lost revenue that the £21 million contract was providing. Long established franchises such as the Giants, the Leopards, Derby Storm, Thames Valley Tigers and Birmingham Bullets ceased to exist, though new teams have since been formed under the Giants and Leopards names.

The membership crisis brought about the addition of new franchises such as Guildford Heat (formed by fans of the defunct Thames Valley Tigers) and elected teams from the lower-tier English Basketball League, like the Plymouth Raiders, both making a refreshing impact on the old boys, with the Heat qualifying for the Play-offs in their rookie season.

During the same season Newcastle won 30 of their 40 regular season league fixtures to clinch the League Championship crown – the previous season saw the Eagles win 31 matches but lose out to Chester Jets in the final week, by just two points. That title was one of four pieces of silverware won during the dubbed "clean-sweep" season of 2005–06, the Eagles marching on to claim the BBL Cup, BBL Trophy and Playoff's – the complete set.

Guildford Heat, only in their second season in 2006–07, stole the headlines by storming to their first League title coupled with the BBL Cup, to mark a historic moment for the young club and its fans. Plymouth Raiders also put themselves on the map by overcoming their underdog tags to beat Newcastle on their own court in the BBL Trophy final, their first silverware as a BBL team. Newcastle managed to redeem themselves at the very end, after a poor season, by their standards, by claiming the Play-off title against rivals Scottish Rocks.

League chairman and Newcastle managing director Paul Blake is marketing the game at home and abroad, and after successfully gaining representation in the ULEB Cup with Guildford Heat's appearance in 2007–08 the league is slowly recovering from a low ebb.

Corporate structure

Board members

The British Basketball League is an independent company owned by its member clubs. Each club – or franchise as it is known – has an equal shareholding in the BBL and a representative on the board of directors,^[1] thus is part of all decision-making regarding League policies, issues, and rules. Ed Percival is the current elected chairman. The following club representative's on the board of directors are:^[1]

Chairmen

• John Deacon, Chairman from 1987 to 1988
• Kevin Routledge, Chairman from 1988 to 2002
• Vince Macaulay, Chairman from 2002 to 2006
• Paul Blake, Chairman from 2006 to 2013
• Ed Percival, Chairman from 2013 to 2015
• Sir Rodney Walker, Chairman from 2016

Competitions

BBL Championship

The BBL Championship is the flagship competition of the British Basketball League and features all member teams playing a 33-game regular season (in a round robin format), from September through to April.^[5] Matches are played according to FIBA rules and games consist of four-quarters of 10 minutes each. Two points are awarded for a win,^[5] with overtime used if the score is tied at the final buzzer – unlimited numbers of 5-minute overtime periods are played until one team is ahead when a period ends. At the end of the regular season, the team with the most points is crowned as winners of the BBL Championship, and thus British Champions. If points are equal between two or more teams then head-to-head results between said teams are used to determine the winners. In the case of a tie between multiple teams where this does not break the tie, the winners are then determined by the points difference in the games between said teams.^[6] Following the completion of the Championship regular season, the top eight ranked teams advance into the post-season Play-offs which usually take place during April.^[7]

In the regular season, team schedules are not identical and neither are matchdays, with games scheduled mainly around venue availability. Because of this teams may find themselves playing a series of four or five home games consecutively followed by a straight set of away games. As the regular season is also particularly short many games are played over weekends as 'doubleheaders', whereby a team will play games (possibly a home and away game) on consecutive days, something that is not commonplace in British sports, although often seen in the National Basketball Association and other North American sports.

Play-offs

The post-season Play-offs usually takes place in April, featuring the top eight ranked teams from the Championship regular season compete in a knockout tournament. Teams are seeded depending on their final positioning in the Championship standings, so first-place faces eighth-place, second versus seventh-place, third against sixth-place and finally fourth plays the fifth-placed team. Both the Quarter-finals and the succeeding Semi-finals are played over a two-game series (home & away) with the higher seed having choice of home advantage in the either the 1st or 2nd leg – an aggregated score over the two games will determine which team will advance to the next stage.^[5][6] As with the Quarter-finals, teams in the Semi-finals are also seeded, with the highest-ranking team drawn against the lowest-ranking team in one Semi-final and the two remaining teams drawn together in the other Semi-final. The culmination of the post-season is the grand Final, held at The O2 Arena in London, which sees the two Semi-final winners play a one-game event to determine the Play-off Champions.

BBL Cup

The BBL Cup emerged from a breakaway of the English Basketball Association-organised National Cup and was contested for the first time in the 2003–04 season, when Sheffield Sharks were the inaugural winners. The competition is a knockout tournament with pairings drawn completely at random – there are no seeds, and a draw takes place after the majority of fixtures have been played in each round. When there is an uneven number of member clubs in the British Basketball League, some pre-selected teams receive byes into the next round. The Cup final is played at the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham, usually in early January.^[8]

BBL Trophy

The BBL Trophy traces its origins back to a previous competition known as the Anglo-Scottish Cup – and subsequently the British Master's Cup – which was founded in 1984 and was initially a competition between teams from both the English and Scottish leagues. Following the launch of the new British Basketball League administration in 1987 – who assumed control over the National Basketball League from the English Basketball Association – the British Master's Cup was scrapped and replaced with the newly formed League Trophy.^[9] The Trophy competition has historically had a round-robin group stage format used for the first round, however the current competition is a knockout tournament with pairings drawn completely at random – there are no seeds, and a draw takes place after the majority of fixtures have been played in each round. As well as including all BBL member clubs, invited teams from the English Basketball League, and occasionally the Scottish Basketball League, often take part in the Trophy.^[10] The Final is usually played in March at a neutral venue.^[11]

European Competition

Guildford Heat were the BBL's most recent representatives in continental competition, featuring in the ULEB Cup during the 2007–08 season. No British teams currently compete in European competition. To be eligible for entry into the third tier EuroChallenge tournament, teams must play in arenas with a capacity of at least 2,000 people (3,000 if they reach the Final Four stage).^[12] Currently the only BBL member teams that meet the tournament's requirements are Glasgow Rocks, London Lions, Newcastle Eagles and Worcester Wolves.

Teams

Current teams

Team	City	Arena	Established	Joined	Head coach
Bristol Flyers	Bristol	WISE Arena	2006	2014	Andreas Kapoulas
Cheshire Phoenix	Ellesmere Port	Cheshire Oaks Arena	1984	1991	Colin O'Reilly
Glasgow Rocks	Glasgow	Emirates Arena	1998*		Sterling Davis
Leeds Force	Leeds	Carnegie Sports Centre	2006	2014	Matt Newby
Leicester Riders	Leicester	Leicester Sports Arena	1967	1987	Rob Paternostro
London Lions	London	Copper Box	1977*	1987	Nigel Lloyd
Manchester Giants	Manchester	Trafford Powerleague Arena	2012		Yorick Williams
Newcastle Eagles	Newcastle upon Tyne	Sport Central	1976*	1987	Fab Flournoy
Plymouth Raiders	Plymouth	Plymouth Pavilions	1983	2004	Johnny White
Sheffield Sharks	Sheffield	English Institute of Sport	1991	1994	Atiba Lyons
Surrey Scorchers	Guildford	Surrey Sports Park	2005		Creon Raftopolous
Worcester Wolves	Worcester	Worcester Arena	2000	2006	Paul James

Flyers

Phoenix

Rocks

Force

Riders

Lions

Giants

Eagles

Raiders

Sharks

Scorchers

Wolves

Locations of the 2016–17 BBL teams

Notes

Former teams

Potential future teams

During his time as BBL Chairman, Paul Blake outlined a goal for the League to expand to 16 teams^[13] with an overall vision to have between 15 and 18 teams playing out of venues with 2,000-plus spectator capacity by 2019.^[14]

Recent failed expansion teams

• East London Royals (Were due to commence play in the 2013–14 season^[15] but withdrew due to financial constraints)^[16]
• East Scotland Warriors (Originally scheduled for a 2014–15 season launch^[17] but postponed to the 2015–16 season before withdrawing)^[18][19]
• Essex Leopards (Current members of the English Basketball League, were due to commence play in the 2013–14 season^[20] but withdrew due to financial constraints)^[16]

Rumoured expansion teams

• City of Belfast^{[21][22][23][24]}
• Doncaster Eagles^[25]
• Reading Rockets (Applications for the 2012–13 and 2015–16 seasons rejected,^[26][27] but planning a renewed bid in future)

Arenas and venues

Primary venues used in the British Basketball League:

Bristol Flyers	Cheshire Phoenix	Glasgow Rocks	Leeds Force	Leicester Riders	London Lions
WISE Arena	Cheshire Oaks Arena	Emirates Arena	Carnegie Sports Arena	Leicester Sports Arena	Copper Box Arena
Capacity: 750	Capacity: 1,400	Capacity: 6,500	Capacity: 500	Capacity: 2,400	Capacity: 7,000
Manchester Giants	Newcastle Eagles	Plymouth Raiders	Sheffield Sharks	Surrey Scorchers	Worcester Wolves
Trafford Powerleague Arena	Sport Central	Plymouth Pavilions	English Institute of Sport	Surrey Sports Park	Worcester Arena
Capacity: 1,100	Capacity: 3,000	Capacity: 1,500	Capacity: 1,200	Capacity: 1,100	Capacity: 2,000

Players

All-time statistics leaders

Bold indicates active BBL players.

Points Rank Player Games Pts. 1 Peter Scantlebury 540 8,324 2 Nigel Lloyd 402 7,838 3 Billy Singleton 454 6,950 4 Mike New 431 6,000 5 Yorick Williams 448 5,997 6 Tony Windless 404 5,948 7 Robert Youngblood 494 5,943 8 Russ Saunders 241 5,855 9 Tony Dorsey 273 5,826 10 Tony Holley 398 5,703

Total Rebounds Rank Player Games Reb. 1 Tony Holley 398 3,985 2 Billy Singleton 454 3,460 3 Mike New 431 3,369 4 Robert Youngblood 494 3,088 5 Jason Siemon 353 3,057 6 Peter Scantlebury 540 3,004 7 Fab Flournoy 498 2,910 8 Martin Henlan 336 2,809 9 Shawn Myers 305 2,674 10 Tony Windless 404 2,577

Assists Rank Player Games Ast. 1 Nigel Lloyd 402 1,909 2 Russ Saunders 241 1,665 3 Fab Flournoy 498 1,646 4 T.J. Walker 241 1,541 5 Robert Yanders 286 1,505 6 Ronnie Baker 539 1,469 7 Karl Brown 392 1,293 8 Alton Byrd 152 1,188 9 Peter Scantlebury 540 1,046 10 Danny Lewis 211 1,017

Steals Rank Player Games Stl. 1 Fab Flournoy 498 764 2 Nigel Lloyd 402 722 3 Russ Saunders 241 686 4 Billy Singleton 454 685 5 Peter Scantlebury 540 675 6 John Tresvant 276 604 7 Jason Siemon 353 595 8 Ronnie Baker 539 575 9 T.J. Walker 241 566 10 Steve Nelson 369 553

Last Updated on 20 September 2012

Foreign imports

British Basketball League rules currently allow for each team to have a maximum of three "import" players – from outside of the European Union (EU) and require a work permit to play – whilst the remaining players on the roster must have citizenship of an EU country, either by birth or by naturalisation.^[28] The current ruling was integrated at the beginning of the 2006–07 season, reverting from the previous law which allowed for up to four non-EU players on a roster, along with naturalised players.

New rules introduced for the 2012–13 season allow teams to field a maximum of five non-British players per game (including up to three work permitted players), further demonstrating the League's commitment towards developing British players.^[29]

Transfer regulations

According to BBL rules, teams must field no more than six import (non-EU) players in any one season, though only three are allowed to be registered to a roster at any one time. Signings are allowed to be made throughout the pre-season and during the regular season until the league's transfer deadline on 28 February, or if during a leap year, the date is 29 February.

Notable former players

Media coverage

Basketball receives little national media coverage in the United Kingdom. Some national newspapers list results and occasionally provide short summaries of the League's news but more extensive coverage remains minimal. There was a small surge in interest during the 2005–06 season when many national newspapers such as The Sun reported that former NBA player Dennis Rodman had signed for Brighton Bears only weeks after being evicted from Celebrity Big Brother.^[30] Coverage from the local newspapers in cities where BBL clubs are based is more extensive with publications such as The Plymouth Herald, Manchester Evening News, Leicester Mercury, and the Newcastle Chronicle all having dedicated basketball reporters who cover the respective local team.

Starting with the 2013–14 season, British Basketball League match highlights are televised and featured on British Eurosport each week.^[31] One match per week is also broadcast live on the League's own subscription-based online TV station, BBL TV.

In 2010, the League agreed a broadcast rights deal with BSkyB network Sky Sports marking the return of BBL action on the Sky Sports after a 9-year gap.^[32] The history of television coverage of the BBL is extremely minimal and sporadic however. During the 2007–08 season international broadcaster Setanta Sports screened one live game a week on Setanta Sports 2.^[33] In 2006, League officials signed a £2.5 million broadcasting rights agreement with MKTV to provide coverage of 40 live games per season.^[34] However, only two matches were screened and the deal eventually collapsed when the channel closed. The 2008 BBL Cup final had been broadcast live on the internet two months previously by UKTV – this was the first time since the collapse of ITV Digital in 2002 that a BBL match was broadcast live. Previously the League also enjoyed coverage from Channel 4 in the 1980s and Sky Sports from 1995 to 2001, where audiences peaked at around 150,000 viewers.^[35]

Awards

• Most Valuable Player award
• Coach of the Year award
• All-Star Team award

See also

• Basketball in England
• English Basketball League
• National Basketball League

References

External links

• Official website

British Basketball League
Bristol Flyers Cheshire Phoenix Glasgow Rocks Leeds Force Leicester Riders London Lions Manchester Giants Newcastle Eagles Plymouth Raiders Sheffield Sharks Surrey Scorchers Worcester Wolves
Competitions	BBL Championship (Play-off Finals) BBL Cup BBL Trophy Cup Winners' Cup (defunct) Women's British Basketball League
Seasons	1972-73 1973-74 1974-75 1975-76 1976-77 1977-78 1978-79 1979-80 1980-81 1981-82 1982-83 1983-84 1984-85 1985-86 1986-87 1987–88 1988–89 1989–90 1990–91 1991–92 1992–93 1993–94 1994–95 1995–96 1996–97 1997–98 1998–99 1999–00 2000–01 2001–02 2002–03 2003–04 2004–05 2005–06 2006–07 2007–08 2008–09 2009–10 2010–11 2011–12 2012–13 2013–14 2014–15 2015–16 2016–17
Awards	Individual: Coach of the Year Most Valuable Player Team: British Team of the Year Defensive Team of the Year Team of the Year
Other	BBL TV Expansion British Basketball Union English Basketball League Scottish National League National Cup National Basketball League

International men's basketball
FIBA National teams Olympics World Cup Universiade U-21 World Championship U-19 World Championship U-17 World Championship World Rankings
Africa	FIBA Africa – AfroBasket U-18 U-16
Americas	FIBA Americas – FIBA Americas Championship U-18 U-16
Asia	FIBA Asia – FIBA Asia Cup U-18 U-16
Europe	FIBA Europe – EuroBasket U-20 U-18 U-16
Oceania	FIBA Oceania – FIBA Oceania Championship U-20 U-18 U-16
Other tournaments	Acropolis Tournament Adecco Cup Albert Schweitzer Tournament African Games Asian Games Commonwealth Games Belgrade Trophy Diamond Ball FIBA Asia Challenge FIBA World Olympic Qualifying Tournament Lusophony Games Marchand Cup Mediterranean Games MVP Cup Stanković Cup Pan American Games Pan Arab Games South American Championship South Asian Games TBF International Under-16 Tournament William Jones Cup World Cup (Turkey)
Note: The Under-21 Championship is no longer held.