The development of basketball in England: an analysis of the importance of funding since the start of the National Basketball League in 1972

1
The development of basketball in England: an analysis of
the importance of funding since the start of the National
Basketball League in 1972
Jeff Skinner
A Thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of
Master of Arts in History of Sport by Research in the School of
Humanities at the University of Buckingham
September 2018

3
Abstract
This dissertation examines the development of English basketball since the formation of the
first national league in 1972. The context for the analysis is that basketball is the second most popular
team sport in the world, a statistic that is reflected in the number who play the game in England, and
yet the sport has no public profile in this country. There is no history of international success and the
national league is of a relatively low standard, with little coverage by either the print or broadcast
media. There is also a notable lack of academic work on English basketball with no comprehensive
study of the history of the English game and minimal analysis of any kind.
The focus of this study is on the impact of funding. The period under review has been
characterised by significant increases in the commercialisation and media exposure of sport. This
thesis analyses how basketball has fared in the competition with other sports for funding, both from
public and private sources. The scope is wide ranging, encompassing the breadth of the sport from
grass roots participants to the elite level of the national teams.
Along with academic secondary sources to provide context, English basketball is analysed
through a range of primary sources which include documents from basketball’s governing bodies,
public records such as published financial statements and reports from governmental bodies, press
coverage and interviews with key individuals.
The main hypotheses of the dissertation are that English basketball has significant unrealised
potential and that the key reasons for this are financial. During a period when the sport was growing
and attracting significant income, this was not invested in building solid foundations and a sustainable
structure which left the sport economically exposed. Subsequently basketball has attracted
disproportionately lower level of funding than other sports. A significant factor behind this is that
Basketball England, the sport’s National Governing Body, lacks credibility and influence.

4
Acknowledgements
This dissertation would not have been possible without the help and support of my wife,
Heather. As well as being an excellent sounding board and proof reader, she has also provided
unwavering support and encouragement, and shown remarkable patience whenever the obsession was
getting the better of me.
The greatest pleasure of this work has been to meet so many people in the world of English
basketball. Their interest in the project has been a real motivator. Many have helped in connecting me
with others and been so generous with their time.
I am especially grateful to Mel Welch, the former Secretary for the English Basketball
Association. He was the most important source of archive material, and basketball is very fortunate to
have someone so dedicated to protecting precious historical records. In addition, he provided a
valuable perspective beyond the written word from his many years of experience with the English
Basketball Association. Kevin Routledge and Andy Webb played a similar role with respect to the
history of the British Basketball League and provided me with a memorable day in Leicester. My
thanks to them and the other interviewees Gavin Baker, Roger Moreland, Alex Sobel MP, and
especially Jenny Collins, who was also kind enough to read the manuscript with the eyes of a subject
matter expert.
Each interview was a real highlight along the journey, but for them to be of real practical
value I needed a transcriber. I am very grateful to my friend Julia Dahmann for taking on that
responsibility and coping with all the basketball jargon.
An important start point for this project was the new National Basketball Heritage Archive
and Study Centre at the University of Worcester. My thanks to Roger Fairman in helping me make
best use of the facility and Dr Geoff Kohe for his enthusiasm and advice on so many aspects of this
dissertation.
Discovering Hoopsfix.com and connecting to Sam Neter was fun as well as being a great
source of information. Sam’s enthusiasm and advocacy for British basketball is inspiring. He has my
thanks for his help and for shining a light on the sport.
Finally, I would like to thank my tutor Dr Simon Martin. He kept me on the straight and
narrow and every conversation helped move my thinking forward, usually in unforeseen directions.

5
Contents
Abstract 3
Acknowledgements 4
Glossary 6
Introduction 7
Chapter 1: Public Funding 18
Chapter 2: Commercial Funding and Media Exposure 30
Chapter 3: Organisation and Governance of Basketball 42
Conclusion 54
Bibliography 63
Appendices 71

6
Glossary
ABBA Amateur Basket Ball Association. The name of the National Governing Body for
basketball in England from 1936 to 1974.
APPG All-Party Parliamentary Group for Basketball. A group of Members of the
Westminster Parliament who promote basketball at levels in the UK.
BBF British Basketball Federation commonly known as just British Basketball. The body
responsible for the running of all Great Britain basketball teams and the sole British
body affiliated to FIBA.
BBL British Basketball League. Since 1987 the organisation running the top-level
basketball league in Great Britain.
BE Basketball England. The name of the National Governing Body for basketball in
England since 2014.
BPB British Performance Basketball. An organisation set up in 2007 to organise and
prepare the Great Britain men’s and women’s teams for the London 2012 Olympics.
EB England Basketball. The name of the National Governing Body for basketball in
England from 2002 to 2014.
EBBA English Basket Ball Association. The name of the National Governing Body for
basketball in England from 1974 to 2002.
FIBA Federation internationale de basket-ball. The world governing body for basketball.
NBA National Basketball Association. The organisation running the top-level basketball
competition in North America.
NBL National Basketball League The name of the top-level basketball league in England
from its formation in 1972 until it became the BBL in 1987.

7
Introduction
Basketball is unusual amongst major sports in being able to clearly trace its origins. It was
invented by James Naismith in 1891 in Springfield, Massachusetts in response to a particular need for
some form of competitive indoor athletic activity for his students at the YMCA. He came up with the
idea of a team game requiring two opposing groups of players to score by throwing a ball through a
horizontal goal.1
The outcome was the new team sport of basketball which rapidly became popular
across and then beyond the United States.
Basketball is now one of the world’s leading team sports. There are 213 national basketball
governing bodies affiliated to FIBA (Fédération internationale de basket-ball), basketball’s worldwide
governing body.2
Notably, that is two more than those affiliated to FIFA, the equivalent body for
football.3
FIBA estimate that basketball is played and watched by over 450 million people globally
and the sport is frequently referred to as the second most popular - or second largest - team sport in
the world, behind football. A proponent of this is Basketball England the sport’s National Governing
Body. In BE’s 2009 Annual Report, chief executive Keith Mair wrote ‘it is well established that
basketball is the second most popular team sport in the world, seriously or socially.’4
Mair was trying
to reinforce basketball’s potential for investment, to enable further growth in England.
By contrast to basketball’s global significance, the sport has a relatively low profile in
England. National representative teams have had only sporadic moments of success in either men’s or
women’s competitions. There is minimal coverage of England’s professional teams either in the
national press or on television. Within academic literature about English sport, basketball has received
little more than passing comment. With the exception of Sociologist Joseph Maguire’s research into
the migration of athletes and the impact of foreign players on the English National Basketball League
(NBL) between 1972 and 1988, there has been no detailed study of the history of the sport in
England.5
Basketball seems to have little or no place in the English sporting consciousness.
Despite its low profile in England, basketball is widely played. Sport England, the public
body with responsibility for promoting sports participation, carries out regular surveys of people
playing sport. The results demonstrate that over the last decade, the number of people playing
1
James Naismith, Basketball: its origins and development, (reprinted Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press,
1996), pp. 29-30.
2
FIBA <http://www.fiba.basketball/> [accessed 20/5/2018]
3
FIFA <http://www.fifa.com/associations/index.html> [accessed 20/5/2018]
4
England Basketball Annual Report and Accounts for the year ended 31 May 2009, p. 5.
5
Joseph Maguire American Labour Migrants, Globalisation and the making of English Basketball in The Global
Sports Arena: Athletic Talent Migration in an Interdependent World, ed. By John Baie and Joseph Maguire,
(London: Frank Cass and Co Ltd., 1994), pp. 226-254.

8
basketball consistently ranks alongside traditional and much higher profile sports, such as rugby union
and cricket.6
Amongst team sports only football is significantly higher. Furthermore in 2013 the
Department for Culture Media and Sport reported that basketball had been played by 32% of all those
aged from eleven to fifteen in the previous four weeks, making it the second most played sporting
activity of those they surveyed.7
Hypothesis and Methodology
This initial information about English basketball presents an intriguing picture. Here is a sport
which has major global presence and significant local grass roots participation in England, but lacks
national success, a high standard professional league, a public profile or academic attention. Set
against this background, this dissertation seeks to consider how English basketball has developed over
a period of nearly fifty years, and to identify the main influences.
From early research it became clear that a lack of funding was a frequent and long-standing
theme in the commentary about basketball, both from those within the sport and the media. Therefore,
the focus in this study is on the impact of finance, or lack of it, on the development of the game. The
main hypotheses of this dissertation are that English basketball has significant unrealised potential and
the key reasons why this has not been realised are financial: the failure to attract higher levels of
funding combined with some poor decisions in the use of funds.
The start point for this analysis is the set-up of the National Basketball League in England in
1972. The 1970s was a time when English sport was becoming increasingly commercial, primarily
driven by exposure on television. These themes of commercialisation and media exposure, along with
globalisation from the 1980s, provide an overall context for analysis of the changes that have taken
place within English basketball. The scope of the dissertation is wide ranging, encompassing the
breadth of the sport from grass roots participants to the elite level of the national teams, and covers the
period from 1972 until 2018.
The methodology for this dissertation has been to combine the academic secondary sources
described in the literature review to provide context, with primary sources that offer factual detail,
opinion and perspective on the history and development of the game. The primary source evidence
ranges from public records such as published financial statements and reports from government
bodies, through publications by basketball’s governing bodies, to articles in the media and interviews
with key individuals, some in the public domain, others carried out specifically for this dissertation.
6
Appendix 2, Results from Active People Survey
7
Basketball All-Party Parliamentary Group, Inquiry Report
<http://www.appgbasketball.org.uk/resources/APPGInquiryFinalReport.pdf> [accessed 1/3/2018]

9
The strengths and weaknesses of these sources, and how they have been combined to enable the
analysis to be concluded, warrants further explanation.
A key source has been the Annual Reports published by Basketball England (BE). Each is a
report to members, and other key stakeholders such as Sport England, the organisations’ primary
funder, of activities and results for the previous year. In most years it includes a review by both the
Chairperson and the Chief Executive, and it contains the annual financial statement. It provides a
record of events and commentary on progress. For this dissertation, in which financial considerations
are central, the annual financial statements are a factual and objective historical record. The reports
from the Chairperson and Chief Executive provide valuable commentary on the key events and issues
within the English game. Although some of this is factual, some is opinion, and all of it is written
from the perspective of what is in the interest of BE, so it is important to recognise this limitation on
its objectivity. Following an office move in 2017, the staff at BE have been unable to locate copies of
many annual reports and other archive material during the period of research for this dissertation.
There is currently no full set of Annual Reports available for public access and those that have been
used for this research are mostly in private hands.
Further sources of official records have come from other governing bodies in basketball and
public bodies. The key public entities that have been involved in English basketball are UK Sport and
Sport England, the government agencies responsible for investing public money such as National
Lottery funding into sport. Sport England, which has a responsibility for increasing participation in
sport, is a major benefactor to National Government Bodies such as Basketball England, and in so
doing monitors performance. It has commissioned a number of reviews of English basketball and it
provides a perspective which should be objective and informed and enables some comparison to be
made with other sports. In addition, since 2006 Sport England has been running regular surveys on
participation in sport. The surveys are used to provide a national picture. They are based on relatively
small sample sizes, so there are limits on their level of accuracy. However, the data is widely used in
the sporting arena by both sports bodies and the media. This data is the key source for this dissertation
in demonstrating the popularity of basketball at grass roots level. There is also a parliamentary
advocate group for basketball, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Basketball (APPG), which has
sponsored parliamentary debates and an inquiry into the state of basketball. This provides specific
evidence and examples of the state of basketball which are subject to parliamentary procedure and are
used to illuminate and support observations in the dissertation.
Reports in the media, both national newspapers and, for more recent years, dedicated
basketball websites, are an important source in a number of respects. They provide a public forum for
some in basketball whose views would otherwise not be heard, such as senior international players
expressing their views on their governing body. The Press also offers analysis and opinion on the

10
actions of basketball’s governing bodies. It is important to recognise that the writers of these reports
are working in a competitive environment and seeking to attract an audience. Therefore, the language
at times contains some level of hyperbole. Nevertheless, the accumulation of critical and sceptical
comment in the media about the performance of basketball’s NGB over a considerable period is used
to offer a contrasting view regarding its performance as a contributor to the state of the game.
The final source of information is interviews. They include podcast broadcasts in the public
domain, and interviews specifically undertaken as part of the research for this dissertation. Most of the
individuals involved have served at a senior level on one or other of governing bodies of English
basketball. Each will inevitably have their own personal bias despite their integrity and objectivity. In
some cases, the passage of time may also have caused some blurring of accuracy. Nevertheless, whilst
these limitations must be borne in mind, with other sources of evidence so limited in building the
history of English basketball, they have proved an invaluable source in many ways. They have
provided answers where there were none available from any written source, helped in sifting the
important from the incidental, and added personal perspectives and nuance to enhance the
understanding of events.
Following a thematic approach, the dissertation is divided into three chapters: Public funding,
Commercial Funding and Media Coverage, and Organisation and Governance of Basketball. Chapter
1 considers the importance of public funding in sport. The establishment of the Sports Council in
1972 was a milestone in the history of government policy on sport. It marked the point when ideas
about government intervention to promote increased public participation in taking exercise or
international sporting success were turned into sustained action.8
The chapter explores how public
policy and approaches to funding sport have changed over time. It considers the relationship between
the Sports Council and the National Governing Body of basketball. It looks at the effect of changes in
public policy and measurement of sport participation and how they have impacted the development of
basketball. It also shows the importance of public funding to sports like basketball which have limited
public exposure and are consequently less able to attract sponsorship and private investment.
Chapter 2 examines the impact of the combined forces of commercial finance and media
exposure. The logic of combining these is twofold. Firstly, one particular aspect of the media –
television - has become an increasingly important source of finance in its own right. Secondly media
exposure is a very strong factor in a sports’ ability to attract sponsorship, investment and spectators so
they work together in influencing the development of sport and particularly professional sport. The
chapter shows how a failure to take advantage of media and funding opportunities by building firm
foundations has significantly impacted the development of English basketball.
8
Barrie Houlihan and Anita White, The Politics of Sports Development, (London: Routledge, 2002), p. 20.

11
Chapter 3, Organisation and Governance, looks at how the bodies that have led basketball
through this period have managed the opportunities or problems created by the factors covered in the
first two chapters. It will consider the impact of organisation structure, governance and decision
making in influencing the access to finance and the use of resources and how these have affected the
growth of basketball. One of the emerging themes of this dissertation will be that a mixture of
mismanagement and bad luck, disappointment, and a culture of blame have been a feature of English
basketball in the last twenty-five years.
Whilst the focus of this dissertation is on funding as the most significant single factor that has
limited the growth of English basketball, it is recognised that this is only one of many elements that
have been important in the growth of the sport. Others, which are not covered in this study include the
number and quality of coaches, an essential element to raising the standards of performance, and the
influence of high profile individuals, particularly iconic players, who have brought media attention to
the sport. Furthermore, basketball is a sport which has a tradition of being widely played by both men
and women and whilst this analysis does not focus specifically on the men’s game, it also lacks the
space to highlight the increasing influence of women’s basketball on the sports overall development.
Similarly, for the purposes of this dissertation, wheelchair basketball has been considered to be
outside the remit and specifically omitted in all analysis of funding and participation.
In covering the breadth of English basketball from grass roots through to the elite level of
national teams, and for a period of over forty years, this analysis is able to explore broad themes and
influences, but to some extent, at the expense of nuance and differentiation. Examples from individual
club histories are given to illustrate wider points but it is recognised that the opportunity remains for
further investigation of these club histories to provide a richer and more detailed picture of English
basketball’s story.
Literature review
Throughout the period under review many sports in England have received considerable
attention from scholars. Basketball, however, has received almost none. This is epitomised by Richard
Holt’s seminal book Sport and the British: A Modern History published in 1989, which makes no
mention of basketball. In the introduction Holt does give an apology saying ‘Many enthusiasts will
complain that their favourite sport is either treated cursorily or not at all’ and then goes to list a
number of sports that are not covered. Basketball does not even make that list.9
In 2018 it is a sport
that is played in England by almost as many people as cricket and rugby, yet its lack of attention by
academics reflects that of the media more generally and is an important informing theme in this
dissertation.
9
Richard Holt, Sport and the British: A Modern History, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 10.

12
As previously mentioned Joseph Maguire stands out as one of very few who has published
research into English basketball history. In his analysis, Maguire identified the extent to which
increasing finance available to clubs through commercial sponsorship in the 1970s and 1980s, was
invested in more expensive imported players to improve the strength of teams rather than being
invested elsewhere. This left clubs financially exposed. Furthermore he demonstrated that this also
reduced the opportunities for local players to develop, which had negative implications for the
national team and brought the clubs into conflict with the National Governing Body.10
Maguire later
moved on to a related theme, co-authoring with Mark Falcous a study of the impact of the expansion
of the North American, National Basketball Association (NBA), on English basketball.11
The growing
visibility of the NBA in Britain, through television and an annual game in London, showcases the best
the sport has to offer, attracts additional public interest which should have benefits for the local
professional league, the BBL.
Beyond Maguire and Falcous, published work about English basketball is limited to personal
stories from those involved in the sport. One of these is a review of basketball’s origins and
development written by James Naismith, the inventor of basketball, and published in 1941, the fiftieth
anniversary of his invention. Although the book is a largely anecdotal account, it does contain some
clues about England’s early basketball history. Whilst there is evidence of basketball first being
played in England in 1892, Naismith noted that ‘England has shown little enthusiasm for the game’,
adding that American servicemen who went to play basketball in the British sector in France after
World War I ‘found that the British did not play the game because it had been introduced into
England as a girls’ game’.12
This provides important context for the state of English basketball by
1972. It could be argued that basketball in England had not caught up from its slow start and the
competition from longer established sports such as football, cricket and rugby. Tony Collins suggests
that the reason soccer struggled to take off in former British colonies such as the USA, Australia and
New Zealand is that by the end of the nineteenth century other football codes had emerged and won
mass spectator appeal before soccer was seriously established.13
The same could be true for basketball
in England.
On a related theme Andrei Markovits and Steven Hellerman have written about the challenges
of trying to develop a sport in an established sporting market place in their analysis of the history of
10
Joseph Maguire, pp. 226-254.
11
Mark Falcous and Joseph Maguire, Making it local? National Basketball Association Expansion and English
Basketball Subcultures, in Sport and Corporate Nationalisms ed. By Michael L. Silk, and others (Oxford, Berg
publisher, 2005) pp.13-35
12
Naismith, pp. 140 and 152.
13
Tony Collins, Sport in Capitalist Society, (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013), p. 78.

13
soccer in the USA.14
Two key points relative to English basketball’s story emerge from their review.
Firstly, at the grass roots level each needed to find its niche. In soccer in the US this was generally in
white middle-class groups, but most significantly with women, to the extent that for over twenty years
the USA has been the dominant nation in women’s football. Secondly, despite numerous failed
attempts at creating a national soccer league, there is no shortage of entrepreneurs or major
corporations willing to invest. The implication is that these are not just vanity projects, but reflect a
strong belief that despite a crowded sporting market place, soccer at the elite level in the USA will
prove to be a good investment. By contrast the fact that the British Basketball League and its clubs
have struggled to attract significant investment for the last twenty years raises important questions
about the potential of elite level English basketball to generate financial returns.
In the period under review there have been a number of books about English basketball
written by people in the sport. Of these, the most relevant to this analysis is A Sporting Rollercoaster:
The history of the Solent Stars Basketball Club, written by Jim Rumsey, a long serving basketball
administrator of both the Solent Stars and English basketball more widely. Covering the history of the
club from its formation in 1980, in the foreword Rumsey captures a view that is common within
basketball and central to the question this dissertation is addressing: ‘Basketball is one of the world’s
major sports and, yet, in England the game has only minority status. As such, the public’s awareness
of the basketball teams, coaches, players and administrators is limited.’15
Rumsey’s approach is
focused very much on players and results. However, the central story, a rapid rise on the back of
significant investment from a local businessman and an equally dramatic fall when he left, provides a
good insight into the financial fragility of a basketball club trying to establish itself.
There are also two other works that provide perspectives on different periods. In 1983, at a
time when the NBL was being shown regularly on television and rapidly gaining in profile, former
England captain Dan Lloyd published his Book of Basketball.16
This offers a picture of the game at a
time when it was on an upward trajectory and also provides some history of the NBL. Covering a later
period is The Cadle will Rock by Kevin Cadle, six-times English coach of the year in the 1980s and
1990s.17
It includes interviews with players from that era as well as Cadle’s perspective and whilst the
focus, like Dan Lloyd’s work, is very different to that of this dissertation its value is in its sense of
excitement and optimism within top-level English basketball during that period.
14
Andrei S. Markovits, & Steven L. Hellerman Offside: Soccer and American Exceptionalism, (Princeton NJ,
Princeton University Press. 2001), p. 41.
15
Jim Rumsey, A Sporting Rollercoaster: The history of the Solent Stars Basketball Club, (Great Britain:
Amazon, 2007) p. 9.
16
Dan Lloyd and Jon Culverhouse, Dan Lloyd’s book of Basketball, (London: Pelham Books, 1983)
17
Kevin Cadle and Paul New, The Cadle will Rock, (Great Britain: Amazon, 2007)

14
The development of the North American, National Basketball Association (NBA) provides a
yardstick against which to consider the history of the English NBL. David Surdam has researched the
economic history of the NBA, from its foundation in 1946 up to the early 1960s when in his view, the
league became safely established.18
Although there are some important differences to the story of the
NBL in England regarding the nature of the competition from other sports, and the commercial
characteristics of an earlier period, there is a more significant number of similarities in the challenges
faced in trying to develop an economically sustainable professional sports league. These include
franchises collapsing or moving to other cities, owners having to absorb years of losses before starting
to see a return, and the critical importance of television coverage, all issues faced later by clubs in the
English NBL.
There are many secondary sources that provide contextualisation for the development of sport
over the period in question. The place of sport in society and the nature and availability of funding are
also influenced by the wider social and economic environment. Amongst many who have written
about the recent history of Britain, Arthur Marwick is particularly informative, not least because his
analysis extends into the early years of the new millennium.19
Marwick identifies 1979 as a pivotal
year, marking the start of a pronounced shift from national consensus and public ownership toward
emphasising individualism and private enterprise. However, he balances the impact of the changes, by
recognising the extent to which libertarian developments of the Sixties had become rooted and limited
a return to more conservative values. This provides an insight into the cultural environment and
economic climate that influenced both the commercialism that impacted top level sport, and the
government approach to funding grass roots participation. By contrast, in his analysis of leisure and
culture, Jeffrey Hill argues that sport has become much more an influencer of cultural change than
vice versa, reflecting its growing status within our society.20
Martin Polley has focused on the inter-
relationship between sport and society, and does so through a number of lenses including class,
gender, and ethnicity. In so doing he provides a good analysis of the extent to which sport has
changed within contemporary British society.21
The scale of change in sport in the latter years of the twentieth century is a regular theme in
academic sports literature. Holt and Mason describe this as a transition from an amateur past to a free-
market future.22
Hill, Polley and Holt and Mason all identify commercialisation as a significant
influence in how sport has changed during the period. Holt and Mason argue that the media was the
driving force for that change, whereas Polley puts greater emphasis on direct commercial
18
David George Surdam, The Rise of the National Basketball Association, (Chicago: University of Illinois
Press, 2012)
19
Arthur Marwick, British Society since 1945 (London: Penguin, 2003)
20
Jeffrey Hill, Sport, Leisure and Culture in Twentieth-Century Britain, (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002)
21
Martin Polley, Moving the Goalposts, a history of sport and society since 1945 (Abingdon: Routledge, 1998)
22
Richard Holt and Tony Mason, Sport in Britain 1945-2000 (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 2000), p. ix.

15
considerations. He provides good examples of what that really means, such as using sports stadia
more frequently, and for other events than those for which they were originally intended. He also
examines the growth of sponsorship from the 1960s and provides examples of the consequences of
sponsors withdrawing.23
Jeffrey Hill makes some valuable comparisons between the rate of sport
commercialisation in different nations, noting that Britain was ahead of other European countries and
closer to the USA. He adds the tantalising comment that ‘few American sports succeed in penetrating
the British sporting culture,’ but makes no specific reference to basketball.24
Despite this omission
Hill’s observation resonates with Tony Collins observation quoted earlier about soccer struggling to
grow in countries where rugby was already established. Together these works provide good context
for the growing commercial opportunities during the period in which English basketball was trying to
develop, and the challenges of growing within a sporting market place dominated by other well-
established sports.
Collins has taken the position that commercial considerations have shaped organised sport
from its earliest foundations and also highlights the importance of the media, describing its
relationship with sport as symbiotic. He goes on to make an important link between the media and the
globalisation of sport, concluding that sports globalisation ‘was and remains primarily a media
phenomenon.’ However, his argument that amongst all sports ‘only soccer can claim to have truly
global participation and support’ can be challenged.25
With 213 affiliated countries and 450 million
players and spectators, basketball also has a strong claim to share that mantle. Its omission by Collins
is again indicative of the sport’s low profile in England.
David Rowe provides a more detailed and recent analysis of the relationship between sport
and the media, which he describes as an ‘extraordinarily dynamic linkage’, as he considers their
significance for contemporary society. Rowe demonstrates the significant impact sports and the media
can have on each other, both positively and negatively, with examples such as the growth of Sky and
the English Premier League, and the collapse of ITV Digital and its knock-on effect on football league
clubs.26
In a wide-ranging work considering many aspects of the importance of sport in modern
society, Ellis Cashmore reinforces the importance of television and sport in the recent past, describing
it as a marriage that was ‘made in heaven.’ However, he goes on to suggest that the relationship is
now changing with many sports finding television money harder to come by since the 2008 financial
downturn, and that ‘the possibility of a divorce looms,’ with increasing conflict between sport and the
media as the broadcasting industry evolves. Increasing numbers of channels, and the growing
importance of streaming as a method of viewing, are impacting the media’s ability to attract previous
23
Polley, pp. 63-85.
24
Hill, p. 40.
25
Collins, pp. vii, 53, 78 and 121.
26
David Rowe, Sport, Culture and the Media (Maidenhead: Open University Press, 2004), pp. 81-105.

16
levels of advertising revenue, which has reduced the amount they are prepared to bid for the rights to
broadcast sport.27
Cashmore’s analysis of the commercialisation of sport covers the evolution of the NBA since
the appointment of David Stern as commissioner in 1984. Cashmore describes how, under Stern’s
leadership the NBA actively marketed professional basketball as a commodity with symbolic values
attractive to a young urban audience. This included links to popular music and merchandise such as
replica shirts, caps and trainers.28
Bob Batchelor also provides analysis of the cultural aspects of
basketball, proposing that ‘No sport can match basketball’s wide-spread influence in shaping popular
culture. The game’s affinity with hip-hop and black culture plays a role.’29
By 2012 Sport England
reported that over a third of English basketball participants were from non-white backgrounds and this
provides one explanation for basketball’s increasingly popularity amongst ethnic communities in
England.30
The argument that in recent decades top-level sport has increasingly become a component of
the entertainment industry is taken on by Goldlust, who suggests it is eroding its historic relationship
with its traditional communal bases.31
Polley makes specific reference to English basketball in this
regard describing it as developing ‘from a minority school and university sport into an Americanised
spectacle in the 1970s and 1980s, and goes on to observe that ‘different sports have modernised at
different times.’32
For basketball, as a relatively young sport in England lacking traditional roots,
these observations prompt questions about the investment decisions made by club owners who have
had to consider the trade-off between investing money in either building those roots, or buying better
players to make the game more entertaining.
The development of a sport ranges from the elite performers, who draw the majority of public
and media attention, through to enthusiasts at the grass roots. It is at this latter end of the spectrum
that sports have become increasingly dependent on public funding and facilities. The most
authoritative study of this aspect of the financing of sport has been provided by Barrie Houlihan. His
work is much quoted by other writers, including Hill and Polley. Houlihan produced a thorough
analysis of the history of the subject up to 2000 in his collaboration with Anita White.33
He also wrote
the UK input for a 2011 work which compares approaches to supporting grass roots participation
27
Ellis Cashmore, Making sense of sports (Abingdon: Routledge, 2010), pp. 369 and 381.
28
Cashmore, p. 372.
29
Bob Batchelor, ed. Basketball in America: From the playgrounds to Jordan’s game and beyond,
(Binghampton, New York: The Haworth Press,2005) p. 5
30
Sport England, Sport and Ethnicity, 15 December 2017 <https://www.sportengland.org/media/3513/sports-
participation-and-ethnicity-in-england-headline-findings.pdf> [accessed 16/1/2018]
31
John Goldlust, Playing for keeps. Sport, the media and society, (Melbourne: Longman Cheshire Pty. Ltd.
1987)
32
Polley, p. 8.
33
Houlihan and White

17
across a range of countries.34
In both books a key message is the bifurcation of policy over time
between support for grass roots and elite performance, and how this has led to discontinuity and
confusion for sports providers in the UK. Houlihan’s analysis is echoed in a work by John Coghlan. In
his record of the development of government policy on sport up to 1990, Coghlan, a former Deputy
Director-General with the Sports Council, concluded that the two greatest threats that hung over
British sport were inadequate funding and the ever-increasing threat of governmental interference.35
Amongst other sources in this area Leigh Robinson focuses on how societal changes, primarily
consumerism, combined with an accompanying government philosophy, have driven the provision of
sport and leisure services by the public sector to become increasingly commercialised in Britain since
the 1980s.36
Collectively these sources provide context for the period from 1972 in which the increasing
commercialisation of sport, in both the private and public sector, was driven to a great extent by the
power of television. This influence has continued to grow as technology has evolved. It is within this
context that the development of English basketball will be explored.
34
Barrie Houlihan, ‘England’, in Participation in Sport: International policy perspectives, ed. Matthew
Nicholson, Russell Hoye and Barrie Houlihan, (Abingdon: Routledge, 2011), pp. 21-2.
35
John Coghlan with Ida M Webb, Sport and British politics since 1960 (London: The Falmer Press, 1990)
36
Leigh Robinson, Managing public sport and leisure services, (London: Routledge, 2004)

18
Chapter 1: Public Funding
Finance is essential to the running of sport, particularly professional sport. The governing
bodies of some sports have developed international competitions of global renown that provide a very
significant level of commercial funding. An example is the Lawn Tennis Association. In 2017, of its
total income of over £60 million, £33 million came from the Wimbledon Championships.37
However,
by contrast, in many sports in England the National Governing Body (NGB) is reliant on grants from
the public purse, rather than commercial funding or membership fees, for the majority of their
income. How much they receive is a key factor in determining the scope of their activity. Basketball is
one of those sports. In the financial year to March 31st
, 2017, Basketball England reported total
income of £3.6 million of which £2.7 million or 75% came from government grants.38
This chapter considers how the development of English basketball has been impacted by
government policy and financial support for sport. It will show that there is strong evidence over a
sustained period that the development of basketball has been limited by financial constraints. This has
manifested itself in insufficient affordable facilities at the grass roots, and poor results from English
and British international teams at the elite level, because lack of finance meant players were
unavailable or inadequately prepared.
The primary focus of the chapter is on the actions of central government and its primary
agency for sport, the Sports Council. Although local authorities play a very important role in the
provision of sport and leisure facilities and have significant budgets, it is at the national level that
direct influence on individual sports has the greatest impact. National factors, both economic and
social, set an overall context for policy. The Sports Council, initially as one body, now split between
UK Sport and Sport England, interfaces directly with the NGBs of sports, such as Basketball England.
It provides finance and in return requires particular behaviours and activities that impact the sport
across the country.
The history of central government involvement in the funding of sport is relatively recent.
The roots can be traced back to the introduction of welfare state legislation in the 1940s, as
government became much more directly involved in the health of the nation.39
Since that time
although public policy has evolved, policy decisions have been dominated by three key themes:
37
LTA Finance and Governance Report for the Year ended 31st December 2017
<https://www.lta.org.uk/globalassets/about-lta/annual-reports/finance--governance-report-2017.pdf> [accessed
30/6/2018] p. 16.
38
Basketball England Annual Report and Accounts for the year ended 31 March 2017, p. 16.
39
Houlihan and White, p. 9.

19
improving the nation’s physical health; addressing specific social problems and increasing national
prestige.
One particular consequence of the relationship between these three themes is how to reconcile
the objectives of increasing grass roots sporting activity, and achieving success in international
competition. This challenge is particularly relevant to basketball. It is an attractive investment
opportunity for increasing participation because of its popularity particularly with young people, but
the opportunities for success at international level are much lower than for many sports. Basketball is
a team sport and team sports have far fewer competitions and prizes at global level than individual
sports. For example, in the 2016 Olympic games there were just two gold medals available for
basketball, one each for men and women. By comparison in swimming there were 35 gold medals, 29
of which were for individual events.40
In addition basketball is a very competitive sport
internationally. The governing body FIBA has 213 affiliated national associations.
The reasons for government policy and investment in sport began to emerge in the 1950s as
post-war economic regeneration led to an increase in affluence and leisure time. This manifested itself
in a number of ways, including increasing violence amongst adolescents and the growth and
popularity of television, which led to reduced levels of exercise.41
After the introduction of social
welfare legislation in the previous decade, the idea of actively promoting physical activities and sport
were recognised as a next step in government policy on the nation’s health and well-being.42
Meanwhile, around the same time, the government also began to recognise that sport was being
increasingly used by other nations as an element of foreign policy, whilst there was a perceived
decline in Britain’s international sporting performance.43
These examples show the early importance
of health and social issues to promote increased participation, whilst national prestige was a reason to
focus on achieving elite success.
In 1957 there was an inquiry into the general condition of sport in Britain, sponsored by the
Central Council of Physical Recreation (CCPR) and led by Lord Wolfenden. Amongst its conclusions
the report recommended that parliament and local authorities should provide the funds necessary to
sustain governing bodies of sport.44
In the view of Holt and Mason this did much ‘to persuade both
politicians and sportsmen and women that there ought to be an enhanced role in sport for the public
sector’. Progress however was slow. The inquiry led to the set-up of an advisory body in 1965, whose
40
Olympic Games Rio 2016 Swimming, olympic.org <https://www.olympic.org/rio-2016/swimming> [accessed
1/7/2018]
41
Hill, p. 155.
42
Holt and Mason, p. 149.
43
Hill, p. 163.
44
Hill, p. 156.

20
status was then elevated to a government agency with executive powers as the Sports Council in
1972.45
The Wolfenden Committee had concluded that there was a high demand for sport that could
not be met because of a lack of suitable and available facilities. The first priority for the Sports
Council was to address this issue. There were only 239 large (over 4000 feet) sports halls in the
country and most were in schools and colleges.46
The Sports Council set a target to build 815 sport
centres suitable for a wide range of sports. The target was based on providing approximately 1 centre
per 900,000 people. By 1981, 461 sports centres had been built and the original target was increased.47
By the end of the 1980s, 1200 centres had been completed, transforming the opportunities to play
sports, particularly indoor sports like basketball.48
In 1972 The Sports Council published a campaign document entitled ‘Sport for All’ which
outlined its objectives. These included ‘the encouragement of governing bodies of sport to get people
to take part in sport at all levels.’49
Houlihan is of the view that the Sports Council had identified
NGBs of sport, rather than schools or local authorities, as its primary partners from very early on. One
indicator of this is that it had been granting money to NGBs to help their organisational running costs
since its inception as an advisory body in 1965. As the Sports Council gained the confidence of
NGBs, it also started to try to influence what were described as ‘the evident administrative
weaknesses of most.’50
In addition to improving participation, the Sports Council also acted to
improve international performance and this included an understanding that an increasing proportion of
funds granted to NGBs would go to the best performers.’51
The activities of the Sports Council in the 1970s impacted English basketball in a variety of
ways. The most direct was the provision of grants to the NGB itself. In 1972, although Sports Council
grants were only £7,475 this did account for 31% of the English Basket Ball Association’s (EBBA)
income. By 1980 the level of direct grants had grown to £78,877, 37% of the total. Of that grant
£57,498 was specifically earmarked for administration. This enabled the EBBA to increase its paid
staff from just two and a part time administrator in 1972 to 9 by 1980.52
There was also a marked
increase in the number of people playing the game over this period. Member registrations grew from
9,247 to 16,856, between 1970 and 1980, an increase of 82%.53
The increasing popularity of the
45
Holt and Mason, pp. 48-150.
46
Sports Council (1981). Sport for All. London Sports Council GB, p. 14.
47
Sports Council (1981). Sport for All. London Sports Council GB, pp. 54-57.
48
Hill, p. 173.
49
Sports Council (1981). Sport for All. London Sports Council GB, p. 14.
50
51
52
English Basket Ball Association Annual Report 1979-80, p. 17
53
Appendix 1, English Basketball registration numbers

21
professional league had increased the sport’s exposure, but it is reasonable to consider that the
addition of over 400 sports centres was an essential contributor in providing many of these people
with a court to play on.
Whilst the early 1970s had provided a platform for growth, in the 1980s there was a
significant change in the government approach to sport. The catalyst was a decline in the national
economy that came to a head in 1976. Facing an economic crisis, the Labour government accepted a
loan of $3.0 billion from the International Monetary Fund, a requirement of which was £2.5 billion of
cuts in public expenditure in the next two years.54
In 1979 the Labour government was replaced by a
Conservative administration that, in addition to needing to continue austerity measures, was also
philosophically committed to the financing of public services through the private sector rather than
public funding.55
The EBBA Annual Report for 1980-81 provides one example of the Association’s
concern about the effect this was having. Chairman Ken Charles noted that ‘the financial climate is
making development of our sport very difficult and the steady increase in the number of registered
players, which we have come to expect has not happened this season. The enormous increases in the
charges levied by local authorities for facilities seems to be the major reason.’56
The combination of a struggling economy and government actions had consequences within
society as a whole, which had knock-on implications for sport. In 1981 there were inner-city riots,
most notably in Brixton and Toxteth, and government minister Michael Heseltine emphasised the
provision of sport as a necessary ingredient in any attempt to raise the quality of life in depressed
areas.57
The Sports Council began to take an increasingly targeted and interventionist approach with
one particular priority being to increase participation by those young people who, in the words of the
Sports Council, ‘would otherwise be attracted to delinquency and vandalism.58
There were new
programmes such as Action Sport, in which the Sports Council provided funding of £1million a year
from 1982 to 1985 across 15 local authorities in Birmingham and London. By 1987 there were some
300 sports leaders/motivators employed by local government.59
Whilst these initiatives helped to
promote sports participation, other actions during the period did not. Industrial action by school
teachers in 1984-85, followed by educational reforms, resulted in a significant reduction in extra-
curricular sport. The Headmasters Association claimed that research showed a decline of over 70% in
the number of school sports fixtures on weekday evenings and Saturday mornings between 1987 and
1994.60
Basketball’s view of the impact of this activity is captured by a comment in its Annual Report
54
Kenneth O. Morgan, Britain since 1945, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 383-4.
55
Houlihan and White, pp. 30 & 47.
56
English Basket Ball Association Annual Report 1980-81, p. 2.
57
58
59
60

22
for 1988: ‘We are now seeing many encouraging signs of increased participation, to redress the
temporary decline largely attributable to industrial action in the teaching profession.’61
In the 1970s the number of people registered with the EBBA rose by 82%. However, in the
1980s it only grew by another 7% to 18,099.62
This can be seen as surprising as it was during a decade
when the English top-level league - the NBL - had significantly increased its public profile with more
teams, more spectators and regular live television coverage on Channel 4. The EBBA annual reports
through the decade try and accentuate the positives as in the 1988 example above, but a 7% increase
overall was disappointing. It seems likely that the reduction in school sports activities following the
teachers dispute and the increased cost of facilities were important contributors.
By 1990 although the pressure to reduce spending on public services continued government
support for sport increased following the appointment as Prime Minister of John Major. The two most
tangible outcomes of the change in the government attitude to sport under Major’s administration
were the introduction of the National Lottery in 1994, which the government estimated would provide
sport with additional funding of £300 million a year, and the publication in 1995 of a policy paper,
Sport: Raising the Game. Although these provided sport with a significant boost, it was by no means
all sports and all levels of participants. Sport: Raising the Game focused on two specific areas: school
sport and elite sport. It was followed in 1996 by a restructuring of the Sports Council which reflected
the growing emphasis on elite sport. UK Sport, a body with specific responsibility for excellence at
national level, was set up as a separate entity from the four individual home country sports councils,
whose brief was from entry level upwards.63
There was now a clear split in the approach toward
supporting high performance sport and all other levels of participation.
In addition to increasing the differentiation between levels of participation, the government’s
approach also differentiated between sports. In the preface to Sport: Raising the Game John Major
wrote that he was ‘determined to see that our great traditional sports – cricket, hockey, swimming,
athletics, football, netball, rugby, tennis – are put firmly at the centre of the stage.’64
An initial
requirement for National Lottery grants was the need to provide 35% of matched funding from other
sources. Although designed to ensure there was community commitment to projects, it created a bias
toward those sports that already had wealthier participants able to achieve the self-funding target
required. This bias was reflected in where the money went. Although a change was made later to
allow a matched funding requirement of just 10% for certain priority areas, analysis of the grants for
1998/99 shows that 30% went to just 5 sports - tennis, cricket, sailing, hockey, rugby union – all of
them predominantly middle-class and four of them on John Major’s list of great traditional sports.
61
62
63
Houlihan and White, pp. 66-72.
64

23
Houlihan and White note that sailing received ‘only slightly less than bowls and basketball, both of
which attract more participants and which are far more socially inclusive’.65
Despite the English
Sports Council continuing to run programmes designed to focus funding on areas of low participation
and social exclusion, the overall results for participation were disappointing 66
In 1996 the General
Household Survey (GHS), a routine government survey of the activities of the population, showed
that participation in sport across all age groups had begun to level off at the start of the 1990s and
amongst those aged 16 to 19 it had actually declined from 61% in 1993 to 56% in 1996.67
For basketball, the growth of only 7% in the number of registered members in the 1980s, was
followed by an even worse figure in the 1990s: the total number declined by some 866 to just 17,233,
a reduction of 5%. These results are not out of line with the overall participation trend in the GHS,
and cost of facilities is likely to have been an inhibitor for many sports. However, it could be argued
that basketball had the potential to expect more and these results reflect poorly on the EBBA.
Basketball was still a relatively young sport in England compared to many and was receiving
increased media exposure through television and newspaper coverage of both the British Basketball
League (the NBL had been renamed in 1987), and the NBA. One possible contributor to the result
may have been the level of funding. Despite the introduction of the National Lottery in 1994, the
EBBA had seen a significant decline in the rate of growth in its level of Sports Council grant.
Between 1970 and 1980, the annual grant level had risen by an average of 30% a year and between
1980 and 1990 by 12% a year. From 1990 to 2000, the level of increase fell to an average of just 6% a
year, rising from £251,000 to £446,000 over the decade. This is a period when public funding of sport
was increasing with the introduction of the National Lottery in 1994. It is a first indicator that
basketball was beginning to lose out to other sports in public funding.
In 1997 the Labour party replaced the Conservatives in government. The dominant theme of
the new administration’s approach to sport policy was continuity in prioritising schools or youth
participation, and elite sport. This included a commitment to set up 200 specialist sports colleges at
comprehensive schools by 2004, and the creation of a United Kingdom Sports Institute (UKSI) for the
preparation and training of elite performers.68
In 2008 the DCMS published Playing to win: A new era
for sport. This policy document stated that the rationale for investment in community sport was to aid
identification and development of talent, thereby reinforcing the focus on elite sport at the expense of
mass participation.
The provision of facilities was highlighted earlier as a particularly important enabler for mass
participation in sport. It was the first priority for the Sports Councils in 1972 and by the end of the
65
Houlihan and White, pp. 73 and 97.
66
67
Houlihan and White, pp. 102.
68

24
1980s, 1200 new sports centres had been built. However, restrictions on local authority budgets,
brought about by economic pressures, impacted the cost of facility hiring. As an indoor sport,
availability and cost of facilities has always been a significant issue for basketball. In 2010, in an
independent national study, 40% of basketball clubs reported having great difficulty with availability
of facilities. EB Chief Executive Keith Mair commented: ‘Throughout the world, basketball is
characterised as being an inexpensive and easy-to-access sport; unfortunately, this continues not to be
the case here in England.’69
Whilst government policy is at the heart of the influence of public bodies on sport, changes in
processes and practices can have as much, if not more, actual impact. This had been true since the
early days of the Sports Council but became increasingly relevant for basketball in the new
millennium. The Sports Council’s relationship with the NGBs of sports had always been central to its
approach. Amongst the earliest stated Sports Council priorities was the need to overcome the evident
administrative weaknesses of most NGBs.70
As time passed the Sports Council grew in experience,
resources and technological capability, enabling it to carry out this role with increasing sophistication.
The impact of this can be seen in three areas: contracting with NGBs; influence over governance and
measurement of participation.
It is unclear exactly what the Sports Council required from NGBs in return for grants in the
1970s. Requirements were certainly less formal in the early days. Mel Welch joined the EBBA in
1969 as one of only 3 employees. By the mid-1970s he was National Administrator and later became
Secretary, the title used to describe the EBBA’s senior executive position.71
Remaining in this role
until he left the Association in 1991, he provides interesting insights into the period. When asked
about the basis on which money was received from the Sports Council in the 1970s and 1980s Welch
describes things as working ‘very, very well because we as individuals (Keith Mitchell, the EBBA
President, and himself) were very well known in Sports Council and CCPR circles.’72
Over time a
process that seems to have been based largely on trust and personal relationships was made more
objective and rigorous. In 2003 Sport England introduced the concept of ‘Whole of Sport’ plans.
Under this process there was an agreement for funding set over a four-year period against which the
sport would have to meet measurable objectives around participation and performance.73
In addition to the setting of specific targets, the Sports Council increasingly required NGBs to
demonstrate good standards of governance as a basic requirement for receiving grants. In 2006,
following the resignation of three EB directors, Sport England suspended basketball’s funding
69
70
71
English Basket Ball Association Annual Report 1987-88, p. 11
72
Appendix 8, Interview with Mel Welch
73

25
pending a review of governance structures.74
That review under the leadership of Tony Mallin
published a report, The Mallin Basketball Review, in July 2007. Despite numerous criticisms of the
leadership of basketball, it also put forward a powerful argument for increasing funding:
more can be achieved through investing in the development of basketball than any
other team sport in England both in terms of elite performance and wider participation.
This is based on the scale of improvements possible compared with European peers, the
impact on a range of social factors, health benefits and the time required to achieve
improvement - relative to any other sport.75
In the analysis of barriers to success, the report noted the lack of affordable facilities and support for
elite players to enable the national team to perform to its potential. The report was endorsed by the
heads of both UK Sport and Sport England.76
The greater rigour that Sport England progressively brought to both the contracting process
and the governance requirements of NGBs is underpinned by improved measurement of participation
in sport. For many years the Sports Council had no measurement system of its own for sports
participation and the principal measure for sports like basketball was the number of members
registered with the NGB. For basketball that was a good indicator of the number of adults playing in
organised competition, but there was a recognition that there were many who played outside the
organised structure and who did not register with the EBBA. There was a fee to become a member
and players could play informally without joining and saw no benefit in doing so.
One particular development, the Outdoor Basketball Initiative (OBI), demonstrates both the
value that National Lottery funding has brought to the growth of basketball and how much
participation happened outside the formal system. The OBI project ran from 1995 to 2005 and its
objective was to install 10,000 basketball goals outdoors. It was funded by a Lottery grant of £10
million, £10 million of matched funding, mainly from local authorities, and £1million sponsorship
from Adidas. The goals were installed in over 4,000 separate venues, and a report on the project
estimated that there was an average of 317,000 separate visits made to OBI sites every week, all free
of charge.77
This initiative provided a significant boost to basketball participation, but it was informal
and likely that many of those playing would not have been registered. Just how many were regularly
playing basketball outside the formal system finally came to light with the introduction of the Active
People Survey in 2006.
74
75
The Mallin Basketball Review – 2007 British Basketball Government Review
<https://www.slideshare.net/Hoopsfix/the-mallin-report-2007-british-basketball-government-review> [accessed
13/4/2018] p. 9.
76
The Mallin Basketball Review, pp. 3-4, 17.
77
Appendix 10, Report on Outdoor Basketball Initiative

26
The Active People Survey was Sport England’s own survey of adult participation. The data
collected included age, gender, ethnicity, socio-economic group and geography as well as which
sports people played. Over 350,000 adults were interviewed and the results were extrapolated to
provide a picture of the total level of sport played across the country.78
The first survey published in
2006 reported that 275,000 adults played basketball at least once a month.79
By contrast, the number
of registered members of England Basketball (the NGB having changed its name) in 2006 was just
20,754. These figures demonstrate that some 92% of people regularly playing basketball were not
registered.80
As Sport England continued to focus on mass participation levels, the results of the
Active People Survey replaced member registration as the key indicator used in the contracting
process with Basketball England.81
Since its introduction, the Active People Survey has demonstrated a lot more about basketball
beyond the headline result that considerably more people were playing than were registered. It also
highlighted who plays basketball and how its popularity compares with other sports. The results have
consistently shown that the number of adults playing basketball was close to the number that played
rugby union and cricket, both much more established and higher profile sports. Only football was
played by significantly more people.82
The Survey has also highlighted basketball’s particular
popularity amongst ethnic minorities. By 2012 Sport England reported that over a third of basketball
participants were from non-white backgrounds.83
The data on the number of people playing basketball demonstrates the interest in the sport. In
understanding the sport’s potential it is important to consider what drove this interest. International
success is often a factor in helping a sport gain public attention. England men did win a bronze medal
in the 2006 Commonwealth games, but that is one isolated success. A more likely explanation is the
influence of basketball from the United States. Following the appointment of David Stern as
commissioner of the NBA in 1984, the League began to market itself around the globe increasing
basketball’s exposure. Initially the NBA provided coverage of its games to international broadcasters,
with Channel 4 an early adopter. Progressively the sport was actively marketed as a commodity,
arguably the first sport to do so. The focus was young urban communities through the use of clothing
like caps and replica shirts and a link to hip-hop music.84
Over time the nature of the television
coverage was changed to reflect this. New programmes like NBA Raw were designed to be different
and appeal to the young by interspersing highlights from matches with features and interviews with
78
Houlihan, pp. 13-15.
79
80
81
82
Appendix 2, Results from Active People Survey
83
Sport England, Sport and Ethnicity, 15 December 2017 <https://www.sportengland.org/media/3513/sports-
participation-and-ethnicity-in-england-headline-findings.pdf> [accessed 16/1/2018]
84
Cashmore, p. 372.

27
iconic players. It was all presented with a rap music backing. The NBA supported this with related
magazines such as XXL Basketball.85
The NBA also started to organise games to be played outside the
US. Initially it was pre-season friendlies and then it became league games. Since 2011 an NBA game
at the 20,000 seat O2 arena in London has become an annual event. Its popularity is beyond doubt. In
2018 the tickets sold out in just fifty-two minutes.86
In the case of English basketball whilst the NBA was focusing on promoting basketball to
multi-cultural urban communities, the relative size of those communities has also grown further
adding to the level of demand to play basketball. Data from the national census shows that between
1981 and 2011 the non-white population increased in London from 15% to 40%, in Birmingham from
10% to 42% and in Manchester from 7% to 33%.87
Identification of the attraction of basketball amongst Government target groups such as ethnic
minorities, has drawn greater media attention and equipped basketball supporters with ammunition to
push the case for greater public funding. In 2008 a group of MPs set up an All-Party Parliamentary
Group (APPG) on Basketball to lobby for increased funding. The group held an inquiry into ‘the
ability of basketball to make a difference to the social challenges affecting young people, particularly
in the UKs inner cities.’88
In addition to evidence on participation, funding, cost and lack of facilities,
the report also included a section on return on investment. Various groups have attempted to quantify
the savings in reduced crime and anti-social behaviour, and the benefits of increased health and
educational attainment, attributable for each £1 invested in enabling people to play basketball. The
conclusions vary but are indicative and powerful, ranging from returns of 4:1 to 8.6:1.89
The case for
increasing funding to basketball was then added to by an APPG sponsored parliamentary debate in
2013 in which the apparent inequity in funding between sports was highlighted. Stephen Mosley MP
noted that whilst basketball was receiving £12 a year for each person that played the sport, other team
sports were receiving considerably more: hockey £28, netball £39 and rugby league £86.90
A lack of public funding is arguably compounded by a knock-on impact on the potential to
attract investment from the private sector. Alex Sobel MP, the chairman of the All-Party
Parliamentary Group on basketball commented: ‘We are scrabbling for money for this year and there
85
Falcous and Maguire, p. 18.
86
Tim Wigmore, Britain could become basketball’s latest global outpost, The Economist 16 January 2018
<https://www.economist.com/blogs/gametheory/2018/01/anglais-oop-2> [accessed 16/1/2018]
87
Appendix 3, Ethnicity analysis from National Census
88
Basketball All-Party Parliamentary Group, Inquiry Report
<http://www.appgbasketball.org.uk/resources/APPGInquiryFinalReport.pdf> [accessed 1/3/2018]
89
Basketball All-Party Parliamentary Group Inquiry Report
<http://www.appgbasketball.org.uk/resources/APPGInquiryFinalReport.pdf> [accessed 1/3/2018] pp. 16-17.
90
Basketball Funding, House of Commons, Hansard, 28 January 2013, Volume 557, Column 745

28
might not be money next year. If you were a large car company or drinks company or whatever, it
wouldn’t fill you with confidence to co-invest and become a commercial sponsor, would it?91
Subsequently, Sport England has begun to publicly acknowledge basketball’s issues and
potential. In 2017 it announced a £4.73 million grant to basketball to address the ‘challenges of
finding good quality outdoor court or affordable indoor facility.’ They gave as their reasoning that
‘Basketball is one of the largest team sports in England, and Basketball England has based its plans on
its strong appeal to young people, people on lower incomes and people from black, Asian and
minority ethnic communities.’92
Much of the focus of this chapter has been on the relevance of public funding to the
development of grass roots basketball. However, public funding has also had an impact at
international level. The most powerful evidence of the impact funding at elite level can have comes in
the events before and after the British men’s and women’s teams competed in the 2012 London
Olympics. Historically, the UK’s home nations have competed separately in international basketball
competition and since 1993 FIBA have determined Olympic qualification with a ranking system
based on performance in its international competitions, thus excluding GB from the Olympics. In
2007, prompted by an interest in enabling Great Britain to play in the 2012 Olympic basketball
tournament discussions took place between the British Olympic committee, FIBA, and the English,
Welsh and Scottish basketball associations. FIBA agreed to the three countries switching to compete
as GB and being given a chance to qualify for the Olympics, so long as this arrangement became
permanent.93
UK Sport provided £12.3 million over the five year period leading up to the London
2012 games and set up British Performance Basketball, a company whose sole responsibility was to
develop British men’s and women’s basketball teams capable of competing in the Olympics.94
The
funding enabled the GB teams to train far more frequently and to call on their best players, such as
NBA star Luol Deng (Basketball England had previously been unable to afford the insurance cost
associated with him playing for his country).95
In this period both men and women’s teams improved
their world rankings from above 75, to being among the world’s top 25 nations. The men reached the
European Championship finals in 2009 and qualified again in 2010 where they were joined by the
91
Appendix 6, Alex Sobel interview
92
Sport England, Further Funding to keep Nation Active, 6 February 2017
<https://www.sportengland.org/news-and-features/news/2017/february/06/further-funding-to-keep-nation-
active/> [accessed 20/2/2018]
93
About Sport England, Further Funding to keep Nation Active, 6 February 2017
<https://www.sportengland.org/news-and-features/news/2017/february/06/further-funding-to-keep-nation-
active/> [accessed 20/2/2018]
94 UK Sport, Historical Funding Figures <http://www.uksport.gov.uk/our-work/investing-in-sport/historical-
funding-figures> [accessed 15/5/2018]
95 Jamie Jackson, ‘Basketball on the brink’, Observer, 31 August 2008, p. 12.

29
women.96
These results helped both teams to qualify for the London Olympics. The performance goal
set by UK Sport for the Olympics was for both teams to reach the quarter finals. GB Men came within
a basket of achieving the target, losing 79-78 to Spain, the eventual silver medallists. GB Women also
failed to reach the quarter finals losing 3 games each by less than 8 points. In the post-Olympic review
UK Sport identified basketball as one of the sports with insufficient medal potential for 2016 and all
funding was withdrawn. Since the cut in funding, results have declined with player performance once
again hampered by lack of preparation and challenging conditions.97
Neither team qualified for the
2016 Olympic games. When the withdrawal of funding was confirmed in 2014, after appeal, British
Basketball Federation (BBF) Chairman Roger Moreland commented: ‘The system is not like a tap. To
work effectively, it cannot be turned on and off and still produce players and coaches to succeed in
future Olympic Games or World Championships.’98
It is now forty-six years since the Sports Council was first established in 1972. In summary,
since then there has been significant evolution in government policy towards sport and the approach
to funding. For a sport like basketball, which lacks the media attention that can help attract high levels
of sponsorship, it is the level of public funding that determines the scope of its activities. It is telling
that in the 2017 accounts, BE reported that their total income was still only £3.6 million and of that
75% came from Sport England.99
96
UK Sport Award Zero Funding to British Basketball, British Basketball Federation Website – download
document
97
Tom Sheen, Team GB funding cuts are killing British basketball, Independent, 20 February 2016
98 British Basketball, UK Sport Award Zero Funding to British Basketball, 4 February 2014
<http://www.gbbasketball.com/news/3260.php#.WsYJZYjOXIU> [accessed 15/5/2018]
99 Annual Report and Accounts for the year ended 31 March 2017, p. 16.

30
Chapter 2: Commercial Funding and Media Exposure
Following an exploration of the effect of public funding on the development of English
basketball, this chapter will examine the influence of commercial finance. This encompasses the
income generated from spectators, sponsorship, selling broadcasting rights to the media and funding
from owners. Whilst most of the public funding that has come into basketball has been aimed at
increasing participation at the grass roots level, commercial funding and media attention were
attracted more by the sports elite performers. The primary focus therefore is on the top level of
basketball in England. Launched as the National Basketball League (NBL) in 1972 it became the
British Basketball League (BBL) in 1987. This chapter will show that in the arena of commercial
finance the development of English basketball has been dominated by two major themes: its
relationship with television and its approach to investing the money that commercial sponsorship
provided
Television provides sport with wider exposure and in so doing it is an enabler for commercial
investment. A higher level of investment can lead to an improved quality product, which in turn can
help to create greater media attention and attract more viewers. As a result, over time television
broadcasting rights have become an increasingly important source of income to sport. Collins has
described this relationship between modern sport and the media as symbiotic.100
Over the period
covered by this the public access to sport through visual media this changed significantly with
profound implications for basketball as well as sport generally. In 1972, there were only three
television channels in England, and the relationships between sport, television and commercial
sponsorship were in their infancy, but growing rapidly. Twenty years later deregulation and
technological innovation meant that hundreds of channels were available via cable and satellite and
sport could be televised live, cost effectively and with high quality from around the globe. Another
twenty years passed and visual access to live sport is increasingly not television at all, but online
streaming. This evolution of technology has had significant implications for the presentation and
sponsorship of sport. More channels and platforms have broadened opportunity, whilst a globalised
market place has increased competition.
The Amateur Basketball Association (ABBA), as the English basketball national governing
body was then called, first attempted to set up a national league in 1960. It faced numerous problems
including sports halls that were not designed to include spectators, and a lack of interest from teams in
London, arguably the country’s strongest area and collapsed within two years.101
By 1972, the ABBA
decided that the sport was ready for another attempt. By then new sports centres were being built
100
Collins, p. vii.
101
Lloyd and Culverhouse, p. 30.

31
which provided spectator facilities. In addition, the ABBA had £5,000 funding available from a
bequest from James Clay, a former Chairman, which it was able to use to attract teams to take part.102
The National Basketball League (NBL) was launched with an initial membership of six teams, two
from London - Avenue and Sutton - one each from Liverpool, Sheffield and Loughborough and the
RAF.
Although it started with some commercial intent, in most respects the set-up of the new
league was characterised much more by an ‘amateur’ rather than a ‘professional’ outlook. Of the six
original teams, one was associated with a voluntary organisation and another with a branch of the
armed services. With the exception of the RAF, none of the clubs owned their own facilities so they
all had to hire courts. The teams had little or no sponsorship, and only made use of overseas players
when they happened to be living in the local community.103
The NBL was launched at a time when commercial sponsorship of sport was rapidly
increasing. A 1976 study put the total value of sponsorship of sport in Britain at £16 million. By 1981
that figure had reportedly risen to at least £40 million.104
This was almost certainly driven by
coverage of sport on television which had grown considerably over the previous decade. By the end of
the 1970s around 12% of the air time on BBC was taken up by sports programming, with ITV only
slightly less. The top sports for sponsorship at that time were motor racing and horse racing.105
Popular among members of British society who were wealthier and more likely to have an influence
over where money was spent, both featured prominently on television.
The NBL soon began to commercialise. Initial sponsorship came from local companies but
they were quickly supplemented or replaced by national or transnational corporations. In just the
second season of the league, the tobacco company WD & HO Wills became sponsors of Liverpool,
who were re-named Bruno Roughcutters after one of the company’s products. Cigarette advertising
had been banned on television in Britain in 1965 and tobacco companies saw sports sponsorship as a
good alternative.106
Other international companies including Fiat, Talbot Cars, Cinzano, and Nissan
all sponsored teams107
.
The NBL was under the management of basketball’s national governing body which in 1974
re-named itself the English Basketball Association (EBBA). In 1973 they attracted the league’s first
major sponsor, Clarks Men’s Shoes. The Association’s annual report for 1973/74 shows income from
102
Appendix 8, Mel Welch interview
103
Maguire, p. 235.
104
Marwick, p. 267.
105
Holt and Mason pp. 98 and 104.
106
Politics.co.uk, Tobacco Advertising, no date <http://www.politics.co.uk/reference/tobacco-advertising>
[accessed 16/07/2018]
107
Maguire, p. 237.

32
sponsorship that season of £6,530 compared with zero the previous year.108
It is likely that was the
payment from Clarks. The income from sponsors was increasingly used to attract better players,
particularly from the USA. Better players made for a better game. This attracted more spectators
which in turn further improved sponsorship opportunities and drove the growth of the league. In 1975
a second men’s division and a women’s division were launched. By 1984 the national structure
comprised 47 teams across four divisions.109
During the league’s first decade it received very limited television coverage – just 40 minutes
in the 1976/77 season for example - and that was pre-recorded rather than broadcast live.110
Given the
lack of television coverage it is interesting to consider the reasons why major companies such as those
previously mentioned chose to invest in basketball. There are several possible explanations. The
sports sponsorship industry in Britain was still young and basketball may have offered some
attractions compared to some more established sports. Unlike other sports, most notably professional
football, basketball was prepared to accept shirt advertising and to incorporate sponsors names into
the team name. In addition to the aforementioned Bruno Roughcutters, they included Ovaltine Hemel
Hempstead and Avon Cosmetics Northampton in the Women’s first division. There may also have
been a belief in the potential of basketball to grow and attract television interest and that basketball
sponsorship was a relatively low-cost option. Whatever the reasons, the situation changed when the
NBL gained its first contract for live coverage of league games with Channel 4 in 1982. The new
broadcaster had a specific brief to broadcast minority sports and agreed to show live games on a
Monday.111
Audiences reached 1 million, giving the sport a significant boost in its visibility with the
wider sporting public and a great deal more commercial appeal.112
The EBBA annual accounts for
1984 show that sponsorship income had increased from £11,500 to over £37,000.113
It is likely if the
EBBA were able to negotiate a significant increase in sponsorship then so too were the clubs. To help
improve the appeal of sponsorship the EBBA, in conjunction with the clubs, set up a joint marketing
company, Basketball Marketing Limited. The company marketed the clubs as a single package for
some types of sponsorship, an approach they had picked up from the USA. Within twelve months it
had resulted in a two-year footwear and clothing contract signed with Adidas, and by 1985 the EBBA
had signed agreements with a wide range of national companies including Prudential Insurance, Bells
Whisky and Carlsberg, who became the league’s name sponsor succeeding Wimpey Homes. The total
income of the clubs was estimated at £1,196,000.114
108
Amateur Basket Ball Association Annual Report 1973/74, no page number
109
The Right Image, EBBA marketing document
110
Maguire, p. 239.
111
Crisell, p. 207.
112
The Right Image EBBA marketing document
113
114
Maguire, pp. 237 and 245.

33
Within fifteen years of its formation the league had been transformed in size and value. In the
first season - 1972/73 - a total of 7,500 spectators had watched the 6 teams. By 1985 this had risen to
330,000 watching 66 teams across 5 divisions.115
For the 1972/73 season the ABBA accounts report
sponsorship income of £6,530. By 1986/1987 the combined income from promotions, sponsorship
and television for national competitions (the league and associated cups) was £224,602. In addition to
commercial success the English game was much stronger. In 1981 England achieved a best ever
ranking of 11th in Europe.116
In 1988 the EBBA proudly noted that for the first time two English
clubs had made the quarter finals of the European Cup.117
Whilst there was much about the league that was successful there were also issues. They
revolved around the influx of paid foreign players, almost always Americans. By the mid-1970s the
recruitment of foreign players was seen as essential to improving standards and attracting the
publicity which would lead to greater sponsorship. From just two registered foreign players in the first
year of the NBL, by 1982-83 the number had grown to 38. In response to concern about a lack of
opportunity for British players to develop, the EBBA introduced a restriction on foreign players
limiting each club to a maximum of two foreign and one dual national (player holding both British
and foreign citizenship).118
The rapid commercialisation of the NBL, through sponsorship, television and foreign players
had changed its nature. In February 1980 Mel Welch, the EBBA’s senior executive, commented on
the changes saying ‘Basketball has exploded, but as with any explosion there have been casualties’.
Those casualties included two of the leagues founder-member clubs, Avenue and Loughborough All
Stars, who had always concentrated on developing their own players. They withdrew in 1977/78. The
strongest sides were now those that combined the recruitment of top Americans with significant
sponsorship.119
The NBL’s increasing commercial value attracted a new breed of more entrepreneurial club
owners. Among the first was Harry Smith the founder of Solent Stars in Southampton. Solent Stars
were formed in 1980 and were immediately accepted into Division Two of the NBL, which they won
in their first season in 1981, losing just one game. Three years later in 1984 they were national
champions. By the following season they were in financial distress with Smith no longer involved. By
1990, just ten years after its formation, the club was no longer able to raise the £35,000 required to
play in the league and withdrew, dropping down to National Division 4.120
Others followed in the
115
Maguire, p. 238.
116
Lloyd and Culverhouse, pp. 27-30.
117
English Basket Ball Association Annual report 1987-88, p. 2.
118
Maguire, pp. 234-239.
119
120
Rumsey, pp. 11, 18, 47, 56, 145.

34
wake of Harry Smith including a number of football clubs. The idea of a sporting club having
professional teams in both football and basketball is typical in continental Europe; both Barcelona and
Real Madrid are examples. However, in Britain the idea proved to be very short-lived. In a four-year
period from 1985 to 1988 Manchester United, Portsmouth and Glasgow Rangers all acquired
basketball clubs, had some success (Portsmouth and Glasgow Rangers both won the BBL) and then
sold them. It is highly likely that all three lost money during this period, which was the norm for most
clubs. Manchester United failed to see a synergistic effect and attract large numbers of supporters. Its
basketball club first merged with Manchester Giants and then was bought out in 1988, the club being
renamed Manchester Eagles.121
Both Portsmouth and Glasgow Rangers were dependent on funding
from their owners, John Deacon and David Livingston respectively, and both decided to end the
funding. Portsmouth were unable to find another buyer or sponsor and folded.122
The Glasgow team
moved back to Kingston, from where they had come just a year earlier.123
Entrepreneurial owners brought a greater focus on short term financial success and a desire
for more independence. In a Sunday Times article in December 1982 England international Ian Day
commented ‘Survival of our game rests purely and simply with the wealthy businessmen.’124
In 1983
the clubs, set up the Basketball Owners Association (BOA).125
As well as wanting greater autonomy
the clubs were resentful of the levy they paid to the EBBA for running the league. Tension between
the two bodies grew and eventually the leading 1st division clubs broke away and formed an
independent league, the British Basketball League (BBL). Carlsberg, the main sponsor at the time,
continued its sponsorship and the new league was launched as the Carlsberg League from the 1987-88
season.
In addition to limiting opportunities for local players, the foreign players were increasingly
expensive. In 1982 Stockport Belgrade coach Dave West commented ‘most clubs have two foreign
and one dual national player, this can absorb up to 75% of a club’s annual budget.’126
In the battle for
on-court success, rather than investing in their long-term stability via junior programmes, community
initiatives or basketball arenas, clubs were channelling the increasing income directly into players.
Perhaps they saw this as an investment that would pay financial dividends over time, or likely they
were driven by the over-riding desire to win. The level of expenditure on players meant that, despite
the league’s commercial success, many clubs were financially fragile. They had no reserves to fall
back on and as shown with the examples of Solent Stars and Portsmouth were often dependent on
their financial backers. This brought an instability that is reflected in the number of teams that
121
History, Manchester Giants <https://www.manchestergiants.com/history/> [accessed 30/7/2018]
122
Nicholas Harling, Credibility depends on off-court performance, The Times, 13 September 1988
123
Return of Kingston, The Times, 13 June 1989
124
Maguire, p. 245.
125
126
Maguire, p. 244.

35
dropped out of the league in its early seasons. Between 1988 and 1990, as well as Solent and
Portsmouth, four other clubs either folded or dropped down to lower leagues.127
Channel 4’s coverage of NBL games had clearly demonstrated the power and importance of
television in helping the league’s growth. Unfortunately, in 1985, after just three seasons, Channel 4
decided to end its coverage of league games.128
Although there is no public evidence for the reason,
Kevin Routledge, current Chairman of the Leicester Riders and involved in the running of the club at
the time, believes that there were a number of explanations which reflected the inexperience of both
parties. Although the viewing numbers at over a million were very good, they were not growing.
Furthermore, whilst the new sports centres built in the 1970s and 1980s provided better venues for
spectators, the halls were not purpose built for basketball. In Routledge’s opinion, many of the venues
were not suited for television and did not project a good image.129
An article in The Guardian from
the time reinforces this, describing the difficulties in watching games on courts marked out with lines
for many other sports.130
In addition the NBA had become available to be broadcast internationally,
offering Channel 4 a basketball alternative that was of a higher standard and from a league that had
considerably more experience in presenting basketball for television.
The loss of live TV coverage led in turn to reductions in sponsorship and the league went
through a period of instability which was characterised by clubs folding or relocating. By the start of
the 1989–90 season, seven teams had withdrawn.131
It is important however not to overstate the level
of disruption. The league had contracted, but it had not collapsed. In 1992-93 there were still twelve
teams, only three less than the first year of independence in 1987-88. Carlsberg demonstrated its
continuing confidence in the future potential of English basketball by extending its sponsorship
contract in 1990. The additional £1.3million which was committed over the next three years also went
beyond the top division of the BBL, to provide support for all 5 divisions of National league and the
England senior international teams. Their stated aim was to ‘raise the profile of the sport’ and give
basketball ‘mass spectator appeal’.132
What this period probably served to do was to weed out weaker
clubs: those that were not well run or who had owners not committed to the long term, and those that
were not sustainable because they lacked the necessary facilities or fan base to succeed.
During the 1990s the television industry was changed by a combination of technological
innovation and deregulation. One result of this was a multitude of new channels available via cable
127
Duncan Hooper, ‘Celtics go down’, Independent, 23 September 1988, p. 29.
128
Appendix 9, Email from Channel 4
129
Appendix 5, Kevin Routledge interview
130
Robert Pryce, ‘English game finds home fit for heroes’, The Guardian, 18 September 1993, p. 18.
131
British Basketball League Standings
<http://www.bbl.org.uk/competitions/?WHurl=%2Fcompetition%2F121%2Fstandings%3F%26iurl%3Dhttp%2
53A%252F%252Fwww.bbl.org.uk%252F%253Fp%253D9%26_cc%3D1%26_lc%3D1%26_nv%3D1%26_mf
%3D1> [accessed 1 May 2018]
132
English Basket Ball Association Annual report 1989-1990, p. 5.

36
and satellite. In 1995 the BBL secured a deal with BSkyB to broadcast live games in a prime slot –
early Sunday evenings after Premier League football. Whilst published information is lacking, Andy
Webb, the BBL Chief Operating Officer commented in interview that the BBL drew audiences of
175,000 to 250,000 on Sky and received a fee of £250,000 a year.133
Although this is a much smaller
audience than was watching on Channel 4, with so many channels now available this was a new era
for television and expectations on audience numbers had changed. The fact that English basketball
continued to be an attractive commercial proposition is reflected in Budweiser’s decision to replace
Carlsberg as lead sponsor. The Guardian reported that the deal was worth £1 million over three
years.134
Another factor which had financial implications for the BBL in this period was the 1995
ruling by the European Court of Justice, in favour of Belgian footballer Jean Marc Bosman. This
banned restrictions on EU players within EU national sports leagues and prohibited domestic quotas
that discriminated against EU nationals.135
In 1993 the BBL had introduced a salary cap. By
preventing those clubs with either more money or more propensity to spend from doing so, the league
had both put a level of control on spiralling costs and created a more even playing field. A review of
the state of the league in The Times at the end of the season, reported an end to Kingston’s monopoly,
and with it more interest from spectators, television and sponsors.136
The result of the Bosman ruling
was that across the EU, basketball leagues that were much more prosperous than the BBL became
places where the best English players could move to significantly increase their earnings. In
September 1996 The Independent reported that Steve Bucknall was earning £150,000 in Greece,
compared to an estimated £20,000 the previous year in England.137
Most of the leading English
players took advantage of the opportunity. The loss of these players threatened the quality of the BBL
and it needed to respond. A BBL memo revealed that the clubs had lost £1.5 million the previous
season, so increasing or removing the salary cap was not a good option.138
The league chose to
increase the number of non-EU (predominantly American) players that clubs could recruit from two
to five but European competitions restricted clubs to only two non-EU nationals. Unable to use
arguably three of their best players English clubs became uncompetitive in Europe cutting off an
important source of income and exposure. This could be blamed on the BBL decision but in reality
was an effect of the Bosman ruling. Top level basketball in England was much weaker commercially
than in many EU countries. The arenas were smaller and the television coverage much less. The
133
Appendix 7, Andy Webb interview
134
Robert Pryce, ‘English Game finds home fit for heroes’, The Guardian, 18 September 1993, p. 18.
135
Tom Fordyce, 10 Years since Bosman, 10 December 2005
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/4528732.stm> [accessed 30/7/2018]
136
Nicholas Harling, ‘Basketball rebounds to fresh popularity’, The Times, 25 March 1993
137
Richard Taylor, ‘Basketball: Americans provide a ‘cheap fix, English basketball players are being pushed
aside’, Independent, 17 September 1996, p. 24.
138
Richard Taylor, ‘Bosman effect is spreading’, Independent, 13 September 1997, p. 24

The development of basketball in England: an analysis of the importance of funding since the start of the National Basketball League in 1972

The development of basketball in England: an analysis of the importance of funding since the start of the National Basketball League in 1972

Recommandé

Recommandé

Contenu connexe

Tendances

Tendances (20)

Similaire à The development of basketball in England: an analysis of the importance of funding since the start of the National Basketball League in 1972

Similaire à The development of basketball in England: an analysis of the importance of funding since the start of the National Basketball League in 1972 (14)

Plus de Hoopsfix

Plus de Hoopsfix (16)

Dernier

Dernier (20)

The development of basketball in England: an analysis of the importance of funding since the start of the National Basketball League in 1972