I’ve been toying with the idea of a podcast for a while, so when I asked on Twitter, and on Facebook and got such an overwhelmingly positive response, I thought it was time to jump straight in!
I’ve always been one to just take action and get started instead of wasting time making sure everything is perfect (things will never be perfect, and you lose valuable time to get feedback from the people that actually matter by putting it out there!), so here is a very rough episode 1.
The production values are still lacking (and will be fine tuned over time – hopefully you’ll see the progression from episode to episode) and I’m learning as I go – for example, I will never be recording an interview in a pub again!
I got the chance to sit down with England Basketball’s new Independent Chair, Jan Hagen, the week before last (Thursday 7th February) and talk about his new role and his plans over the coming year. He had a lot of interesting things to say and I think it makes a great place to start the podcast.
In the inaugural episode, hear from Hagen on why:
- He is going beyond his role as Independent Chair right now to try to sort out the sport.
- He thinks England Basketball and British Basketball need to be seen and treated as one entity.
- There needs to be widespread personnel change throughout England Basketball within the next year.
- The country needs a credible pro-league and the BBL needs to be sorted out.
- Proper structural change has to happen within the next 6-8 months.
- He will leave his position if he is unable to make the widespread change he is rooting for.
As always, I’d love to get your feedback (apologies about the background noise, I know it’s a pain in the ass), come back after you’ve listened and lets get some discussion going in the comments.
The show has been approved on iTunes – find it here and please subscribe to automatically receive new episodes straight to your phone/computer/tablet (ignore the BBC 5 Live podcast it has automatically pulled in on iTunes, I’m working on getting it removed)!
Without further ado, Episode 1:
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 51:23 — 117.6MB) | Embed
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Sam,
Excellent interview! I am a big fan of Jan already and I’ve not met the guy–props to Keith for bringing him in.
About two years ago I seriously looked into starting a BBL franchise in London–met with senior BBL people, Nike, GBB…and came to the very same conclusion as Jan; if I was going to go out and raise money to create something that could work commercially the whole structure of basketball was not in a place to support that investment. A single, overarching governance body with the mandate to run the sport as a whole is needed as step #1 in our journey to reform the sport. This body also needs to be held to account by its members too. Finally I concluded that a pro basketball club in London will need to compete with all the other entertainment activities one can do in the capital–to have a successful team in the capital will need the whole BBL to improve its product. TV deals aside, bums on seats, week in week out are needed to generate money to pay players.
I would support the wholesale changes that he is suggesting. Personally I didn’t really get involved in the fund basketball campaign purely because I felt the funding cut was needed to shake up the status-quo. I agree again that the basketball community rallied together and there is momentum; we need to rally together once again to start the change we’ve been waiting for. Being a Londoner, looking at the last EB annual report, there are 6,000 odd affiliated people in London–starting with those 6,000 we need to forget the differences, beef, politics etc. and support the creation of a flagship team in the capital (that means getting our wallets out). The great talent that Jan refers to is playing in a system far too diluted and fractious to be identified, nurtured and leveraged. A single flagship club in London should be allowed and encouraged to attract all the best young talent–that talent should feed the senior team and the national programme.
To hear from someone who has the sport at the front of their mind rather than personal gain was very refreshing. I hope it inspires more like him to step forward.
Hi Jorone,
Thanks for the thoughtful/insightful comment (and apologies for the late reply!).
Interesting to hear your experiences and pretty much agree with everything you have said (except for not supporting the fund basketball campaign, of course ;-D).
Jan definitely seems to want what is best for the sport, and appears to be the person to drive forward the change that is needed. But like he said, there is going to be a fall out, it is going to get messy and there will always be resistance when people are going to lose their jobs. 2013 is going to be an interesting year, for sure.
The podcast was excellent and many congratulations to Sam for the idea.
Having listened to it, I apologies for the following “ramblings”!!
One has to hope that the new Chairman can indeed help resolve some of the many obstacles that have to date prevented the sport from not just developing so it is on a par with European standards, but also to encourage and attract spectators. Maybe the two are linked together of course.
I have been a constant critic of the EB and some of its personnel, since, in the end, they and the Executive Committee, have to take the ultimate responsibility for the sport. Having said that, it is also the responsibility of clubs, coaches and officials all to play their own part in helping the sport to evolve, and in which in some instances the Administration has little control.
There has been a lot of discussion recently about the funding of English basketball and many of the comments tend to imply that the sport should indeed have funding given to it.
This is not the case.
Basketball, just like all sports should not expect, or depend, on government funding. The fact that at present it does indeed tend to rely on this type of funding is just one problem that needs to be overcome.
Basketball should be able to stand on its own two feet within the market place and obtain whatever funding is required through sponsorship and other means of financial support.
The present economic climate might well prove difficult in this regard, but I personally refuse to believe that it is not possible. Certainly it has been done before, when all the National League clubs were sponsored and most attracted full houses. The clubs attracted good quality foreign players most of whom had reasonable salaries (plus house and car), and competed in all European competitions.
None of this would have been possible without sponsorship and other financial backing of course, but this is or was no different to what happens in other European countries.
However, for any finance to be obtained it is absolutely essential that clubs (and the sport) offer a quality product, both in terms of playing standard and in its game program.
As was suggested by Jorone in the previous comment, another important factor is just what clubs are allowed to compete in the BBL. Clubs need to be allowed a “population area” when competing in the BBL. Certain towns/cities might well be able to support more than one club, but to have several clubs within the same immediate area can not be advisable for obvious reasons.
The methodology of the BBL organization at the moment will not allow the league to make any significant improvement; there would be too many conflicts of interest. The league, in my opinion, should be run by a totally independent Body which would then determine which clubs could enter the league and be assured that each can sustain certain objectives prior to entering the league.
I would suggest that there should also be a form of promotion and relegation, since otherwise there is little incentive for clubs to maintain standards (other than its own determination).
At present the junior league is doing very little to encourage meritocracy, (one only has to see the weekly results) there are weak teams in the Premier leagues and stronger teams in the Conference divisions. I believe that a team may select into which it competes, Premier or Conference?
To encourage and provide a high level of competition and an improvement in the development of our junior players (who are the very future of the sport) then as I have suggested before a true National League of some description must be considered, such that all the best teams are competing against each other.
Cost and travel is obviously a factor, but surely this must be subordinate to, eventually, competing at a European level.
If one looks at the organization of the Administration one might ask are all the positions actually needed? Are three performance personnel really required? Are five National League personnel really required, and so on?
There is no doubt that there will be great difficulty in downsizing, since personal jobs will be affected, but surely there should be some form of restructuring the Administration for this, and possible, other reasons?
I would suggest that the coaches basketball association should be completely restructured and be given the almost total control over coaches, coaching qualifications, examinations, courses , clinics, pay (!!) and everything else that is connected with developing world class coaches. (Again this is no different to other European countries).
As a final point there is the great difficulty of overcoming the English culture to sport. As I have reiterated many times before, sport in many countries is almost a way of life; not so, other than possibly football, in England.
Can this be overcome !!!!?
Great interview Sam. Looking forward to seeing some of the changes Jan promises, and to more podcasts!
Thanks Matt, glad you like it. Any suggestions of guests you’d like to see on future episodes?
Nothing new really but let´s hope that there will be changes and the money will go further.