BBA vs BBL

[Della]

Now, I realise the inevitable will happen, and we'll have BBA employees posting on here pretending to be the average British Basketball fan..but they are fairly easy to spot. However, is there anyone else that believes that the BBA really is the future of British basketball? Do you think it will ever launch? And if it does, do you think it will destory the BBL?

Also..are there really that many British basketball fans that resort to watching TV to try and see British players in action? And if you do, where are you finding it??
When you do manage to find basketball on TV do you watch it to see British players, or just for the basketball?

[Rob S]

Do you think it will ever launch? No

And if it does, do you think it will destory the BBL? Wouldn't be able to without EB licence and therefore FIBA accreditation. can't see how it will get that.

Are there really that many British basketball fans that resort to watching TV to try and see British players in action?
Yeah - NBA on ESPN. Euroleague and Spanish ACB on the internets. OK, not TV but... kinda the same. Plus I'm a geek, so... No, there probably aren't that many.

And if you do, where are you finding it??
the Internet. Although for some reason, the ACB thought that people all around the world watching their product was a bad idea, so this season they have limited the stream to Orange customers, in Spain. Booooooooooooo. With all the British players in the ACB this year (Freeland, Archibald, Achara, Betts, Clark, Ekperigin) its a shame

do you watch it to see British players, or just for the basketball?
originally watched Euroleague/ACB to see more of Freeland and Archibald, but very soon got hooked on the basketball itself and now it's an obsession.

Not that the BBA is going to bring back any top British players from the continent. Or any players, from anywhere.

[hersey]

It could happen - he's still plugging away after seven and half years. I do get the feeling that this week's "announcement" was just another attempt to throw something into the public arena in hte hope that someone would bite & put up some cash.

The biggest problem that the BBA has had is that it's never been willing to start small and grow. It's always been a get rich quick scheme, with the flaw being you can't get rich quick in British basketball. If I was going to look at starting a league in the UK, I'd have a three month season squeezed in between the end of the BBL season and the start of the Olympics. Players are available then and it doesn't have to be the best starndard in the world, just better promoted/staged than the BBL, Then I'd look to extend it if it was a success. But that's a long (or at least medium) term plan - it's just not Ron Scott's way of thinking.

As for 'ball on the box, I'll watch anything - obviously if there's a British interest, all the better

[Matt]

It's no wonder that no-one's invested in the BBA - from a financial position it doesn't make sense. What the BBA wants to be - teams with the best British players, playing to crowds of 5000+ in the UK's biggest cities - is pretty much where the BBL was at in the mid-to-late 90s. At that time, owners put a lot of money into producing a quality product that was aiming to compete with the NBA for fans' affections - and they lost a lot of that money in the process. So I don't see how the BBA - starting from scratch and aiming to do the same - could fail to lose money as well.

I do like to watch the best British players play for their club teams, so it would be a lot better if they were playing in the UK. Sadly we're a long way from that. This season I plan to catch some ACB games for the players Rob mentioned above, as well as Devon in the LEB, MBA in Turkey and Richards in Switzerland. I think I'll have no choice but to resort to dodgy streams to do that though.

I don't watch basketball just for British players though - I watch more NBA and college basketball than anything else, because it's easier to find ways to watch it and because that's what I've been watching for years, so I know the players, teams etc.