Leyden Dunbar Pushing the BBL to New Heights

From a commercial standpoint, the British Basketball League (BBL) has gone from strength to strength over the past 12 months, largely as a result of employing a full time Commercial Director, David Leyden Dunbar (pictured, right), who’s been looking to grow the league as a business and a product.

Dunbar, who’s background is in sports law but most recently was employed by London Scottish FC rugby club as their Head of Sponsorship, admits he doesn’t come from a basketball background but believes that has actually helped him with his role at the BBL.

“One of the things we spoke about from the beginning with the board; I don’t have basketball baggage, was how I summed it up,” said the 35 year old from Inverness. “I was definitely coming at it with a fresh pair of eyes, as it were, and I think that’s been helpful, because it means what’s gone before, I’m obviously informed by it, anything that’s happened in the past it informs my decisions and forms part of the decision making process, but I’m not blinkered by it in any way.”

Traditionally a lot of sports can get complicated when it comes to the commercial side of things; tied in with partners, relationships and politics. Dunbar was excited about the potential of the BBL, viewing it as a “clean canvas”.

He was unexpectedly positive about the state of the league when he joined, feeling that there were only two major issues based off his initial assessment; the sport’s “low self-esteem” and the positioning of its product to potential partners.

“The thing that struck me right away, was I felt like the sport suffered from really low self esteem, funnily enough. I don’t know if that came from not having a couple of decisions go their way, bad luck…I don’t know what it was, but it felt like there wasn’t an appreciation for where they were doing really, really, well.”

He pointed to the Hoops 4 Health community programme, that reached out to over 250,000 children across 2,500 schools up and down the UK last season; numbers that, by far, best Premiership Rugby’s.

“In professional rugby, and this is in general sports circles (too), premier rugby’s community model is held in quite high esteem. In terms of having really great numbers, really great market penetration, and just being a really good all around egg in terms of the number of kids they have coaching contact with. The thing that struck me instantly, was here is the BBL and our numbers were already trumping Premier Rugby’s.

“When you look at some of the commercial information that’s been put out about the league, I won’t say it was buried, but it certainly came down the pecking order. So a lot of what I was doing was saying, actually we need to re-address the balance of where we focus. What are the really interesting stories around British Basketball that we need to talk about, and more importantly, that we need to use to engage with external commercial partners?”

This addressing of the balance is clearly working; the league is in a better commercial position than it has been at any point in recent memory.

Tickets sales across the BBL increased by 27% from season 2011/12 to last season (from 300,000 to 381,000) and over the past few weeks, partnerships have been announced with Haven Holidays, Service Graphics, Spalding (a five year deal), Sports Direct and British Eurosport.

All of the announcements have been met with positivity from the British basketball community, except perhaps, the TV deal with British Eurosport – a once weekly hour long highlight show focusing on one featured game. Leyden Dunbar disputes that it is a step backwards from the Sky Deal, which included live games.

“Eurosport was a very, very simple decision to make,” he refuted. “We’d obviously had a good relationship with Sky and we certainly haven’t parted on bad terms with Sky in any way shape or form. But when negotiations started in relations to our mainstream broadcast output this season, I had one thing at the top of my agenda and that was a regular spot.

“I made no bones about it, that the most important thing for us to do was to take ownership of a slot and make an appointment to view for British basketball. That was because if you look at the figures every area of British basketball has gone on one trajectory, and that’s upward, over the last ten years.

“…the only thing that has really stagnated is the viewing figures in relation to TV. If you look at that, and you look at it and you’re a pragmatist, the only thing it can come down to if everything is going in one direction and the sport is obviously getting more and more exciting, the only thing that’s making a difference is the fact that we’re chopping and changing our position in relation to timing; we’re being used as a filler. One night we might be on a Tuesday night, the next week we might be on a Thursday, so what that meant for me was we must fix an appointment to view. It was just unfortunate with Sky we couldn’t get that kind of assurance.”

“The second thing, and this all comes back to why I would never call it a backwards step, it comes down to marketing. We never had any marketing support from Sky and a lot of that was because of the first part, in terms of, how do you trail a show when you don’t know where it will be from week to week?

Though Leyden Dunbar couldn’t reveal the Sky viewing figures, he did say there was a considerable increase in numbers for live events, which he points down to people knowing well in advance when they will be broadcast.

The way the league hopes to combat the lack of live coverage on Eurosport is the launch of their new online streaming platform, BBL TV. The costs are being subsidised by the BBL, meaning the price for fans is just £1 a game.

“There were a few eyebrows raised when I said that’s what I wanted to do, but it’s all about giving back to the fans…the core of why we created BBL TV, its all about the way you can’t compare live sports action to anything else – it’s a completely differently feeling. You watch something live and it can’t be compared to highlights that are delayed.

“… I don’t think it takes a rocket scientist to say “I wonder where the revenue stream is in that for the BBL” and the honest truth is we are subsidising it. The reason we are subsidising it because I think that the audience deserve it. There’s no question that the British Basketball audience deserve live content, and if we have to be the ones to spearhead the attack on that then we’ll do it.”

As it stands BBL TV will be viewable on desktops/laptops and the majority of mobiles and tablet devices, whilst an app is currently in development. The first season is an experiment to see what the response is like, and should it be positive, they hope to add a more comprehensive slate of games (there are 30 in the opening season), working towards the “holy grail” of, ultimately, one day all fixtures being live.

By no stretch of the imagination is the BBL a finished product, but steps are being made in the right direction, and if David Leyden Dunbar has his way things will continue on course.

“I’d say the key thing for us is to keep listening and keep moving forward,” he concluded. “There will be no backward steps under my watch, I can guarantee you that. It’s all about pushing forward and sticking to the plan. We’ve got a plan and we’re all signed up to it, the key thing for us is to stick to it.

“We shouldn’t just bend with the wind, we’ve got a plan we stick to it and we’ll get where we want to go.”

Listen to the full interview with David Leyden Dunbar in Episode 3 of the Hoopsfix Podcast (coming soon) – get subscribed on iTunes now to be first to check it!