10 Things We Learned from Talking to Basketball England CEO Huw Morgan

On Friday we sat down with Basketball England CEO Huw Morgan, for a wide ranging 40 minute interview about everything that has been going on over his first 10-11 months at the helm.

The full interview will be released on the Hoopsfix Podcast next week (get subscribed on Itunes to hear it first) but in the meantime, here are 10 of the biggest takeaways we have, including quotes from the man himself.

1) There *Is* Stuff Happening

A lot of the community are incredibly frustrated with what appears to be a lack of progress since the new CEO has come in, and Morgan is remarkably aware of that, also sharing with us what actually has been going on.

“People can say there’s a new chief executive there, he’s been there 10 months, what the heck’s he done?!” Huw exclaimed.

“I think that’s a fairly reasonable question.

“Jan Hagen, Basketball England’s Chairman, put it very well at our recent AGM up here in Sheffield where he said ‘when there is change going to be undertaken within an administration or organisation most of it in the early months is invisible, the public and your constituents won’t necessarily see what’s going on’.

“While it’s not change for change’s sake by any means, a lot of it will not be noticeable by our members for example, and our clubs. A lot of it is taking place in Sheffield, there’s a restructuring right across the board and that’s extended from having to make necessary and unfortunate changes that were placed on us by the reduction in funding.

“A certain number of staff had to be made redundant due to the funding cut. We’re moving offices, actually this weekend, to much more fit for purpose offices at the English Institute of Sport, we’ve rebranded, we’ve taken on new members of staff who are more defined in their roles whether they’re working on the performance side, working on our club development side, we’re very keen on making our clubs are far better supported than they have been in the past, we’re reviewing how we look after our staff here in terms of the human resources support element, we’ve really been looking at our finances, the way that we actually operate, our articles of association have recently been updated and amended, our relationships with the British Basketball Federation have become much much clearer.

“All of these have been necessary because that’s what I’ve been tasked with by the board, to take a really good fundamental review on how we’ve been operating as an organisation”

2) Sport England Investment is a Focus

Despite Huw being brought on for his commercial background, it would seem the overriding focus in terms of financing moving forward, will be Sport England.

Morgan said, despite Sport England going for a ‘mixed economy’ approach in funding earlier this year, giving money to independent providers of the sport like Reach & Teach and the BBL Foundation as opposed to the NGB, BE’s relationship with Sport England is far better than it ever was.

“I think we have to be cognisant of the fact our single biggest investor into this sport is Sport England, and I would say that whilst it was very frustrating at the start of this year when they made their decision to reduce the funding, specifically in the development area from the national governing body’s perspective, it was probably the right decision they took. It took a little while to come to that understanding, but they basically said we didn’t understand our market place properly, and I think they were probably right.”

“…If they are our single biggest investor into this sport from an NGB point of view, we’ve got to sit up and listen to what they have to say. And I’m very pleased to say we’ve worked very closely with them this year, in terms of a lot of insight work, a lot of research to try and find what it is that this sport needs and where our limitations are as a national governing body and our understanding of the sport.

“That research should be coming to an end in the early weeks of October.”

3) The Drop Off in Players Out of Education is the Biggest Outcome of Research

The biggest thing they’ve found from their research so far? The drop off in players after education, an area that is going to be a big focus moving forward.

“It’s the drop off from players after they leave education” Morgan said. “That’s probably one of the biggest areas of knowledge we’ve gleaned.”

He added they already knew that the facilties issues was a difficult one – something they are working on, as well as coaching (see number 6).

4) The Status on GB Remains Unclear

The relationship between the home nations governing bodies and the British Basketball Federation/British Performance Basketball has always been a complicated one. Caught in between political games which appeared as though the home nations were rooting for the downfall of British Basketball (despite them being a part of it), Morgan has joined the BBF board and says communication has improved drastically.

With an agreement having been signed with FIBA for England national teams to compete as GB from 2016, but British Basketball’s funding being pulled entirely from UK Sport earlier this year, will this still be the case?

“That’s the target, but the main issue is the funding. If we’ve got the revenues to compete as GB then we will, but there’s a little bit of a way to go on that front at the moment,” Morgan said.

Does he think British Basketball could be dead after the end of this year?

“No I don’t, I don’t see that. I think there’s too much ambition and desire to make sure that it continues and hopefully continues in a much better and stronger manner than it has been in before. I think communication has been a little bit of a problem, transparency has been a little bit of a problem. All parties are working more coherently and consistently better with each other now.

“Any talk of it dying it as far as I’m concerned is misplaced.”

Will the home nations step in to fund British Basketball if necessary?

“There’s a possibility of that, that would need to be though very very carefully through and it would need to be proportionate between the individual home nations. I would like to think that we would have political and government support through the agreement and acceptance of a coherent plan for GB basketball. We’re not the wealthiest of organisations but we’ve got to prove our worth to UK Sport.”

5) Basketball England Will be Working Formally with the NBA

For many years people have asked why the NBA, despite having their European head quarters in London, are not more involved with basketball in the UK. That is all about to change, according to Morgan.

“We’re at the start of a new arrangement with Spalding and that was born out of wanting to have a better and closer relationship with the NBA in this country . And that has actually extended to a closer relationship with the NBA in America, we’re in direct contact with them and they call us up every now and again with one or two new initiatives that we’ll hopefully be announcing in the next few weeks which will be a first for Basketball in England. I’m really excited about that.”

6) Coaching Will Be Getting a Fundamental Review

The criticism of coaches and the coaching development system in England has long been a huge bugbear for many. As a result of their research, the NGB is well aware of it and going to be making it a priority.

“While there’s an awful lot of enthusiastic coaching that is going on, we really need to have a look at our coaching provisions, our coaching awards, our coaching accreditations and licensing and a pretty fundamental review of how we go about encouraging more people to become good coaches.

“Not necessarily coaching because it’s all targeted towards the elite, but coaching for fun, coaching for participation. Perhaps it’s just using basketball as a vehicle for better health. I think the coaching across the piece is very important.”

7) Baskeball England Want to Greater Incentivise Membership

As Nhamo Shire, CEO of Reach & Teach, mentioned in our most recent podcast, right now the incentives to become a member of Basketball England are severely lacking – essentially, you get insurance, plus a newsletter. Huw wants to see a major overhaul of this, and said that is the focus commercially right now – bringing on partners to offer discounts etc for members.

“One of the things I’ve wanted to do is to try and offer more reasons for our members to become members directly of Basketball England and then to retain those members. We can offer the insurances but we’re trying to go through a whole run of companies that can offer services to our members at discount rates, that might be hotel accommodation, might be car hire, might be sporting good, equipment, things that are going to benefit our members in the first instance.

“…We are trying to find more ways for people to become members of Basketball England for them to be wanting to renew their membership on annual basis because the churn rate has been very very high over the years and we need to slow that down and give them membership of an organisation they can be proud of and get benefits from.”

8) The CEO Will Be Going on a Coaching & Officiating Course

We are fans of people who don’t mind getting down and dirty in the trenches, and Huw admits he has more to learn about the game so will likely be enrolling on a coaching and officiating course.

“I’ve got a lot more learning to do,” he said. “I want to learn more about the game itself, how the coaches coach, I’ll probably enrol onto a coaching course before very long and same with refereeing courses to understand the complexities and problems that those people might be having.”

9) Basketball England Rebranded to Have a Fresh Start

It surprised us to see Basketball England receiving some criticism for the rebrand – we thought it was important for the NGB to have a fresh start, and that’s exactly why they did it.

“We wanted to have a fresh approach to the story of Basketball England. The previous design had served its purpose. Myself and others were concerned ,we wanted to freshen things up we also wanted to have a reason for us to have a story to go out into the marketplace and say look there’s a new administration here now there’s a new board of directors, a very good mix of directors from the independent sector and elected members, they want to have something to shout about.

“Coming from a very commercial background like I do, I didn’t want to be totally dependent on terms of our income on Sport England and our membership. Licensing and merchandise, if its done properly, can generate reasonable amounts of income.”

10) The CEO ‘Gets It’

The NGB has always seemed to try to promote itself over its members, failing to understand that it’s the players, the teams and the people that will sell the sport. In the most refreshing quote of the interview as he was signing off, Huw Morgan said this:

“I’ve never been a fan of promoting the governing body because we’re not the stars, the clubs and the players and the participants are the stars and all we’re interested in is to try and make their engagement and their playing of the game better than what it was the previous year.”

Is the sport finally going to reach this magical potential that has been spoken about for so many years? Let’s wait and find out…

Subscribe to the Hoopsfix Podcast to listen to the full interview to be released next week.