the British Basketball League’s Bright New Future

Armed with a £7m injection of funding and some fresh thinking in the form of a ‘digital transformation’ strategy and a new CEO, the British Basketball League (BBL) looks poised for big things.

“I love to build,” says incoming BBL CEO, Aaron Radin. “It’s what I think I’m best at and so this is a really interesting opportunity, particularly with an investment partner that shares a thesis and is willing to invest in it.”

With a lifelong passion for the game, experience of coaching the sport in Brooklyn, a background big media and big tech – notably Disney, CBS, NBC Universal and Meta – as well as some “reasonably successful” exits from two start-ups, Radin appears the perfect fit to take the ten-team league to the next level.  

“All of those have sort of given me exposure to building digital content businesses,” he says of his 30-year professional career, adding, “often that was within large, relatively mature organisations, and a lot of those experiences have been change management exercises, in terms of how to transition into the into these types of businesses.”

As to the current state of the business he has inherited, although Radin admits to being relatively unfamiliar with league when first presented with the opportunity, he says he was still able to see its potential for growth. He points to the league’s capacity to transform itself into a premium content product and other “pockets of success” within British basketball in recent years. All of which give him confidence that the sport can be both a commercial success for investors and partners, as well as a viable career path for young British athletes in the future.

“There are sprouts all over the place that confirm to me that there is there is a lot more headroom for both the business and as a pathway for people to really change their lives as a result of being involved in basketball.”

There are certainly plenty of sprouts. Those include record-breaking attendances set this year at the league’s Trophy and Cup Finals, the introduction of 3×3 basketball at this year’s Commonwealth Games where England’s men’s and women’s teams won gold and silver respectively, and, perhaps most importantly, a burgeoning and youthful player base at a grassroots level. According to Sport England, basketball is the joint-second most played sport in the UK with one million British people regularly shooting hoops, and evidence of its popularity is there for all to see at busy courts across the country.

Sprouts, however, will require tender care in order to flourish and those that have followed the saga of the BBL since it was established in 1987 will know that there have been plenty of false dawns and missed opportunities over the years, much of which can be attributed to under-funding and joined-up approach to growth. Now, however, there appears to be a surplus of both and cause for optimism.

“The scaffolding is in place,” Radin says with regards to the strategy for growth. “The key now is, ‘What does that execution look like?’ And that’s on me. So, putting together a plan. The type of talent we need to recruit, how we’re structured, what areas of the business we focus on, are all going to be critical aspects. That’s my job one, to identify what those key priorities are and how we’re going to be addressing them.”

Armed with a £7m injection of funding from Miami-based investment firm 777 Partners into the business almost exactly a year ago in return for a 45% stake in the league, Radin also possesses some of the financial clout required to make meaningful change. And, although he admits that he doesn’t know “exactly where every pound will be spent”, he is quick to rattle off several areas that have already been identified as needing both funding and fresh thinking in order for the league to action its much publicised ‘digital transformation’ strategy.

“Firstly. World-class content. We are a content business and that starts with the broadcast,” he says, before going on to describe the on-court product as the “baseline” for which all other content should point towards. “We want to be able to present the play of our game on a live basis in the most flattering, exciting, joyful, entertaining way possible.”

In addition to the live experience – whether it’s in-stadium or via the one game per week currently broadcast on Sky Sports – Radin points to the opportunity that 20 hours of live action every week presents, and the desire for the BBL to evolve into a storytelling entity as well.

“Part of that is all the content that comes up around the league – that’s everything from game day minus three, game day minus two, game day minus one, the day of, but also to really tell the stories of the players, the clubs, the fans, the communities that are formed around the sport in the marketplace,” he explains.

“The second piece is setting ourselves up with the infrastructure in order to be able to do that,” he continues. “Having a content management system that the league and the teams are operating from, having a CRM system that allows us to understand better who our fans are and be able to communicate with them with the right messages at the right time.

“The third is identifying who our key audiences are, both from a B2B perspective and a B2C perspective, and how we communicate with them. All of these things are related and I can see this thread that goes across all of them.

“The fourth is, from a distribution perspective, mapping how we produce content that’s optimised for each of the surfaces that it’s distributed to and the manner in which consumers are interacting or the expectations that they have from those services. So, our broadcast product, of course, is very different from TikTok. Creating an efficient workflow that allows us to create, distribute and engage across all of those platforms is really critical. So, setting up the technical infrastructure, but also the that the workflow infrastructure in order to be able to do that well.

It’s all part of the BBL’s plan to enhance its on-court product, create more content and deliver it to its digitally native audience in the most efficient and engaging way possible. And, if the league is able to get that right, “that should create monetizable impressions and the ability to engage and create opportunities to create value for our business partner,” Radin explains.

“That’s in multiple ways,” he continues. “Advertising, of course, but it could take the form of branded content, it could take the form of licensing, where jerseys and equipment become a significant part of our business going forward because people want to represent their connection with the sport and the lifestyle that’s associated with it.”

The last piece of the puzzle in Radin’s mind is attracting capital and new investors. “It’s a critical part of our success going forwards,” he says. And, as to where any new injection of funds would be redirected, Radin returns to the idea of needing to present the league in the most flattering way possible.

According to Radin, “a large part of that starts with the arena in which these matches are held,” he says, highlighting the huge range of home venues across the league. These vary from the vast 6,500-capacity but rented Emirates Arena in Glasgow to more modern, modestly sized, purpose-built, and team-owned examples like the Vertu Motors Arena or Morningside Arena, home of the Newcastle Eagles and Leicester Riders respectively. At the lower end of the spectrum are several ‘arenas’ that exist as part of community leisure centres or universities, exemplified by the SGS College Arena in Bristol, which has a capacity of just 750.

“There are a couple of clubs that have built their own purpose-built arenas over the past several years and there are at least three other projects in the works, but we need to have all our teams playing their games in arenas that present the sport as beneficially as possible and present all the business opportunities associated with putting on an event in that arena. Whether it’s concessions, retail sales and so on, that allow you to fully exploit that opportunity and that will require investment.

“I’m not speaking on their behalf, but I don’t expect that 777 is going to do all of that on their own.”

With so many opportunities for growth across the board and such a radical upheaval of both mindset and systems required, change will inevitably take time. The league hopes to have the digital infrastructure – including a new ticketing and e-commerce framework in addition to content and customer relationship management tools – in place within 12 months, however, as to where the BBL could end up once the transformation is fully executed, Radin is understandably reluctant to speculate.  

“I’m not in the business of predicting, ‘We’re going to be the number one sport or the number three sport’. I’m less concerned about that than I am with realising the full potential of the sport and those things will fall out as a result. I’ve been lucky enough in my life, my personal life and my career to have enormous joy and excitement generated through my own association with the game and know that it has actually changed people’s lives. I’m not suggesting it’s going to change everyone’s life, but even if people can feel just a bit of that, I think that it will really begin to resonate as a sport.”

“There is a lot more headroom for both the business and as a pathway for people to really change their lives as a result of being involved in basketball“

“We want to be able to present the play of our game on a live basis in the most flattering, exciting, joyful, entertaining way possible.“