The Big Interview – British Basketball Association

David Paton, Chief Commercial & Operating Officer at The British Basketball Association, speaks exclusively to sportindustry.biz on the recent funding cuts and setting up a breakaway professional league. 

UK Sport revealed a record investment in sport for Rio 2016, but basketball took a big hit losing more money than any other Olympic sport. £8.5 million is a cut that very few sports could cope with – do you think the sport was unfairly treated?

It’s difficult to say, if you look at the overall funding it’s up 11% and from a business perspective you tend to back winners. Basketball made great strides in terms of getting to London 2012 and it has shown progress, however, it is considerable distance from an Olympic medal. UK Sport has made it very clear, there is no compromise, they are going to back those sports with genuine medal hopes. 

I agree with what Sir Clive Woodward has suggested where there is some kind of Olympic development fund that provides Olympic funding to those sports that have made great leaps forward but aren’t on the podium just yet. I can understand where UK Sport’s decision has come from, but I also think it’s very harsh on British basketball. 

So it was a reasonable business decision?

It was a reasonable business decision, yes. I also think there have got to be some questions asked about how the money was spent up to 2012. I appreciate that it’s an expensive business, but I do think there was a trick missed in terms of ‘what happens after 2012?’ 

That £8.5 million funding had to show what was going to happen after 2012, you can’t run a team sport in four year blocks. You can, to a certain extent, with individuals because there seems to be a new kid on the block every couple of years, but with team sports there has to be a specific pathway set in place to show how players will constantly evolve through to the top level. And that does not exist in British basketball at the moment; questions have to be asked why that investment wasn’t put in place. 

Britain’s most famous basketball export at the moment, Luol Deng, has sent the Prime Minister a letter demanding funding be reinstated – is basketball in the UK doomed without this funding?

Potentially yes, in the short term at least anyway, elite basketball will be in quite a lot of trouble. I think in the medium to long term there is a brighter future and that’s looking to get everything in place during the next four year cycle with a view to making a difference in the following four year cycle in the build-up to the 2020 Olympics. 

Short term, it almost takes away the opportunity to have a team GB in 2016, but to be fair there is no guarantee GB would even qualify anyway. There are a lot of other hurdles that would have to be gone through – notwithstanding the funding – the Welsh Basketball Union has also said they are going to continue being independent. They don’t want to go down the route of just having the GB basketball federation because they think that could hinder basketball in Wales.

There are plans afoot to launch a new professional league In the UK – starting with the basics, why does the country need a new league?

I think it needs a fresh start. I compare where basketball is in the UK to where soccer was in America just after the 1994 World Cup – you had the North American Soccer League, it had an element of success, it had attracted some big players, it had at least one team that was world renowned in terms of the New York Cosmos, however it was in the doldrums. Major League Soccer was launched about two years after the World Cup and if you look at where the competition is now and how soccer is prevalent, certainly at the grassroots and kids level, there is a lot of participation. 

I akin that to where the BBL and British Basketball are at the moment. The British Basketball League is what it is. It’s the only professional league in the country, but it’s poorly run, there are players not earning a living wage, it’s not sustainable and it’s not attracting commercial revenues that we believe a new league starting afresh could. 

We have got a tremendous management and advisory team in place that will attract top end sponsors and partners, and that’s the difference. We can attract that and spend it on British basketball, getting the right franchises in place and really driving participation from grass roots through to the elite.

The breakaway group includes John Amaechi as co-director – so there’s some significant power behind the move – what is the key to making this venture a success?

We have got a number of individuals from the UK and from the US who bring a mixture of sport and business experience and acumen to the table. John Amaechi comes with a vast amount of knowledge of both the NBA and British Basketball, as well as grassroots basketball and what needs to be put in place to really drive participation and the elite pathway to get kids up to that next level. 

On the management board we have Ken Olisa who is on the board at Thomson Reuters, he was on the parliamentary standards authority for MP’s pay; Ron Scott, the commissioner, is an avid basketball fan and he comes with a track record as a financier on Wall Street. We also have Lynn Swann from NFL and Bernie Mullin who is chief executive and chairman of the Aspire Group and he is going to lead our ticket sales and our ticketing campaign. 

My background was as head of sports advisory at Grant Thornton, so I’ve worked with a lot of premiership clubs, championship clubs, major league soccer, premier league rugby and formula one teams so I come with an understanding of the business of sport.

So we have so many people that understand the different strands we will need to bring the revenues – as well as the younger generation – into play, which will then allow all the expenditure we need to have around basketball. I think that’s the difference with any league that exists at the moment. 

You are aiming for a launch in 2014, have you begun to market to franchises and sponsors? 

We are close to finalising the first franchise, we are in extended talks with two more franchises and we are in initial negotiations with another three parties. On top of that we are talking to some of the major global brands that have been associated with a variety of sports worldwide and huge interest has been generated which has succeeded our expectations so far. There is a feeling of the need for a professional basketball league in the UK but at a much higher level than anything we have had so far. 

Following the success of Team GB at London 2012, do you think people have been ‘blinkered’ by the Olympic Games – should basketball still be a priority whether there is a team at Rio 2016 or not?

Yes I absolutely believe that basketball should be a priority sport, regardless of the Olympics, and one of the reasons is its ability to appeal to a broad spectrum of young people and different backgrounds. 

One of the reasons I joined from Grant Thornton is that I can see an opportunity to effect social and cultural change within the UK by taking basketball out there. There has been so many case studies on youth crime, social exclusion and disenfranchised kids and how something like basketball can bring them back in and give them a sense of purpose and worth, as well as keep them away from the gang culture and some of the other problems we face in the UK and globally. 

That is something we must not lose sight of and it is absolutely fundamental to what we are doing. It is also fundamental to bringing in sponsorship and partnership revenue, and we are continuing to work on that.