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| Tweet Topic Started: Nov 7 2007, 06:51 PM (784 Views) | |
| Bada Bing | Nov 7 2007, 06:51 PM Post #1 |
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El Crack
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18 JULY BLEACHER RAT IS BACK Reading through Franklyn Hamilton’s excellent ‘Ramblings from Poland’ blog on Badaball this week it is clear that the Great Britain U20 team share the same deficit as the senior team - a lack of depth in the back court, especially at point guard. Our best guard at U20s Paul Guede has been playing point though Franklyn believes that he is “more a 2/3 player. Good dribble and strong at going to the basket. Playing at PG, he is a shoot first type of guard”. At senior level we are similarly light. Nate Reinking looks likely to get the nod again for the No 1 spot - other than that the point guards on the roster are Flinder Boyd who Coach Finch himself has admitted is something of an ‘unknown quantity’ and Richard Midgley, who of course had a good College career but has been injured all season and has yet to play a game as a pro. I realise that to Badaball readers these observations are not exactly a revelation but why are we struggling to find Division A quality guards when we don’t have any problems for positions 3-5? Is it a question of coaching or perhaps a failure of the sport to market itself as a participation sport for all? I think if you stopped anyone on the street and asked them what is the main attribute that you need for basketball they’d say height. But Point Guard is the everyman position you can be under 6ft and play pro - so on the basis that more people are tall enough to be eligible - you’d have thought we’d be inundated with quality point guards battling for a spot on our GB squads. In February this year UK Sport launched a Sporting Giants campaign asking under 25s who were over 6'3" and over to apply to see if they could potentially represent GB in the future in Rowing, Handball and Volleyball. I wrote to UK Sport and asked why basketball had not been included but on reflection perhaps I was barking up to wrong tree. After all if any lad is 6'3" or over then basketball is a sport they will probably try at some point – was there any question for Dan Clark or Joel Freeland, who were over 6'6" in their mid-teens, as to which sport they’d play? Remember seeing an interview with Gary Lineker a few years ago and he claimed that in football no one was ever missed in England – if you didn’t make the grade you weren’t good enough – there were no hidden gems playing on the local park. Could the same be said for basketball? This may be so for those over 6'6" but how about for those under that height? Of course for shorter players there is far greater competition from other sports. If your 6ft or so have sharp reactions, can make good decisions under pressure and are quick on your feet there are no shortage of sports interested in your talents. I remember asking about the progress of Leopards England junior player Danzelle St. Louis Hamilton a year or so ago to find out that he’d signed as a goalkeeper for Stoke City! That being the case basketball has to go out and compete. Now I am not suggesting that posters go up in every local sports centre saying: Short arses wanted for Basketball - but surely a campaign to open up participation to those who have dismissed basketball, thinking that they were too small, would be worthwhile. Another UK Sport scheme for London 2012 was a ‘Project Swap Shop: Talent Transfer’ - good athletes who might not make the grade in one sport are assessed and then have a crack at another. This is surely something that basketball should be engaging in - could some of those athletes who don’t make it in other sports make it as point guards? Admit it’s a long shot but some creative thinking may be required to ensure that we are not talking about the back court being the ‘achilles heel’ for GB teams long into the future. AUGUST NEW BBL APPROACH So Guildford have finally revealed their new ‘Mr. Big’ this week. The new club chairman is American financier Bobby Banks and his credentials look excellent. He is a ‘someone in the City’ and having played at a Div 1 college he has an excellent basketball heritage. Sure Heat fans would have preferred Mike Davies to have stayed at the club working alongside the new man – but its often a ‘town ain’t big enough for the two of us’ situation when a new investor comes in. With Mike D taking up his new role as BBL Commercial Director Heat’s loss is the league’s gain. Was impressed by the assurances given in the Media Release by Guildford Commercial Director Andrew Bird that the new chairman is fully aware of the club's foundations: “Bobby clearly recognises that the team that plays on the court in front of 1,000 noisy fans is the pinnacle of a triangle that has an extremely broad base, starting in our regional schools and junior development programmes”. Heat have covered all the bases that a pro club needs: the senior team, commercial, community and development with people focused on each field. This is what a BBL club should look like and this is why I have been not been as enthusiastic as other Badaball contributors regarding the new teams joining the league. Whilst the development credentials of some of the new franchises are excellent the expertise and experience to make the move to the pro ranks has not always been immediately apparent. The BBL has now added five new teams in the last year. That's a hefty percentage of the league on a big learning curve regarding pro basketball. I take Andrew Bridge’s point from his blog last week that these teams need time to grow. The new teams should not be judged on where they are now but where they are in three to five years time. It has also been suggested to me that Plymouth Raiders are proof that BBL can develop clubs but I don’t really buy this example. Raiders were a fully fledged BBL club on and off the court whilst they were still in the EBL – what the BBL has done is give Raiders the opportunity to play at their true level. So for me this approach of developing clubs within the BBL family is a new challenge for the league. Whilst my view is that raising and maintaining standards of existing BBL clubs should be a higher priority for the league than expansion, I do undertsand why the BBL have gone this route. The benefits of opening up the league in new major markets are obvious, especially when you're looking to head off a possible rival league! With no clubs from EBL Div 1 ready (or willing) to step-up I guess you have to take a chance. Essentially, if you're looking to develop teams into fully fledged franchises over a three to five year period then in business terms you're treating them as projects. That being the case, there needs to be clear targets for those clubs to achieve and resources available to achieve them. That means people both at the clubs and in the league office itself. If you do not offer central resources and guidance to these new clubs then it’s just a case of sink or swim - what guarantees do you have in place that these clubs will progress other than the clubs assuring you that they think they will? Mike Davies joining the league as Commercial Director is a great coup for the BBL but his appointment only doubles the league's staff from one to two. Once funds are available sure the BBL will staff up and add to the league office in terms of Admin, PR and Community. With the BBL taking on clubs that are not fully 'pro ready' then the need to make these appointments asap is intensified. If these new clubs are going to complete the journey to full BBL membership then they’ll need support from the league in all these areas. The league will also have to apply some pressure to ensure these clubs remain on course. Current BBL directors primarily have to take care of business for their own franchises they don't have time to baby sit these new teams. Without a fully functioning central office is the BBL in danger of putting the cart before the horse? 28 aug MALLIN AND THE FUTURE So the Mallin Basketball Review was finally published this week-end after months of delay - as well as the expected recommendations on governance, participation and the national teams it also sets some targets for the professional league. In the main these make good sense suggesting a closer working between the BBL and the New Governing Body (NGB) on grass-routes development, pathways for talented British players and even commercial activities. Then comes what must be one of the strangest suggestions in the whole report - “a composite team to be entered in Euroleague.” The basic premise is this: the best GB players are recruited and paid by a central fund to play in the BBL. Unlike the pages of graphs and figures given in the Review for funding the NGB no details are given as to where this cash will come from – not even if it will be public or private money or a combination of both. Alongside this British core “a further 2 or 3 high standard foreign nationals” will be added. All these players will then be disseminated to different clubs across the league and then gathered together again in London to play Euroleague games in the week. I had to read this a few times to believe it but it appears that Mallin is suggesting that we enter a ‘part-time’ team into the highest standard basketball competition in the world outside of the NBA! The team would only practice together for over half the week, a disadvantage that would be crippling at this level. What’s more you wonder if Mallin has really considered how much this will cost and how many British players are of Euroleague standard? I am going to go out on a limb and suggest that Mallin is not expecting Her Majesty’s Treasury (or a private investor) to try and better the multi-million dollar contract that Luol Deng is likely to be offered by the Chicago Bulls in the near future. So the first man on your team-sheet would surely be former NBA man Robert Archibald. As GB fans saw at the NIA this week Arch is clearly of Euroleague standard, indeed he’s already played in the competition for Pesaro and Joventut. This year the Scot has moved to Azovmash Mariupol in Ukraine and dropped down to the ULEB Cup but is allegedly picking up a cool €1 million to suffer those cold winters. Another certainty would be Britain’s only ever Euroleague finalist Andy Betts but his salary would also be in the six-figure category and who knows if Pops Mensah-Bonsu is released by the Mavs perhaps he could be persuaded at a price to head across the Atlantic. To ink those three players for a season would not leave you with much change out of a million quid. Who else do we have of Euroleague calibre? Well Joel Freeland and Dan Clark are certainly Euroleague players of the future - with a season each of ACB experience - but they would be well down the bench of a Euroleague team at the moment. Perhaps Nick George may be another who steps up to Euroleague again in a couple of years but other than that you’re looking pretty light. I’m not downing on British talent here but being realistic on the number of players who are currently at this elite level. It makes you wonder if Mallin’s “2 or 3 high standard foreign nationals” are Dirk, Kobe and Lebron. team? |
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| Bada Bing | Nov 19 2007, 07:28 AM Post #2 |
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El Crack
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07 november abuja or glasgow On Friday sporting big-wigs from all around the Commonwealth will be meeting in Colombo, Sri Lanka to decide the destiny of the 2014 Commonwealth Games. Two cities are in the running Glasgow and the Nigerian capital Abuja. Now under normal circumstances I’d be supporting Glasgow all the way – the more major sporting events in Britain the better as far as I’m concerned. But things aren’t so simple for me - whilst basketball will be included in the 2014 Commonwealth Games if Abuja wins – Glasgow has decided to overlook hoops in its proposed programme. Now you could say that I’d be rather churlish if I favour Abuja to win just because Glasgow has omitted basketball. But the sport has been shabbily treated by the Glasgow 2014 bidding team and the reasons for basketball’s exclusion from their proposed sporting programme were shamefully cynical. Unlike the Olympics - where sports are set by the International Olympic Committee - there is far greater flexibility for the Commonwealths. Only five sports have to be included: Athletics, Aquatics (Swimming & Diving, Bowls, Rugby Sevens (Men) and Netball (Women). This leaves prospective host cities with a range of choice to select the remaining 7-10 sports. Basketball Scotland was feeling pretty confident that basketball would get the nod for Glasgow 2014. The Scottish team had performed well at Melbourne 2006 finishing a creditable sixth without leading players such as Robert Archibald, Ted Berry and Kieron Achara. What’s more the Glasgow 2014 team were strongly emphasising the sporting legacy they wanted the Games to leave in West Scotland and beyond. Here the Scottish Rocks excellent community schemes were thought likely to play in basketball’s favour. Rock’s sister organisation Scottish Sports Futures has for years been providing opportunities for young Glaswegians in hard to reach areas to play basketball, through initiatives such as Twlight Basketball sessions. Surely its that kind of legacy that Glasgow 2014 would be looking to build-on? Finally, the key new venue for the Games in Glasgow is to be National Indoor Sports Arena (an encouraging name for a venue in Britain where most arenas are intent on hosting anything other than sport). The world’s most popular indoor sport would surely find the NISA a fitting home. When it came to decision time on Glasgow’s sports at the end of last year though basketball didn’t make it. Basketball Scotland were outraged and even contemplated supporting Halifax in Canada’s bid instead. (Halifax subsequently withdrew but had of course also included basketball in their programme). In the end they rightly thought better of it – there would have been a mighty backlash and you don’t bite the hand that feeds you. Saying that the omission is likely to mean that Basketball Scotland’s funding will be cut if Glasgow win. So why didn’t Basketball make it when sports such as Shooting and Weightlifting did? Well a Glasgow 2014 spokesman told me that the reason for choosing the sports they did were as follows: “It was felt that the sports selected gave us the best balance and appeal not only to Scotland but to the broadest range of countries in the Commonwealth, when items such as appeal, likely spread of medal success and potential legacy from inclusion of the sport were considered.” The key phrase here is “likely spread of medal success”. Make no mistake about it this is lowest common denominator sports selection, with the Glasgow team believing that medals means votes. What possible legacy can including shooting in the sports programme provide Scotland? Sweet FA but in Melbourne 2006 over 100 shooting medals were shared between 17 nations. Similarly, weightlifting – a sport whose main legacy is steroid abuse – saw nearly 50 medals again shared between 17 countries. Those sports are vote winners whilst basketball - with just six medals on offer - simply isn’t. You have to feel for Abuja they said in their bidding document that they selected basketball because it is “ very popular in Nigeria and in Commonwealth countries in general”. Makes perfect sense to me but its not the people that will decide the destiny of this event its cynical sports head honchos. They’ll be trying to ensure that their country can grab as many medals as possible – after all their jobs rest on the ‘mythical’ medals tables at major events – no wonder Glasgow are clear favourites to win. But fear not Glasgow’s bidding team have not forgotten about basketball altogether. A series of events are quite rightly being staged around the city on Friday to mark “Decision Day”. They include a “Come and Try” session in Scotstoun where the Glasgow 2014 website announces “children are welcome to enjoy a game of basketball with trained coaches – who knows you may discover a talent you never knew you had, and could even be stepping up to collect Gold for Scotland in Glasgow in 2014”. Unlikely I’d wager. For the sake of Scotland’s sporting future – Go Abuja! |
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| brian | Nov 27 2007, 03:44 PM Post #3 |
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Sixth Man
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Have I missed something here? I thought that the summary of the Mallin review pointed us in the direction of appointing a "Basketball supreemo" to be employed to implement the required actions of the Mallin review. As far as I am aware nobody has been appointed and the issue seems to have dissapeared from the message board, there is no longer a refrence to it on either England Basketball or British Performace Basketball. What an incredible waste of money !!!!! |
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| Bada Bing | Feb 1 2008, 12:58 PM Post #4 |
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El Crack
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19 NOV LESSONS FOR THE BBL Over the course of the Great Britain qualifying campaign this Summer GB Head Coach Chris Finch was kind enough to take time-out to answer questions for Badaball on the team’s progress. I conducted one of these short interviews with Finch whilst he and the team were based in Belgium at his new club in Mons. Finch had taken GB there because: it was an ideal base before heading across the border for the game against Holland and in order to keep the team fresh in a gap between games with a scrimmage against the Mons team. Finch had done the same thing it at his old Belgian League (BLB) team Bree the Summer before and it wasn't a problem for either club to host GB as both “own” their arenas. I mentioned to Finch what an advantage 'arena ownership' was for BLB teams compared to the situation in the BBL where venue costs are a major issue for clubs. His answer was pragmatic: Belgian basketball was reaping the benefits of "investing in their facilities". I work in Belgium fairly regularly and from my experience it is not by any means a basketball hotbed - so why is their pro league undoubtedly ahead of ours. After all Finch has taken three of his GB team (Andrew Sullivan, Mike Lenzley and Nate Reinking) with him to Mons this year and now Roger Huggins has come out of retirement once again for their European games - all players that British fans would love to see playing in the BBL. To find out I spoke to the President of the BLB Guy Vervaeke to get the low-down on how pro-basketball is organised in Belgium and see what lessons the BBL could learn. The first question I asked him was just how the leading Belgian teams came to own or at least be prioritised at their arenas – and the answer is very straightforward: “The community and the city have given the gyms to the organisation of the clubs. The clubs are not paying for the rent of the gym, all the gyms (except Antwerp where they have other event organisation) are reserved for the top clubs for practice and games.” So a completely different cultural attitude to the UK where arenas are multi-use and don’t come cheap for any organisation to hire. The challenge then for basketball in Britain is to affect a change in attitude that results in more teams owning, or least having primary tenancy at minimum cost, their venues. The organisation at the forefront of campaigning for dedicated basketball facilities in the UK is John Amaechi’s ABC Foundation. Amaechi wants to replicate his ABC set-up in Manchester across the country and although the centres are primarily targeted at ‘community’ basketball, the next proposed centre in Bradford the plan is to have a show court with seats for 2,000 spectators. Such a capacity presents an ideal base for a pro team in West Yorkshire but with his pathological dislike of the BBL it is debatable as to whether Amaechi would allow a BBL team to exist at an ABC. The first proposed site for ABC2 in Plymouth floundered in large part due to Amaechi’s determination to exclude the BBL’s Raiders from the project. If the Foundation do succeed in getting more ABC’s built with performance facilities it’ll be tragedy for basketball if they do not support pro teams as well as community ball. The other big opportunity regarding facilities for British basketball is of course presented with the London 2012 Olympics. Three new mid-size arenas are being built of which, two will remain in London – one in the Olympic Park in Stratford and one in Greenwich. One more will transported elsewhere in the country after the Games. If the government is true to its word of providing a genuine sports legacy from London 2012 then all three should become dedicated sports arenas and the BBL should be aiming to have a team practicing and playing in each one. Such exclusivity at their arenas opens up revenue streams to BLB clubs that are not necessarily available to BBL clubs. For example, Vervaeke says all clubs are able to offer “VIP packages including (dinners before and after game).” True sports fans are always cynical about the “prawn sandwich” brigade but in the BLB they bring in more cash for clubs than the door receipts from regular fans attending. That’s not to say that BLB fans aren’t important and ‘arena ownership’ also allows BLB clubs to do simple things such as tip-off all home games on the same day and at the same time each week, which helps to draw a regular crowd. Part of the drive for Belgian towns to provide such high-standard facilities to their clubs is that there are far tighter restrictions on entry to the BLB than to the BBL. Vervaeke says that all clubs must meet four key criteria to gain a BLB license and that the license is reviewed every season. The conditions for a club to play in the BLB are: a minimum budget of €1m per season an arena with a capacity of 2,000 seats a minimum of 7 professional players proof that you have sound administration and all salaries, taxes and social security are paid Now if these standards were applied across the BBL tomorrow you'd reduce the league to zero clubs at a stroke. Only Newcastle reach the venue requirement and the BBL's entire budget is probably less than BLB's richest team Spirou Charleroi (€4.5 million). It’s the principle of establishing standards though that is important. The BBL could set initial requirements at a lower level than the BLB (of course aiming to raise these over the course of time) but it would least ensure a consistency of product across the league. The BBL had generous piece written about it on Slam Online this month with a photo of tip-off at an Eagles game at the Metro Arena. http://slamonline.com/online/2007/11/royal-court/ As was pointed out by fellow Badaball contributor Manchester Chips on the What’s Bev board “there could have been written another article, less positive, but more representative, shall we say. With a photo of facilities a New York YMCA league team would turn their nose up at”. Such an accusation cannot be leveled at the BLB because they enforce these strong standards before awarding a license. Of course, such standards only work if they are adhered to, which means that tough decisions have to be made. For the BLB the result of imposing such standards was that the league lost clubs, as Vervaeke explains: “Due to the standards of the license we have not been able to keep 14 teams in the top division. The level of budget is too high for some clubs so now we have had 10 clubs for the last three seasons.” Last year Brussels finished above Leuven in the BLB but when they came to have their license reviewed it was clear that the club from the Belgian capital could not meet the budgetary requirements for this season's campaign. “They had a license but losing one or two of their sponsors meant we had to cut them” says Vervaeke. Brussels is of course the biggest city in Belgium by a distance but it didn't matter - the club were relegated to the regional leagues whilst Leuven who continued to meet the standards retained their BLB status. There was no attempt to keep a Brussels team at all costs as we have seen in London by the BBL in recent years. Indeed, a point to note is that many of the BLB’s clubs are based in small towns, Bree for example has less than 15,000 people pouring scorn on the phantom BBA league’s assertion that pro basketball only works in large markets. Whilst the BBL has been cutting imports in recent years the BLB has been opening its doors to American players. The BLB import rules are similar to those of the BBL a few years back. Vervaeke states that “the only restriction is that you must have 4 Belgian passports in the team for every game. You can play with 8 Americans and 4 Belgians that’s not a problem.” The loosening of import restrictions came in part because it is so easy to get a work permit in Belgium for most nationalities. “In Belgium practically a 160 nationalities could get a working permit, so it seemed ridiculous to say you can only have two Americans so we opened the border for every player, taking the same rules as ULEB” he says. Such a change has in effect though made the BLB a league where basketball is played mainly by non-Belgians. If you take Finch’s Mons team for example the only Belgian who gets any court time is the naturalised Jim Potter– the other three Belgian passport holders are regular DNPs. Of course there are Belgians who would walk into Finch’s starting five but the like the UK the very best Belgian players are playing abroad at a higher level e.g. Axel Hervelle and Tomas Van den Spiegel who are both at Euroleague teams this season. The lack of Belgians getting starting time is a worry for Vervaeke and the league and they plan to combat it by “installing a development league and in two or three years we would look to have five and then to six Belgian players per team in the league.” The BLB clubs are still in discussions on how to finance this and it will be interesting to see if and when such a development league materialises. If it doesn’t it will also be worth watching to see if the increase in imports has any effect on the Belgian national team in years to come (they are currently in Divison A). Vervaeke was also a little defensive when I suggested that the BLB’s enforcement of a specific number of Belgian passport holders per team is in breach of EU law: “We have to look with our government what’s possible and not possible, I don’t know with European rules if this is correct but this can be a gentleman’s agreement between the clubs.” Given the finances involved in running a BLB club it is perhaps surprising to learn that like the BBL the BLB does not have a TV deal. Though the BLB does sometimes appear on sports magazine shows. The BLB has four clubs in European competition this year: Antwerp, Charleroi and Ostend in the ULEB Cup and Mons in the FIBA Eurocup but not even these games are not covered. The Ostend victory over Dynamo Moscow in the ULEB Cup that some British fans may have watched on Eurosport 2 this week came courtesy of Russian TV. Vervaeke says that the league are in negotiations but at the moment only “two or three big games a season are shown live’. The BLB has a significant advantage over the BBL here for while they do not receive any rights for these broadcasts, they do not have to pay production costs either. The reason Vervaeke gives for a lack of TV interest is the same one that dogs the BBL - competition from other sports. He explains: “In Belgium, the problem we have is a lot of television is only interested in football, tennis because of Justine Henin-Hardenne (and previously Kim Clijsters) and Cycling. In winter Belgium are at top level at cycling (track cycling is arguably Belgium’s national sport) and this takes up the sport broadcasts of the TV stations.” The additional revenues that television coverage would bring the BLB are clearly needed. Whilst sponsorship is the major revenue stream of BLB teams Vervaeke admits that whilst “most of the clubs are break even it is possible that they have to rely on private invest from let’s say (a) rich president”. Such wealthy backers have withdrawn from the BBL in recent years and this combined with the loss of television coverage has meant that adoption of the ‘Community Model’ has been essential for the league to remain sustainable. For the BBL to progress to the standards of a league such as the BLB then that private investment needs to return. Playing out of prioritized facilities at minimal cost, in a BBL with strong standards would surely encourage investors. 01 DEC 02 CHIEF PHILLIP BEARD Back in October the NBA returned to London after a twelve-year break when the Boston Celtics took on the Minnesota Timberwolves in a pre-season game at the O2 Arena. Although the game itself was nothing to write home about - a typical pre-season run-out - it whetted the appetite of many basketball fans in and around the capital, raising hopes that big-time basketball could return to the this first-class “US pro-standard” arena on a regular basis. To find out just what the O2 owners plans are regarding basketball and the venue Badaball caught with the arena’s CEO Philip Beard this week. Not surprisingly, Beard was still buzzing from the commercial success of that NBA night: “We were obviously delighted with the NBA game and the response too it when we put it on sale. It sold out within weeks with very limited marketing. It showed that people (in London) want to see world-class athletes.” For Beard the key to that “response” was the standard of the NBA product. “Whilst some people obviously knew of Kevin Garnett, as he’s a superstar, I think the reality is that most people who came to the event, unless they were really strong basketball fans, would not have known the individuals but they would have known that these were supreme athletes. So coming to the O2 they saw athletes and teams that they would only normally get to see on television.” Not surprisingly it’s an event that Beard would like to see repeated on a regular basis. He said the NBA Commissioner David Stern had been keen to see “what the response was from London and fans across the country” as unlike Europe “where the NBA teams had been playing against local opposition, at the moment we don’t have a (London) team that we can put up against an NBA team”. So for the O2 going forward there are two issues in order to secure the NBA’s return. Beard explains “one can we get to a situation where we could have a London team that we could put up against an NBA team, and secondly until that happens can we get the NBA to continue bringing (two) professional teams over.” With the NFL and NHL playing regular season games in London this Autumn Beard feels “that it would be the natural extension” for the NBA. Stern has told Beard that the NBA would like to look at it but the O2 CEO says “We would like them to more than look at it we would love to host real season (NBA) games at the O2.” AEG the O2’s owners made a big play in the US press when the arena was built that it would not have a “sitting sports tenant”. The success of the NBA & NHL events in October may be shifting this position but not in the immediate future. Beard says “I’d never say never but what we have to look at is since we’ve opened we’ve only had world class music, sport and entertainment. We always felt that the number of events would be skewed towards music and in the foreseeable future it would be difficult to host a resident team at the O2 be that ice hockey or basketball.” So that’s a ‘no’ for a London team based at the O2 for now especially as Beard believes a London basketball club wouldn’t be able to “fill the venue for every game”. What Beard and the O2 are after is big events and that includes big basketball events for example he states: “We would be interested in hosting a Euroleague Finals and we’ve had discussions. They (Euroleague) are happy to look at it and we will try and find a slot in our schedule for it. As we are the venue for the basketball finals for London 2012, if it could be worked out it would useful to run it as an event before the Olympics came to town.” Before London United dropped out of the BBL, there was talk of them perhaps using a facility built in the area that had been allocated for the “Super-Casino” at the O2 site. Beard says that no decision has been taken on that “Phase 2” space but the starting point will be “what does London need” and the thinking at the moment is not for a smaller arena but “an adaptable venue, more conference style.” More positive news though is that Beard suggests that a Great Britain Eurobasket qualifying game at the O2 could be a real possibility. “We’ve had discussions as to how we can help the British Olympic team. If we felt we could do it and it would help the team then we’d do it.” The O2 capacity is flexible so you wouldn’t have to sell nearly 20,000 tickets to make it happen. Beard states that “you could close off the upper level, we also look at what we could do to encourage young kids to come to see sport (at the O2). We’d look at the basic economics of hosting the event and the spin-off benefits and price accordingly to get as many people as possible”. As far as Beard is concerned that could happen for one of the home qualifiers next year “if we work with the (basketball) authorities we could do anything, we are very adaptable so if we have the calendar slot we would definitely do it.” So the ball is in British Performance Basketball’s court then to start talks and make ‘GB basketball at the O2’ a reality in 2008. |
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8:50 AM Jul 11