British Basketball League

The British Basketball League was formed in 1987, with leading clubs from the National Basketball League of England and Scottish National Basketball League. In 1988, Portsmouth F.C. won the inaugural BBL Championship title; the following year saw Kingston win the first of three back-to-back league crowns.

The 1990s also saw a growth in popularity and commercialism within the league. Games were televised and the league picked up sponsors such as Peugeot, Lego, Playboy and Budweiser, while attendances at games also increased. The Manchester Giants opened the 1995–96 season in front of a record 14,251 fans at the Nynex Arena against the London Leopards, a record crowd for a basketball game in Great Britain. It stood until 2006, when the NBA started staging games at the O2 Arena in London.

London clubs dominated the league, with London Towers, Crystal Palace and the Greater London Leopards all sharing success in the mid-1990s. In 1999, a Conference format similar to the NBA was introduced, with clubs split North and South. The two Conference champions met in a Championship series to decide the champions for the next three years.

A single division format returned in 2002 and five different franchises won the Championship title in the five years after that. The new millennium, however, also saw a series of setbacks for the BBL. The collapse of ITV Digital cost the league financially, with many franchises struggling to recover from the lost revenue that the £21 million contract was providing. Long established franchises such as the Manchester Giants, Essex Leopards, Derby Storm, Thames Valley Tigers and Birmingham Bullets withdrew from the league, though new teams have been formed under the Giants and Leopards names. The membership crisis brought about the addition of new franchises such as Guildford Heat (formed by supporters of the defunct Thames Valley Tigers), and elected teams from the lower-tier English Basketball League, including the Plymouth Raiders. Both teams made a refreshing impact on the old boys, with the Heat qualifying for the Play-offs in their rookie season.

During the same season Newcastle won 30 of their 40 regular season league fixtures to clinch the Championship crown – the previous season saw the Eagles win 31 matches but lose out to Chester Jets in the final week, by just two points. That title was one of four pieces of silverware won during the dubbed "clean-sweep" season of 2005–06, the Eagles marching on to claim the BBL Cup, BBL Trophy and Playoff's – the complete set.

The intervening years saw the perennial success of the Newcastle Eagles, the reemergence of the Leicester Riders as a dominant force in the domestic game, and the rise and fall of teams based in London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Essex, Durham and Worthing. Long term franchise Milton Keynes relocated to London, to become a 2012 Olympics legacy tenant at the Copper Box Arena, and a new incarnation of the famous Manchester Giants name re-entered the league in the same year.

The 2015 Playoffs Final took place at The O2 Arena, London, following a string of sell-out attendances at Wembley Arena between 2012 and 2014.[5] The event saw a record breaking crowd of 14,700.[6]

The past decade has seen sustained growth across the league, with the biggest advances in facilities. Some clubs have now built their own venues, including Newcastle, Leicester, Sheffield and Caledonia, and Manchester, Cheshire and Surrey and have moved into much improved facilities, while Plymouth, and the most recent election from the EBL, the Bristol Flyers, have announced plans for their own arenas. The 2018–19 season saw, for the first time in 11 years, British participation in European competition when Leicester competed in the Basketball Champions League and FIBA Europe Cup.

On December 2, 2021, the Miami-based investment firm 777 Partners bought 45.5% of the shares of the league. The company invested £7 million in the league, that also saw an organisational reform which included the appointment of a CEO.[7]

Flyers

Gladiators

Phoenix

Riders

Lions

Giants

Eagles

Patriots

Sharks

Scorchers

Locations of the 2023-24 BBL teams

Team	Location	Arena	Capacity	Founded	Joined
Bristol Flyers	Bristol	SGS College Arena	750	2006	2014
Caledonia Gladiators	East Kilbride	Playsport Arena	1,800	1998*
Cheshire Phoenix	Ellesmere Port	Cheshire Oaks Arena	1,400	1984	1991
Leicester Riders	Leicester	Morningside Arena	2,400	1967	1987
London Lions	London (Stratford)	Copper Box Arena	6,000	1977*	1987
Manchester Giants	Manchester	National Basketball Centre	2,000	2012
Newcastle Eagles	Newcastle upon Tyne	Vertu Motors Arena	2,800	1976*	1987
Plymouth City Patriots	Plymouth	Plymouth Pavilions	1,500	2021
Sheffield Sharks	Sheffield	Park Community Arena	2,500	1991	1994
Surrey Scorchers	Guildford	Surrey Sports Park	1,000	2005

Notes

As of the 2016–17 BBL season Italian sportswear manufacturer Kappa was the kit supplier for all teams.[12]

• John Deacon (1987 to 1988)
• Kevin Routledge (1988 to 2002)
• Vince Macaulay (2002 to 2006)
• Paul Blake (2006 to 2013)
• Ed Percival (2013 to 2015)
• Sir Rodney Walker (2016 to present)

The BBL Championship is the flagship competition of the British Basketball League and features all member teams playing a double round robin (home and away) league season,[13] from September through to April.[14] Matches are played according to FIBA rules and games consist of four-quarters of 10 minutes each. Two points are awarded for a win,[13] with overtime used if the score is tied at the final buzzer – unlimited numbers of 5-minute overtime periods are played until one team is ahead when a period ends. At the end of the regular season, the team with the most points is crowned as winners of the BBL Championship, and thus British Champions. If points are equal between two or more teams then head-to-head results between said teams are used to determine the winners. In the case of a tie between multiple teams where this does not break the tie, the winners are then determined by the points difference in the games between said teams.[15] Following the completion of the Championship regular season, the top eight ranked teams advance into the post-season Playoffs which usually take place during April.[16]

In the regular season, team schedules are not identical and neither are matchdays, with games scheduled mainly around venue availability. Because of this teams may find themselves playing a series of four or five home games consecutively followed by a straight set of away games. As the regular season is also particularly short many games are played over weekends as 'doubleheaders', whereby a team will play games (possibly a home and away game) on consecutive days, something that is not commonplace in British sports, although often seen in the National Basketball Association and other North American sports.

The post-season Playoffs usually takes place in April, featuring the top eight ranked teams from the Championship regular season compete in a knockout tournament. Teams are seeded depending on their final positioning in the Championship standings, so first-place faces eighth-place, second versus seventh-place, third against sixth-place and finally fourth plays the fifth-placed team. Both the Quarterfinals and the succeeding Semifinals are played over a three-game series, with the higher seed getting two home games either side of the lower seeds home game. The team that wins two of the three games advances to the next round.[13][15] As with the Quarterfinals, teams in the Semifinals are also seeded, with the highest-ranking team drawn against the lowest-ranking team in one Semifinal and the two remaining teams drawn together in the other Semifinal. The culmination of the post-season is the grand Final, held at The O2 Arena in London, which sees the two Semi-final winners play a one-game event to determine the Playoff Champions.

The BBL Cup emerged from a breakaway of the English Basketball Association-organised National Cup and was contested for the first time in the 2003–04 season, when Sheffield Sharks were the inaugural winners. Since the 2019–20 season, the competition has a group stage followed by a knockout stage. The group stage consists of the teams being split into north and south groups and within each playing a double round-robin system. The top 4 teams from each group are then seeded with 1st of each group playing 4th in the other and 3rd in each group playing 2nd in the other. The winner of the Aggregate score going through to the semi-final. The winner of the aggregate score of each match in the semi-final then goes through to the BBL Cup Final.[17] The Cup final is played at the Arena Birmingham in Birmingham, usually in early January.[18]

The BBL Trophy traces its origins back to a previous competition known as the Anglo-Scottish Cup – and subsequently the British Master's Cup – which was founded in 1984 and was initially a competition between teams from both the English and Scottish leagues. Following the launch of the new British Basketball League administration in 1987 – who assumed control over the National Basketball League from the English Basketball Association – the British Master's Cup was scrapped and replaced with the newly formed League Trophy.[19] The Trophy competition has historically had a round-robin group stage format used for the first round, however the current competition is a knockout tournament with pairings drawn completely at random – there are no seeds, and a draw takes place after the majority of fixtures have been played in each round. As well as including all BBL member clubs, invited teams from the English Basketball League, and occasionally the Scottish Basketball League, often take part in the Trophy.[20] The Final is usually played in March at a neutral venue.[21]

In 2018, the Leicester Riders competed in Europe's third tier of continental basketball, the Basketball Champions League, losing in the first qualification round on aggregate to the Bakken Bears.[22] They became the first British team to compete in European competition since the Guildford Heat featured in the ULEB Cup during the 2007–08 season.

Following their elimination from the Basketball Champions League, the Leicester Riders played in the 2018–19 FIBA Europe Cup, Europe's fourth tier.[23][24]

To be eligible for entry into the Basketball Champions League or the FIBA Europe Cup, teams must play in arenas with a capacity of at least 2,000 people.[25] Currently the BBL member teams that meet the tournaments' requirements are Leicester, Caledonia, London, Newcastle, Manchester and Sheffield. Bristol[26] have begun work on a suitable arena.

Bold indicates active BBL players.

Points Rank Player Games Pts. 1 Peter Scantlebury 540 8,324 2 Nigel Lloyd 402 7,838 3 Billy Singleton 454 6,950 4 Mike New 431 6,000 5 Yorick Williams 448 5,997 6 Tony Windless 404 5,948 7 Robert Youngblood 494 5,943 8 Russ Saunders 241 5,855 9 Tony Dorsey 273 5,826 10 Tony Holley 398 5,703

Total Rebounds Rank Player Games Reb. 1 Tony Holley 398 3,985 2 Billy Singleton 454 3,460 3 Mike New 431 3,369 4 Robert Youngblood 494 3,088 5 Jason Siemon 353 3,057 6 Peter Scantlebury 540 3,004 7 Fab Flournoy 498 2,910 8 Martin Henlan 336 2,809 9 Shawn Myers 305 2,674 10 Tony Windless 404 2,577

Assists Rank Player Games Ast. 1 Nigel Lloyd 402 1,909 2 DeShawn Evans 289 1,725 3 Fab Flournoy 499 1,631 4 Jermaine Hart 228 1,537 5 Jordan Moon 289 1,511 6 Ronnie Barker 540 1,470 7 Neil Rodgers 392 1,293 8 Alton Byrd 152 1,188 9 Peter Scantlebury 540 1,046 10 211 1,017

Steals Rank Player Games Stl. 1 Fab Flournoy 498 764 2 Nigel Lloyd 402 722 3 Russ Saunders 241 686 4 Billy Singleton 454 685 5 Peter Scantlebury 540 675 6 John Tresvant 276 604 7 Jason Siemon 353 595 8 Ronnie Baker 539 575 9 T.J. Walker 241 566 10 Steve Nelson 369 553

Last Updated on 20 September 2012

British Basketball League rules currently allow for each team to have a maximum of three "import" players – from outside of the European Union (EU) and require a work permit to play – whilst the remaining players on the roster must have citizenship of an EU country, either by birth or by naturalisation.[27] The current ruling was integrated at the beginning of the 2006–07 season, reverting from the previous law which allowed for up to four non-EU players on a roster, along with naturalised players.

New rules introduced for the 2012–13 season allow teams to field a maximum of five non-British players per game (including up to three work permitted players), further demonstrating the League's commitment towards developing British players.[28]

According to BBL rules, teams must field no more than six import (non-EU) players in any one season, though only three are allowed to be registered to a roster at any one time. Signings are allowed to be made throughout the pre-season and during the regular season until the league's transfer deadline on 28 February, or if during a leap year, the date is 29 February.

*Note: † Defunct club.

*Note: This is a ranking of all BBL clubs titles won both throughout BBL history and including pre-BBL titles.

*Note: Manchester Giants refers to the first franchise with this name rather than the current franchise of the same name.

Soruce: Honours board