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Post by interestedridersfan on Nov 24, 2018 12:36:17 GMT
I know everyone on here was behind Riders Euro experience and would like to see more in future from Riders and/or any other BBL club
I tweeted Russ to ask if we would do it again and got an honest reply below:
@fibaeuropecup
and
@bblofficial
This year was a huge learning experience and of course we would like to do it again. We will need support from sponsors and fans as well as make changes to the schedule but it’s not possible to it with current BBL schedule. #NewGround
It's interesting that the schedule seems to have been the major concern above. I've replied back to get Russ to expand on why. Clearly the desire for Europe is there but clearly it's very tough to make it work.
Will let you know if Russ gives any more insight in to the above
Interesting stuff
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Post by Deleted on Nov 24, 2018 13:14:42 GMT
I think it was a great move to at least give it a go.
I'd love to see more of our teams enter Europe but again it comes down to cost, if only there was a way to make it more affordable and sustainable.
I hate to keep mentioning Ice hockey in topics like this but they once had a tournament that didn't last and it was off the calendar until it got a reboot years later, sponsors were coming on board, teams all wore a similar jersey but in different colours thanks to all having the one kit supplier, perhaps they should reboot one of the tournaments and make it financially viable. Like give all teams who enter a share of a pot paid in by the sponsors and then the teams could use that to plan for trips abroad and make adjustments to their venues.
Imagine the Rocks vs Bakken Bears in front of a packed out Emirates Arena.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 24, 2018 13:21:19 GMT
I don't understand how he didn't know that was the schedule. I think every club owners knows that playing in Europe means 1 weekday and then your normal schedule.
It's a shame if they don't enter again, as you say the whole league was behind them and wanted them to succeed, even if we did talk a bit on here
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Post by interestedridersfan on Nov 24, 2018 14:14:29 GMT
I don't understand how he didn't know that was the schedule. I think every club owners knows that playing in Europe means 1 weekday and then your normal schedule. It's a shame if they don't enter again, as you say the whole league was behind them and wanted them to succeed, even if we did talk a bit on here It's one thing knowing it and it's another thing being able to deal with it and manage it and pay for all that's needed. We aren't a big club with the resource and entourage and marketing team etc to deal with it all on and off the court And yet we are probably the biggest club in BBL But we've clearly found it very tough to handle it all Let's not pretend otherwise How would any other BBL club cope or even try to cope? It's a huge challenge for a small sports club. And thats what we are being honest. |
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Post by rutlandrider on Nov 24, 2018 15:20:07 GMT
Maybe they should have delayed their BBL games until December- allowing them to play the euro games without the ridiculous travelling logistics ( Sardinia weds, Newcastle Friday for example), no football club would be expected to do that ! At the very least the BBL should have let Riders play on Sundays only during their euro campaign. Does the BBL not fully support Riders in Europe ? Its never me tioned on the BBL web site , its a real shame if they dont 😐
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Post by interestedridersfan on Nov 24, 2018 15:45:12 GMT
Maybe they should have delayed their BBL games until December- allowing them to play the euro games without the ridiculous travelling logistics ( Sardinia weds, Newcastle Friday for example), no football club would be expected to do that ! At the very least the BBL should have let Riders play on Sundays only during their euro campaign. Does the BBL not fully support Riders in Europe ? Its never me tioned on the BBL web site , its a real shame if they dont 😐 Tbf we delayed games at the start then got knocked out of Champions League in the first round and had a quiet month You kind of have to predict when you will get knocked out to plan a schedule? Maybe that's the problem? We needed BBL co-operation and other team co-operation to bring games forward etc once we went out v Bakken? I'm sure that would gave helped? If we delayed all of our games til December and had qualified to the next group stage then that's one hell of a fixture baclog we would now have and we've just delayed a problem so to speak rather than removed it This is the problem I think. If you are in Europe and successful to any extent there is no way round the fixture congestion and problems is there? |
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Post by interestedridersfan on Nov 24, 2018 15:49:08 GMT
Maybe they should have delayed their BBL games until December- allowing them to play the euro games without the ridiculous travelling logistics ( Sardinia weds, Newcastle Friday for example), no football club would be expected to do that ! At the very least the BBL should have let Riders play on Sundays only during their euro campaign. Does the BBL not fully support Riders in Europe ? Its never me tioned on the BBL web site , its a real shame if they dont 😐 Interesting your point that BBL have never mentioned Riders in Europe i do agree Saturday or Sunday games would have been better than Friday games. Also I think only away games in BBL early on would be better so we can get more fans to home Euro games. But can they be local away games to save travel? lol it's complicated and not easy for sure |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 24, 2018 18:57:58 GMT
I'd like to see the Riders back in European competition next season. They are clearly the best team in the BBL at the moment and have done us proud in bringing up the prestige of the league. Hopefully it pushes, or pulls, all the other teams in the right direction and all improve off the back of this.
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Post by faz on Nov 24, 2018 23:58:49 GMT
Are there any stipulations about wheat date games are played?
Despite attendances being low did the European adventure stimulate interest in Leicester and amongst the fan base.
Riders certainly represented the league favourably and without the injuries you’d think it would have been a little better.
I’d hope they could go again next year. IRF’s idea about initially playing away games only in the bbl is a great idea imo. Get him on the board as. fans representative
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Post by saintpat on Nov 25, 2018 10:30:36 GMT
I can't see only playing away games during the early period is viable unless you have very deep pockets. Mid-week games we know are an issue for attendance, obviously if there's no other home games you may get a slightly bigger attendance but I doubt it would be big enough to allow clubs to cope with missing the money a weekend game brings on. Clubs have to bring in money every month for survival, you can't go 2 months bringing in half what you need to survive.
The other issue is it would mean playing a lot of BBL home games in a short period of time, fans pockets aren't bottomless, give them 2 weekend home games in a week or 5-6 in a month and the non season ticket fans who generally attend regularly are likely to miss some games.
It's a very difficult balancing act unless you find a couple of sponsors with big money to spend. I really hope Leicester & others make these European adventures a yearly thing & BBL teams haven't seen too many negatives this year.
Although Lions have nothing like the size of the regular fan-base Riders do, it may work better in London as the European teams would have more local 'away support' & Lions marketing European games to the casual observer would have a far bigger pull than say Bristol or Plymouth.
I think the mid-week European games probably need to be marketed more to a new set of supporters than the existing fanbase, Lions probably have many more people attend games just once or twice a season or for the 1st time than any other club in the league. A game against a European team would probably increase that number.
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Post by faz on Nov 25, 2018 10:41:35 GMT
I think the idea was only play awY bbl games at the start of the season to allow a home European game in the same weekend
Thus avoiding the low attendances during the week and fixture congestion later in the year
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Post by Deleted on Nov 25, 2018 10:45:02 GMT
Maybe they should have delayed their BBL games until December- allowing them to play the euro games without the ridiculous travelling logistics ( Sardinia weds, Newcastle Friday for example), no football club would be expected to do that ! At the very least the BBL should have let Riders play on Sundays only during their euro campaign. Does the BBL not fully support Riders in Europe ? Its never me tioned on the BBL web site , its a real shame if they dont 😐 Maybe that's the problem? We needed BBL co-operation and other team co-operation to bring games forward etc once we went out v Bakken? I'm sure that would gave helped? I don't think you can expect teams to bring forward their home games at short notice. Even if their venue is available, it'll result in lower crowds. Sides who play on a Friday aren't going to switch to Sunday to help your European campaign. I guess you could have home games provisionally arranged and be allowed to postpone them if there's problems with European travel. The BBL will give you as lighter fixture list as you want during oct/nov, but - as you say - the games have to be played at some point. I don't think not playing home games during the European campaign would help attract the casual fan on a Wednesday, they'll just forget you exist - he aid fom bitter experience |
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Post by Steven McTowelie on Nov 25, 2018 12:39:39 GMT
It was inevitable that we'd have to play a tougher than normal schedule this month. I'm not convinced it was in any way inevitable that we'd have to deal with what we have. Beggars belief that we've had another tough fixture moved into this window. I don't know when Lions away was initially scheduled for but it wasn't today.
Clearly some sort of allowance was made for Riders competing in Europe when the schedule was put together but it's been poorly executed in my opinion. To the extent that it's been damaging to our chances in both Europe Cup and the BBL.
I think any club looking to do this in future should be scheduling BBL games in September/early October. Not a full schedule perhaps but a few games. Bakken are clearly a very good team. Beat us with consummate ease and are unbeaten thus far in Europe Cup. But given the seeding system I suspect a BBL team would struggle to get a significantly better draw than that. Which makes me think we shouldn't expect to see one of our teams advance beyond the 1st round of BCL qualification any time soon. Leaving the best part of a month free for potential European fixtures that were unlikely to materialise, then cramming a bunch of tough BBL fixtures into November (when we knew we'd definitely be playing midweek European games) wasn't the best way to go about it I don't think.
In the event that a team did better than expected in BCL qualification, would it be so problematic if they had to postpone one or two BBL games at relatively short notice?
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Post by interestedridersfan on Nov 25, 2018 13:14:04 GMT
It was inevitable that we'd have to play a tougher than normal schedule this month. I'm not convinced it was in any way inevitable that we'd have to deal with what we have. Beggars belief that we've had another tough fixture moved into this window. I don't know when Lions away was initially scheduled for but it wasn't today. Clearly some sort of allowance was made for Riders competing in Europe when the schedule was put together but it's been poorly executed in my opinion. To the extent that it's been damaging to our chances in both Europe Cup and the BBL. I think any club looking to do this in future should be scheduling BBL games in September/early October. Not a full schedule perhaps but a few games. Bakken are clearly a very good team. Beat us with consummate ease and are unbeaten thus far in Europe Cup. But given the seeding system I suspect a BBL team would struggle to get a significantly better draw than that. Which makes me think we shouldn't expect to see one of our teams advance beyond the 1st round of BCL qualification any time soon. Leaving the best part of a month free for potential European fixtures that were unlikely to materialise, then cramming a bunch of tough BBL fixtures into November (when we knew we'd definitely be playing midweek European games) wasn't the best way to go about it I don't think. In the event that a team did better than expected in BCL qualification, would it be so problematic if they had to postpone one or two BBL games at relatively short notice? dp |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 25, 2018 14:26:07 GMT
I'm going to try and word this correctly and probably fail but here goes.
I am a huge fan of Leicester playing in Europe and as a fan I wanted them to get all the support they need to make it effective.
However as a Plymouth fan I don't see why they should get preferential treatment with regard to fixtures. I don't believe for a 2nd they didn't know how this all worked so they can't hide behind an excuse. I feel they failed away from the court. It's a massive learning curve tho and if they were to come back next year like I hope they do in sure they'll do better. They've got to work on getting fans in the games for those days. A lot more work to get people there. Maybe have deals with other local basketball clubs from the u12s to Loughborough uni. Appeal to real basketball fans not casual potential new supporters.
That probably sounds negative, I don't mean it that way.
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Post by interestedridersfan on Nov 25, 2018 15:13:16 GMT
What about the point that in football any team playing Europe on Wednesday night would never be expected to play on a Friday night
That's valid regardless of how many tickets we sell
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Post by spaghettihoops on Nov 25, 2018 15:13:30 GMT
It was inevitable that we'd have to play a tougher than normal schedule this month. I'm not convinced it was in any way inevitable that we'd have to deal with what we have. Beggars belief that we've had another tough fixture moved into this window. I don't know when Lions away was initially scheduled for but it wasn't today. The toughness of the fixture is irrelevant to the conversation. Or at least, the toughness of the opposition is. I'd say it's fair to take the toughness of the travel into consideration, which isn't anything gruelling in this case (home games on Wednesday and Friday, 100-mile journey to London on a Sunday 5pm tip). It was originally scheduled for 29th December, to answer your question. I don't know officially when or why it was moved but both teams have a fixture scheduled on 28th December. |
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Post by spaghettihoops on Nov 25, 2018 15:14:59 GMT
What about the point that in football any team playing Europe on Wednesday night would never be expected to play on a Friday night That's valid regardless of how many tickets we sell Different sports. NBA teams play back-to-back nights, often involving travel. |
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Post by Steven McTowelie on Nov 25, 2018 15:18:16 GMT
I don't really see anyone asking for 'preferential treatment'. Just an even playing field, or something as close to that as is realistically achievable. I don't know whether it's the club's fault or the league's but I don't think it's right that we've had three games in four or five days each of the last three weeks. It also seems wrong that after today we'll have played eight BBL fixtures and six of them will have been against Lions, Eagles and Royals. If you were responsible for putting our schedule together and set out with the sole intention of making life as difficult for us as possible, you'd have been hard pressed to do a better job than has been done. Had just a couple of our November fixtures been scheduled for early October they could obviously have gone ahead as planned and the whole thing would have been far more manageable.
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Post by interestedridersfan on Nov 25, 2018 15:23:33 GMT
What about the point that in football any team playing Europe on Wednesday night would never be expected to play on a Friday night That's valid regardless of how many tickets we sell Different sports. NBA teams play back-to-back nights, often involving travel. I spoke to one of our players about that recently. He said the support teams and sport science etc around those clubs and the ways they travel and are helped to recover etc make it a whole different debate And he's got a point there |
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Post by interestedridersfan on Nov 25, 2018 15:25:07 GMT
I don't really see anyone asking for 'preferential treatment'. Just an even playing field, or something as close to that as is realistically achievable. I don't know whether it's the club's fault or the league's but I don't think it's right that we've had three games in four or five days each of the last three weeks. It also seems wrong that after today we'll have played eight BBL fixtures and six of them will have been against Lions, Eagles and Royals. If you were responsible for putting our schedule together and set out with the sole intention of making life as difficult for us as possible, you'd have been hard pressed to do a better job than has been done. Had just a couple of our November fixtures been scheduled for early October they could obviously have gone ahead as planned and the whole thing would have been far more manageable. Anyway we are just fans looking in. Our MD doesn't think the BBL schedule has helped us and he will know what they wanted to do and what they were allowed to do. As it is it appears unless it does change we won't be doing again |
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Post by spaghettihoops on Nov 25, 2018 15:34:26 GMT
Different sports. NBA teams play back-to-back nights, often involving travel. I spoke to one of our players about that recently. He said the support teams and sport science etc around those clubs and the ways they travel and are helped to recover etc make it a whole different debate And he's got a point there To some extent yes, but BBL clubs play back-to-back nights as well. Riders played 4 back-to-backs last season and won 6 out of 8 of those games (and I think the losses came after you'd already won the league). |
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Post by blueskies99 on Nov 25, 2018 15:49:26 GMT
How much involvement do the BBL have when scheduling fixtures?
Surely it is between the clubs as to when games are played because they have direct access as to when most of the venues are available.
I understand that the BBL would make sure that there is no significant advantage being gained by any one club but surely there has to be some tolerance shown when one of its member teams is representing the league in Europe.
......and don't get me started as to why the BBL website never mentioned anything about Riders playing in Europe... Shocking!
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Post by rammieib on Nov 25, 2018 19:24:12 GMT
Will the other teams in the tournament not all be having a similar fixture list with weekend games to contend with?
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Post by blueskies99 on Nov 25, 2018 19:42:37 GMT
Will the other teams in the tournament not all be having a similar fixture list with weekend games to contend with? Yes......but the other teams are all experienced in this European stuff......it's our first year so a bit of latitude from the BBL would have been nice. |
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