Powerful white people holding back basketball,talkSPORT told

Are we surprised that TalkSport misrepresented the comments and dragged it into the gutter?

That was the point I was making about the BBL. Unbelievable. 

And it wasn't a retweet - this was their own original tweet - which is arguably worse.

His arguments are right as far as I'm concerned. It's criminal that basketball doesn't receive more support, especially when you compare it to the sports that do get large amounts of funding, e.g. rowing. I have never met anyone who rows competitively. It's the preserve of public schools.

I don't disagree with any of the above, but allow me to play devil's advocate. If you were UK sport or any other body that dishes out funding would *you* give our governing bodies any money at all?

I totally get what Nhamo Shire is saying, but until we stop self harming I don't see how things will change.

If we had more money we absolutely could use it to do great things. There are plenty of ways that it could be spent wonderfully. Question is... would we? Why would anyone give money to a game that's run by, by and large, a bunch of complete arseholes?

We need to get ourselves to a point where the only issue on the table is one of colour/social class/diversity (appreciate that everyone may see it slightly differently). If we can get to that point then it becomes more difficult for potential funders to say no without looking horribly narrow-minded or prejudiced. Until that time comes all we're doing is giving funding organisations an easy out. It's all to easy for a funding organisation to turn around and say "You have serious governance and organisational issues. You're too high risk to fund".

Sad thing is, GB actually have a half decent squad that can compete at European level.

The old WW1 phrase "Lions led by Donkeys" comes to mind 

UK sport is distributing limited amounts of public money, and has a policy of focusing on sports that will produce medals at major championships.
It has a responsibility to ensure the funds that are distributed go to organisations that have a proper management structure and are well managed, so that the funding provided is used properly and efficiently.
Can we honestly say that, as currently run, Basketball meets those criteria?
Also, is attacking other sports the best strategy to attract funding? Surely it would be better to run the sport properly and promote the positive aspects of the sport.
What is the GB Basketball doing to attract genuine commercial backing for the sport? Other sports have varying amounts of commercial backing so they are not totally dependent on the public purse.
Why is Basketball not doing the same?
Do GB Basketball have a detailed demographic information of the basketball community?
Why are they not using this information to promote the commercial benefits to companies selling to that demographic area the commercial benefits of backing the sport?

To succeed the sport, and its governing bodies, need to :-
a) improve its management structures and operation,
b) make changes so that the sport and the national teams programs are attractive to commercial sponsorship
c) market the sport properly, so that it becomes an attractive, positive & viable option for companies to spend their marketing budgets
d) change the mentality of those involved in the sport from depending only on public funding.

The CEO of Basketball England was on BBC Radio's Sportsweek program this morning, the main point of his appearance was to ask for more public funding.

No thought of stating how valuable investing in the sport would be to commercial sponsors, just a reliance on public funding.

Watching the Six Nations rugby coverage on both BBC & ITV yesterday, it was interesting to see how many commercial partners the Rugby Unions had in place, for a sport with lower participation levels. Rugby, like many other sports, has learnt to develop links with commercial organisations where both the sport and the commercial partner benefit.
Why aren't the management of GB Basketball and Basketball England, etc, not doing this?

For our sport to grow, those involved, especially the senior management of GB Basketball etc have to change their mindset from dependence on public funding.
For th

Contrast that to the many hours of coverage around the six nations games, with the host broadcaster filming lots of feature content to show in the build up to games, the post game analysis, and the actual game coverage using multiple camera angles, on screen graphics and ingame replays.

Single camera coverage isn't an acceptable standard now, and indeed hasn't been for many years.

Absolutely crazy.

Is it not simply now time for the media to boycott GB games entirely until this ridiculous farce calling themselves an "organization" change their ways?