Royals in turmoil

It's an auto "correct" thing he came up as Orlando Blackman for me

Disappointed to see the club - any club - fold. Obvious though it was that things haven’t been working for a while, I had optimistic hopes somehow they might find a way forward. Also sorry to see the loss of a promising capital rivalry, which I think could’ve helped grow the sport if Royals had ever managed to develop a proper fanbase.

On the player front, I think most will find new teams quickly. What happens to visas for the imports - would a new team need to apply for a new visa, or are their existing visas still valid for the original term? (Possibly a stupid question for those who know more about the system.)

They would. Not sure if they could a 3 month one or start from scratch which would be hard work

I hope the Eagles look at signing a forward. OJ or Neighbour would be perfect to add some depth. The less minutes Kai and Schlitzter play against the leagues better teams the more chance we've got of scoring a decent finish.

Having attended probably as many Royals games as anyone over the past 18 months, I think I’ve said everything I have to say about the management in my previous posts.

I will only add that last season, I met Jon Sawyer and found his lack of knowledge of the sport and its history in Britain a big concern. I heard him bragging to somebody who was presumably a potential investor about the regular sell out crowds and former NBA players, such as Ashley Hamilton, on their books and the huge salaries they are on. Sorry, what? I offered to assist with PR for the club, in terms of local and London media, given its complete lack of profile or recognition in south London - I never heard back.

It was only eight months ago he was spinning the line that this season would mean competing in Europe, playing out of Wembley Arena and attracting entertainment such as the rapper J Hus to perform at half time. The hierarchy of LCR was quite clearly living in cloud cuckoo land. Just take a look at the sponsorship page of their website - the ‘reach’ figures are ridiculous. Over the course of the season, corporate sponsors can expect their brand to be exposed to 70,000 spectators. That would be crowds of at least 3,600 at Crystal Palace every week - it holds 1,500. Apparently they have an international TV reach of 1.25m too. Don’t believe me? See for yourself - londoncityroyals.com/sponsorship.

It is bad that they haven’t put out any sort of statement, holding or otherwise. The few fans they had were always the bottom of their priority list though. What happens to season ticket holders money? What happens to those who have booked tickets for future home games? I never trusted them to be able to put on a game after the Rocks debacle - which we now know involved them lying to their fans about the reason for postponement.

It is even worse, and frankly laughable, that there has been absolutely no statement from the BBL. I don’t know if they ever did appoint a new Head of Media but they’re allowing questions to go unanswered for 48 hours without so much as a holding statement to say they are aware of speculation and will be news soon.

I feel sorry for good people who have lost out here. Alarm bells rang for me having met Sawyer and it appears those fears were realised in the end. An embarrassing episode for the league and I agree with those calling for an internal review into the mismanagement of it from start to finish. Why on earth would sponsors or investors ever invest in the sport in this country when we have utter clowns running the show?

I’m glad I’ve rediscovered my support for Surrey after something of a sabbatical. Proper basketball people who know the game and the league. The complete opposite of those who ran the LCR franchise into the ground.

What makes you think they didn’t try and help
Them?

One of my father's favourite phrases was "there's none so blind as those that won't listen". I think that probably sums up Royals management fairly well!

I’d love to know how they calculated those figures. Like you say, Crystal Palace doesn’t have the capacity to produce that number – even if it sold out every week (which it was no-where close to doing). And that TV audience - assuming each YouTube (can you technically call that TV?) game gets an average of 4,000 views (which is being generous), you’re still well short of 200,000 viewers across the season. 70,000 spectators, 1.25 million viewers? Who were they kidding.

As for the BBL still not making an announcement, rightly or wrongly I suspect they don’t anything negative to distract from (or appear alongside) the Cup final coverage. Which I can sort of understand to be honest.

Nice to see an apology in there...

Oh wait.

“Our thoughts are particularly with Royals’ players, staff and supporters, for whom this will be an extremely difficult time.”

Let a team in without any viable plan apart from p*ssing money down the drain, but its ok we'll send thoughts and prayers when it goes t*ts up.

They're almost as much as a joke as Shire and Sawyer in all of this.

Basically:

We have spent money we never had

We made promises we could never deliver

We have been full of BS from day one

Personally I only have sympathy for the small number of fans, and the people they owe money to who based on the above will be getting zilch.

I guess the odd season ticket holder who paid by credit card may be able to get some kind of partial chargeback?

Assuming anybody actually allowed them to take payments by credit card

It always seemed too good to be true and it was

BBL statement says

London City Royals have withdrawn from the British Basketball League (BBL).

That's 11 words.

11 words!!!!

If they were just London Roayals it wouldve been 10!

What's it with the bbl not being able to write a report!

I place the blame solely on the bbl for letting this happen. I can fully understand an owner who knows nothing about the bbl being led astray and misinformed about what was possibly. The bbl have a duty to ensure all clubs are viable for decades to come.