What strategy should the BBL follow for Team Membership?

Relevance?


But feel free to abandon the BBL and fall in love with ice hockey. Even though their league wasn't able to play last season and - according to your imaginary friend - has only a 50% chance of playing this season. 

If you consider "doing something right" is not accessing government funding and not playing, you should probably get a job at BE.

Four teams did actually play a two month mini-season in Nottingham (where else?), but as ignorance is bliss I guess you're a happy man. I'd have thought your imaginary friend would have mentioned that as Sheffield competed in it.

British ice hockey has been just as volatile over the years as the BBL. The Elite League membership currently stands at ten. That's one more than the BBL, and the number nine seems to have led to a lot knicker wetting from you, so i guess nine has at least made you damp.

You continue to fail to understand that Worcester folded because the uni couldn't be ar$ed any more and they didn't even care enough about basketball to give anyone else the chance to save Wolves. Meanwhile no one seems to know - or at least be able to say - what the hell happened at Plymouth, although the money the Pavilions were asking was unrealistic for a venue of that size/quality.

Yeah 3 import hockey back in the Eagles team compared with 14 today.

Hockey will be very much back, Glasgow Clan announced their head coach yesterday, they've had the fixtures meeting as well.

I think the 2 sports can learn from each other, one of the more recentish Rocks hires used to work for the Clan although I cannot say how he has done.

As for Team membership of BBL, I'd say that there needs to be a strong assessment of teams with a Minimum 5 year business plan, it saddens me that some teams join the league and don't seem to last that long, Birmingham Knights were the perfect example, the excuse for them was not playing in the City centre if I recall correctly.

Some thoughts about this coming season's format. 

When looking at the club history of the BBL it does make me wonder whether the current model has served it’s purpose, and needs some solid tweaking at least. What it would be replaced with I don’t know. I don't think it's broken, there are some very strong elements to the model, but the restrictive aspects such as the franchise fees, minimum venue standards etc, appear to create a challenge when it's necessary to add new teams.

When the BBL effectively broke away in 1987, it did take a while to settle down as it quickly shed teams. Partly because it was really the National League with a couple of additions. But before long it created a legacy of recruiting good organisations. That legacy list over the next 20 years actually reads well.

Livingston (1987) – The glamour addition who were great for the profile with a talented team. But lost interest within a few years.

Oldham (1987) – A rare unsuccessful team. Withdrew after a year, returned and reached the play-offs, but quickly fell away again.

London Docklands (1989) – A couple of very poor years but became the Towers and a perennial powerhouse.

Brighton (1990) – A returning pre-BBL team that became a major player into the new millennium.

Birmingham Bullets (1991) – Same as Brighton.

Cheshire Jets (1991) – The best example of not just competing but winning (plenty) without throwing large amounts of money at the club, nor historically having the facilities.

Doncaster Panthers (1993) – A third pre-BBL returnee. Over 40 league wins in a three year stay before pulling the plug for financial reasons.

Leopards (1993) – Quickly became a big gun in their decade in the BBL.

Sheffield (1994) – Winners in their debut season with the ultimate “team is bigger than it’s parts”. For years a team at the very top, and for a while now solid, but not quite those levels.

Edinburgh (1998) – Many years of being an above average BBL team and unfortunately something not recognised by their trophy cabinet.

Plymouth (2001) – Brought their NBL stature to the BBL. Like the Rocks, their trophy cabinet doesn’t recognise the levels they achieved. Exactly the type of team the BBL wants.

Guildford (2005) – A good example of what can be achieved with a well run club. Using the Tigers link obviously helped. But the attempt to change the model with money failed and now the club remains one step back from competing at the highest levels.

Worcester (2006) – After a slow start became a very good BBL team. Always maligned by the University link (and their ultimate demise due to hit), their 15 years were a positive for the BBL

When I read that list, that tells me the existence of the BBL was a success. If you take Oldham as the closest to a failure that’s quite a high low bar in my opinion. Oldham I think were the only team not to win a Trophy. Take out the two start-up season clubs (Livingston and Oldham) and I think Leopards had the shortest tenure on ten years. Regardless of how some of those teams ultimately exited, that longevity including success for all, paints a great picture of the BBL. Don’t forget that ignores teams in the top league prior to the creation of the BBL; such as Newcastle, Leicester, Lions, Thames Valley, Kingston and Portsmouth.

But 2006 was the watershed. I’ve conveniently split Worcester from London United, but look at the next list:

London United (2006), Birmingham Panthers (2007), Everton Tigers (2007), London Capital (2007), Worthing Thunder (2008), Essex Pirates (2009), Durham Wildcats (2011), Manchester Giants (2012), Birmingham Knights (2013), Bristol Flyers (2013), Leeds Force (2014) and London City Royals (2018).

Doesn’t read well in any comparison to the first list. Also just one new team (that folded mid season) in seven years. As discussed it’s difficult to identify the next team that might join.

The BBL can run with as few as 8 teams with a couple of provisos:
- You need the bottom teams to be truly competitive with so few teams
- The loss of one team quickly makes the product look very unattractive.

My gut feeling is unless the BBL is prepared to allow teams to take (an element of) the approach of Everton/Royals they may struggle to find future replacement teams. The problem is of course avoiding an unsustainable model where a team drops out mid season (like the Royals). They weren’t the first, I believe two teams were lost in season in that first period of the BBL I highlighted.

Whilst the aim should be to secure long term sustainable organisations a team that has ten positive years and then over stretches but breaks cleanly, shouldn’t be deemed a failure. University funded teams are getting a bad name, but just because it was the ultimate demise of them, surely that shouldn’t be the legacy of Worcester’s 15 years for example; they added a lot to the BBL in my opinion.

In many ways the BBL want to find another Derby, Chester, Bristol type organisation. The closest to that though in recent times were the Worthing Thunder and they were unable to make it sustainable. Worthing should be (one) case study for the BBL. What could the BBL do that would enable a Worthing to justify participation and not risk their future. Part of that does involve EB, because if a Worthing type club makes the jump, who can their place in the NBL be assured if they need to drop back; I believe this coming season there wouldn’t be a vacancy for example.

Whilst there’s a strong argument BBL prospective teams should be coming through the EB system, a problem is that the BBL was never built to support a flow of teams arriving. I suspect the aspiration from Day 1 was a 16 team league, so it has probably never been necessary to refuse membership on the grounds of being full.

Throughout it’s history the BBL has averaged nearly one lost team per year, so that suggests things won’t change significantly going forward, certainly not enough to not need fresh blood before too long.

I don’t know the answers, but there does need to be some pro-active thought on the current model. And I doubt it can be achieved without at least involving EB. It’s not many years ago that the British Speedway league was indisputably the best league in the world. Now it has just six teams (and that's only because a couple have moved up from the second tier ... think NBL1 ... in recent years). That’s a “Group Stage” not a League!

I won't press "quote" allstring, and i don't agree with everything you said, but you're pretty much there.

The key problem remains, people who can remember paying a franchise aren't going to devalue what they bought by giving it away.

I still - and probably always will - believe that the BBL need to develop a second tier to ensure that they have clubs ready to move up when they need reinforcements. Whether or not that's BE's job is irrelevant because they're neither willing or capable of doing it.

Is there any desire or even real knowledge of BBL from the supporters of the better NBL years to aspire to be part of it ? Must be minimal if at all?

In other sports that receive high profile daily Media and TV Coverage theres always a big lure of trying to play and compete against the best teams

Plus significant
financial rewards to add icing to the cake

Theres no financial reward at all from what I can see to compete in BBL just extra cost

Away fans aren't there

It's not a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow

It's just cost and risk

Surely it's just wealthy owners with egos and deep pockets that will ever be tempted to go after it?

where the BBL doesn't fear to tread, Elite Ice Hockey follows
www.eliteleague.co.uk/

www.eliteleague.co.uk/schedule
54 game seaspn.
thoughts, Drunky?