| BBL", "BBL Announce Deal with UniLad for Weekly Facebook Stream", "British Basketball League returns to Sky Sports", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=British_Basketball_League&oldid=1020452855, Professional sports leagues in the United Kingdom, 1987 establishments in the United Kingdom, CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown, Articles with unsourced statements from April 2016, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 29 April 2021, at 05:05. [36] FreeSports signed a deal with the league in January 2018 to broadcast games for the remainder of the season, starting with the BBL Cup Final between Worcester Wolves and Cheshire Phoenix. The BBL sits above the National Basketball League or the Scottish Basketball Championship, which effectively form the second tier of British basketball. The British Basketball League (BBL) has been at the pinnacle of British hoops since its inception in 1987, and represents the highest level of the professional game in the UK. There were 21 Rounds between 3 December 2020 and 30 April 2021. Basketball receives little national press coverage in the United Kingdom, although coverage is more extensive from the local newspapers in cities where BBL clubs are based, with publications such as The Plymouth Herald, Manchester Evening News, Leicester Mercury, and the Newcastle Chronicle all having dedicated basketball reporters who cover the respective local team. [19] Currently the BBL member teams that meet the tournaments' requirements are Leicester, Glasgow, London, Newcastle and Worcester. The new millennium, however, also saw a series of setbacks for the BBL. The 2020–21 British Basketball League season will be the 34th season of the British Basketball League, the top British professional basketball league, since its establishment in 1987. British Basketball League Aktuelle Saison BBL 2018/19 Sportart Basketball Abkürzung BBL Verband British Basketball Union: The Basketball League Ltd. Leicester, British Basketball, England Basketball, Scotland Basketball Since it began in 1987, the British Basketball League has been the elite level for basketball in Great Britain. The games would be broadcast on the BBC Sport website with the showpiece finals also being broadcast on the BBC Red Button. An independent company owned by its member clubs, the British Basketball League (BBL) governs United Kingdom’s top men’s basketball confederation. 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. 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. 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Basketball in Britain started back in 1892, introduced by a man named Proctor. The BBL runs three additional knockout competitions alongside the BBL Championship; the BBL Cup and the BBL Trophy, and the end-of-season Play-offs. 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. If points are equal between two or more teams then head-to-head results between said teams are used to determine the winners. 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. The season will feature 11 teams from across England and Scotland. *Note: This is a ranking of all BBL clubs titles won both throughout BBL history and including pre-BBL titles. Numbers highlighted in red indicates the team finished last place on the ladder in that round. 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. [4] The event saw a record breaking crowd of 14,700.[5]. The league consists of 11 teams, and the BBL runs three additional tournaments alongside the regular season: the BBL Cup, the BBL Trophy, and the end-of-season playoffs. Teams range from as south as Plymouth all the way to Glasgow. Previously the League enjoyed coverage from Channel 4 in the 1980s and Sky Sports from 1995 to 2001, where audiences peaked at around 150,000 viewers. 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. Some clubs have now built their own venues, including Worcester, Newcastle and Leicester. Worcester were awarded a B-Licence by the EuroLeague, the top tier of European competition, for the 2014–2015 season having won the 2014 BBL Playoffs. The BBL was founded in 1987 and leads the English Basketball League and the Scottish Basketball Championship as the highest level of the sport in … The eleven BBL teams were joined in the first round draw by five invited teams; Solent Kestrels, Derby Trailblazers, Thames Valley Cavaliers, Hemel Storm and Reading Rockets, all from the English Basketball League. [12][13], *Note: FIBA has withdrawn the London Lions from the FIBA Europe Cup Regular Season due to COVID-19 disruptions. Numbers highlighted in green indicate that the team finished the round inside the top eight. It stood until 2006, when the NBA started staging games at the O2 Arena in London. The head offices are located in Leicester,[2] where the country's oldest team, the Leicester Riders is also based. [9] Following the completion of the Championship regular season, the top eight ranked teams advance into the post-season Play-offs which usually take place during April.[10]. Currently there are 11 teams that compete each year to win that all-important trophy. 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. The past decade has seen sustained growth across the league, with the biggest advances in facilities. 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.[27]. London clubs dominated the league, with London Towers, Crystal Palace and the Greater London Leopards all sharing success in the mid-1990s. [28] The League signed a three-year broadcast deal with the ill-fated digital TV company ITV Digital in 2001, and coverage suffered a sharp decline as the broadcaster struggled and eventually went out of business, resulting in a significant loss of income to member clubs. In 1999, a Conference format similar to the NBA was introduced, with clubs split North and South. The history of television coverage of the BBL has been sporadic. The British Basketball League, often abbreviated to the BBL, is a men's professional basketball league in Great Britain and represents the highest level of play in the country. The two Conference champions met in a Championship series to decide the champions for the next three years. The British Basketball League (BBL) and Women’s British Basketball League (WBBL) will be joining our sporting colleagues across. [22] Newcastle,[23] London,[24] Glasgow,[25] and Bristol[20] have all signalled their intentions of playing at a European level in the near future. 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