US bid for British basketball league isn’t another 777, says BBF

Thursday 30 January 2025 6:16 pm

The chair of the British Basketball Federation (BBF) has dismissed fears of one other 777 Companions over plans handy management of its league to extra US traders. 

The BBF needed to strip the 777-owned British Basketball League (BBL) of its licence final 12 months after the Miami-based fund ran out of cash, leaving golf equipment dealing with extinction.

9 of the groups rallied spherical to type a brand new competitors, Tremendous League Basketball (SLB), which was granted an interim licence by the BBF and is midway via its first season.  

The BBF’s choice to call Marshall Glickman’s group most well-liked bidder for a long-term licence has infuriated SLB, which has now vowed to separate from the federation.

However BBF chair Chris Grant insists that former NBA and EuroLeague govt Glickman’s bid has already been vetted greater than 777 ever was.

“So the earlier state of affairs clearly was untenable, and that was why we took what was a tough choice to withdraw that license [from BBL/777],” Grant informed Metropolis AM. 

“I consider that the due diligence and scrutiny that has been utilized to the popular bidder to ensure that it to develop into the popular bidder exceeds by a good distance something of that sort which has been completed, definitely in my information, in British basketball up up to now.”

SLB has complained that it was not consulted and it’s understood to have refused to participate over issues concerning the legality of the method in addition to the associated fee.

Grant and the BBF responded to these ideas, stated it didn’t know why SLB hadn’t bid and dismissed issues over the way forward for a British basketball league.

He added: “We stated that we’d apply very excessive requirements of integrity, equity, experience and, so far as we’re involved, we haven’t moved away from that course of. There’s extra to it, I’m certain, however the actual trigger for that is arduous to discern.

“We wished to do that proper so it wasn’t acceptable to have a possible bidder in the beginning of it within the room deciding what was going to be within the tender documentation.

BBF: Tremendous League Basketball selected to not bid

“I’m fairly sure they may have put ahead a very sturdy bid, however they selected to not. Particular person golf equipment haven’t been sidelined. 

“There can be knowledgeable league, and all the pieces we’re doing is to have these established, vital golf equipment in that league.”

There’s extra to it, I’m certain, however the actual trigger for that is arduous to discern.

BBF chair Chris Grant on SLB’s vow to separate from it

Grant and the British Basketball Federation urged golf equipment to return to the negotiating desk and examine the Glickman proposal.

“That is known as an unique negotiating interval. A part of that’s so that you can negotiate with the bidder. As of at this time, so far as I’m conscious, not one of the golf equipment know what’s in that bid,” he stated. 

“The golf equipment would be the solely stakeholders to have the chance at this level to see what’s within the bid to love it, to not prefer it, to barter it. 

“We’ve arrange a course of for the golf equipment to see what it’s, after which a interval of negotiation, and that’s what we wish to occur.”