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Post by reallyoldfeenixfan2 on Nov 30, 2022 10:38:05 GMT
What is the 3k seater arena? That'd rule out the majority of current members wouldn't it? |
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Post by LTfan on Nov 30, 2022 11:34:59 GMT
I found this on Wikipedia which I didn’t know about and is somewhat relevant. Hibernia Basketball was an Irish basketball team, created by Basketball Ireland to participate in the 2015–16 FIBA Europe Cup.[1] The team's home arena was the National Basketball Arena, based in Tallaght, South Dublin,[2] and the playing roster consisted of Premier League players.[3] The team made its debut on 28 October 2015 against Danish club Bakken Bears, losing 96–60.[4] They finished the tournament with a winless 0–6 record, finishing last in Group F and earning a tournament-worst point difference figure of 243 (345 points for, 588 against). It’s been discussed on here before as it’s quite an interesting concept, which always leads to a discussion on how well a BBL All-Stars team would do in various European competitions. The logistics of it would be problematic (players expecting to effective be playing in two teams simultaneously) and why any European competition would allow it. Although allow it they did in the case of Ireland and the FIBA Europe Cup. |
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Post by LTfan on Nov 30, 2022 11:38:36 GMT
Ok, let's stop looking at the potential issues for existing BBL teams and look at the likely success of a Northern Irish/Belfast BBL team... Does Northern Ireland/Belfast have a big enough basketball following, or the realistic potential big enough basketball following, to have a successful BBL team? Given the challenges for most British areas, and Northern Irish/Belfast would surely have all those and more, is this a realistic proposition? If London City Royals were a disaster, what's different that would make a Northern Irish/Belfast BBL team a success? By the way, that's a genuine question, I know very little about the basketball scene in Ireland and Northern Ireland. From reading around the subject, what I know is the Irish Superleague has 14 teams and each team has one professional player. Northern Ireland has just the one Superleague team. Northern Ireland also has its own amateur league. Which itself makes you wonder how on earth a Northern Irish BBL team could be successful, even if someone is willing to cough up millions of pounds investment. Maybe it’s just me, but this does have a ‘Belfast City Royals’ feel to it. And on paper the original City Royals had a lot less challenges that Belfast. I’d love to be proved wrong though. |
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Post by dexter on Nov 30, 2022 12:25:46 GMT
I found this on Wikipedia which I didn’t know about and is somewhat relevant. Hibernia Basketball was an Irish basketball team, created by Basketball Ireland to participate in the 2015–16 FIBA Europe Cup.[1] The team's home arena was the National Basketball Arena, based in Tallaght, South Dublin,[2] and the playing roster consisted of Premier League players.[3] The team made its debut on 28 October 2015 against Danish club Bakken Bears, losing 96–60.[4] They finished the tournament with a winless 0–6 record, finishing last in Group F and earning a tournament-worst point difference figure of 243 (345 points for, 588 against). It’s been discussed on here before as it’s quite an interesting concept, which always leads to a discussion on how well a BBL All-Stars team would do in various European competitions. The logistics of it would be problematic (players expecting to effective be playing in two teams simultaneously) and why any European competition would allow it. Although allow it they did in the case of Ireland and the FIBA Europe Cup. An Irish All Stars team to play in a midweek European competition is a much better idea than a Northern Ireland team in the BBL. The professional players can play for Superleague teams at the weekend to raise the standard of their domestic league. It could create a professional pathway for homegrown players. And they don’t need to involve the BBL. The FIBA Europe competitions are already there for this sort of thing. |
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Post by dexter on Nov 30, 2022 13:50:20 GMT
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Post by ScottishBasketballFan on Nov 30, 2022 15:35:50 GMT
its just across the irish sea - not the far side of the european mainland  for most clubs the time for road and ferry to Belfast wont be that different from what Glasgow do to Plymouth - and for a couple of clubs it would be less cant see a current NI team being an attractive idea to the BBL to invite to the trophy - the pre-season Scottish Invitational in Paisley saw Belfast Star lose to St Mirren and then they had to take a couple of Saints players when they faced Rocks. the only real issue I can see is the one someone brought up - FIBA. The Belfast Star roster was listed as predominatly Irish with a couple of British - to play in BBL any new team it would as things stand surely need to be British squad with same level of imports as any other BBL side and players registed with BE and imports managed through BBF. Otherwise if you let them be an Irish eligibility squad as the base, that opens up the can of worms of dual national Irish/US and a different set of recruitment rules from all other sides. a) still think travel and distance are non issues. b) hockey has shown you can start a pro side in the city from scratch and get the locals onboard without any of the baggage that comes with their football, gaa and rugby c) there is a ready arena that has hosted basketball if someone is out there going to put plans and a decent franchise bid in a mainland GB location with a 3K plus sized arena in place then clearly head to head with a Belfast bid the mainland one has the edge - but till someone actually fronts up a successfull bid anywhere, suprised at all the negativity on this. yes London Royals was a blot on the franchise decision process - but there are other well publicised talks of new franchises that never got past the BBL franchise process so they do seem to have a decent idea at what they are doing You cite London City Royals as an example of a blot on the decision process, at least they had a bit of success, but what about Birmingham Knights? They were a massive failure and like Mersey Tigers the season before, they too went winless. |
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Post by LTfan on Nov 30, 2022 16:13:33 GMT
its just across the irish sea - not the far side of the european mainland for most clubs the time for road and ferry to Belfast wont be that different from what Glasgow do to Plymouth - and for a couple of clubs it would be less cant see a current NI team being an attractive idea to the BBL to invite to the trophy - the pre-season Scottish Invitational in Paisley saw Belfast Star lose to St Mirren and then they had to take a couple of Saints players when they faced Rocks. the only real issue I can see is the one someone brought up - FIBA. The Belfast Star roster was listed as predominatly Irish with a couple of British - to play in BBL any new team it would as things stand surely need to be British squad with same level of imports as any other BBL side and players registed with BE and imports managed through BBF. Otherwise if you let them be an Irish eligibility squad as the base, that opens up the can of worms of dual national Irish/US and a different set of recruitment rules from all other sides. a) still think travel and distance are non issues. b) hockey has shown you can start a pro side in the city from scratch and get the locals onboard without any of the baggage that comes with their football, gaa and rugby c) there is a ready arena that has hosted basketball if someone is out there going to put plans and a decent franchise bid in a mainland GB location with a 3K plus sized arena in place then clearly head to head with a Belfast bid the mainland one has the edge - but till someone actually fronts up a successfull bid anywhere, suprised at all the negativity on this. yes London Royals was a blot on the franchise decision process - but there are other well publicised talks of new franchises that never got past the BBL franchise process so they do seem to have a decent idea at what they are doing You cite London City Royals as an example of a blot on the decision process, at least they had a bit of success, but what about Birmingham Knights? They were a massive failure and like Mersey Tigers the season before, they too went winless. Didn't Mersey Tigers win the Cup and were runners up in the League in their second season? Yes, they were relatively short lived (5 seasons?) but they did have some success. Birmingham Knights? Yeah, I'll agree with you on that one. |
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Post by ScottishBasketballFan on Nov 30, 2022 16:26:25 GMT
No, I wasn't using Mersey in the same bracket, it was more to do with their last season and that's why they got a mention, after all, they were the first side to go winless and then followed by Birmingham
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Post by dexter on Nov 30, 2022 16:29:16 GMT
You cite London City Royals as an example of a blot on the decision process, at least they had a bit of success, but what about Birmingham Knights? They were a massive failure and like Mersey Tigers the season before, they too went winless. Didn't Mersey Tigers win the Cup and were runners up in the League in their second season? Yes, they were relatively short lived (5 seasons?) but they did have some success. Birmingham Knights? Yeah, I'll agree with you on that one. If Basketball Ireland want a team to play in the BBL they could consider basing a team in Liverpool. |
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Post by tallerman on Nov 30, 2022 17:52:47 GMT
Who was the last team to join the bbl as a start up and be successful?
Remember watching the Hibernua team. Lehmon Colbert was the only players doing ok in the European games and he averaged like 12 and 6.
Irish basketball certainly has more than 1 pro player per team but they only have 1 import. Thats the difference. If you want a comparison the closest is probably worthing thunder this year
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Post by D44 on Nov 30, 2022 17:56:50 GMT
If they've got a venue, the entry fee and a suitable business plan what more is there to be said? How do we know the new 'franchisee' isn't a multi millionaire (eg Gladiators new owner). That being the case they'd be on a much more stable footing than most of existing teams, right? You've also got a potentially huge market that isn't dominated by football already. So much negativity.
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Post by docker on Nov 30, 2022 18:16:32 GMT
Good article. I hope he sticks with it. Found this interesting: "The sport [in Ireland] has more than 250 clubs across the island with about 30,000 registered members and it’s also played in 800 schools.." Basketball England claims it has "over 34,000 members playing in 675 affiliated clubs" according to this: www.basketballengland.co.uk/about/research/facts-and-figures |
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Post by dexter on Nov 30, 2022 20:03:23 GMT
Good article. I hope he sticks with it. Found this interesting: "The sport [in Ireland] has more than 250 clubs across the island with about 30,000 registered members and it’s also played in 800 schools.." Basketball England claims it has "over 34,000 members playing in 675 affiliated clubs" according to this: www.basketballengland.co.uk/about/research/facts-and-figures These stats show that basketball is more popular in Ireland than in England, which is why the CEO can say basketball can challenge the big 3 (meaning football, Gaelic football and rugby) without being ridiculous. |
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Post by dexter on Nov 30, 2022 23:17:02 GMT
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Post by LTfan on Dec 1, 2022 11:02:44 GMT
Who was the last team to join the bbl as a start up and be successful? Good question... If you don't count Plymouth City Patriots, then either Manchester Giants or Surrey Scorchers? Although you could probably compile an argument for all 3 of those being the most recent start up entry into the league. |
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Post by tallerman on Dec 1, 2022 12:52:01 GMT
Think patriots are still in the danger zone of being new but yeah probably Manchester
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dandayr
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Post by dandayr on Dec 2, 2022 12:49:59 GMT
What is the 3k seater arena? as far as I can tell, in the Belfast case other than sports halls (no go for BBL future) with small capacity the SSE Arena where hockey Belfast Giants are based is the only option that meets what I thoght was previously mentioned of a 3Kplus capacity for future BBL franchises to have from the start. so thats what I meant by Belfast has one, but for example understood Reading and Gloucester dont at this time. someone asked why I never mentioned the failed franchises of Birmingham and Mersey when I said about blotts on the franchise decision process - purely cause I reckon they are so far back they dont relate to those currently in charge of the BBL and on the board and making decision on franchises. Could even argue there has been so much change in BBL that even Royals approval was from a different group of BBL decision makers and sounds like different requirements now as well. |
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Post by Stephen Abootman on Dec 2, 2022 17:55:28 GMT
Fair play to whoever it is (?) that's attempted this but once you get beyond the first dozen or so I think it becomes a near impossible task. There are a number of leagues on that list from the 2nd tier down that look significantly over/underrated to me. And I don't see how you can possibly come up with a scientific system for ranking leagues as obscure as NBL1 or the Scottish Championship. There are plenty who know NBL1 better than me. I've seen enough to believe it isn't very good but I've also seen enough to believe the Scottish league is significantly worse. We've had a Scottish league representative in the Trophy eight times now. The only one that was anywhere near competitive was Edinburgh back in 2012/13. The rest have all lost by 30-60 points. Falkirk got turned over by Loughborough a few years ago. The long term record of NBL1 clubs in the Trophy makes for pretty grim reading but it's not that bad. Regarding 'Hibernia Basketball', I don't really see how a bad, made up team getting it's ass handed to it half a dozen times a year in Europe Cup is going to do anything much to grow the game in Ireland. Assuming they could make it work, having one or perhaps multiple clubs competing in a semi credible pro league would seem like a better strategy to me. And Ireland clearly doesn't have an adequate league system of it's own currently. |
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Post by dexter on Dec 2, 2022 19:22:01 GMT
Fair play to whoever it is (?) that's attempted this but once you get beyond the first dozen or so I think it becomes a near impossible task. There are a number of leagues on that list from the 2nd tier down that look significantly over/underrated to me. And I don't see how you can possibly come up with a scientific system for ranking leagues as obscure as NBL1 or the Scottish Championship. There are plenty who know NBL1 better than me. I've seen enough to believe it isn't very good but I've also seen enough to believe the Scottish league is significantly worse. We've had a Scottish league representative in the Trophy eight times now. The only one that was anywhere near competitive was Edinburgh back in 2012/13. The rest have all lost by 30-60 points. Falkirk got turned over by Loughborough a few years ago. The long term record of NBL1 clubs in the Trophy makes for pretty grim reading but it's not that bad. Regarding 'Hibernia Basketball', I don't really see how a bad, made up team getting it's ass handed to it half a dozen times a year in Europe Cup is going to do anything much to grow the game in Ireland. Assuming they could make it work, having one or perhaps multiple clubs competing in a semi credible pro league would seem like a better strategy to me. And Ireland clearly doesn't have an adequate league system of it's own currently. I have thought that a British and Irish basketball league along the lines of BNXT League could be good. It’s a nice idea but that would require a lot of investment. People want to downplay the additional travel, but it’s not like we can just drive across an invisible border like you can between Netherlands and Belgium. There is an additional time and cost. If the Irish can improve the standard of their league there might be opportunities for something like that in the future, but at the moment I don’t see what would be the benefit to the BBL. |
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