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Post by Deleted on Dec 2, 2022 20:31:03 GMT
Aaron Radin, American who previously worked for Meta/Facebook and some other seriously big companies in very high up jobs
Seems a bit of a strange move for him and as usual it’s someone with no basketball connection but still a crazy impressive CV for someone involved in the BBL
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Post by ukbballfan on Dec 3, 2022 7:55:34 GMT
When their investment was announced, appointing a CEO and ‘digital transformation’ were cited as the first two areas of investment. So this appointment seems to fit with that intention to grow the digital side of the game.
Will be interesting to see how a CEO plays out when the club owners are used to running league between them.
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Post by ScottishBasketballFan on Dec 3, 2022 10:30:37 GMT
If it can lead to an improved quality for the game in this country, then great.
Need to see how it plays out, I hope though, we don't hear any more outlandish statements such as the BBL being the 2nd best league in the World behind the NBA. It simply isn't feasible.
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Post by dexter on Dec 3, 2022 10:51:05 GMT
If it can lead to an improved quality for the game in this country, then great. Need to see how it plays out, I hope though, we don't hear any more outlandish statements such as the BBL being the 2nd best league in the World behind the NBA. It simply isn't feasible. A good ambition would be to be a top 10 league in Europe. And maybe something about making basketball Britain’s number 4 team sport after the big 3 (football, rugby and cricket). |
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Post by SamH on Dec 3, 2022 18:42:03 GMT
Presumably he's at least a basketball fan, so I don't think it matters if he has no experience with the sport professionally. Most NBA team owners didn't either before buying their teams. Ok that's not the same as running a league but all 30 owners get to vote on key league decisions and actually, running just one NBA franchise is probably a way bigger operation than the entire BBL.
And of course the one owner with as much basketball experience as you could ever want, a certain #23...well his team perennially sucks!🤣
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Post by SamH on Dec 3, 2022 18:46:10 GMT
If you look at what Barry Hearn has done in developing darts over the last 20 years, it shows what can be achieved with the right person. Darts has gone from being on TV once a year with players working day jobs because it wasn't lucrative enough to be a full time pro, playing in small venues. To now playing in front of 10,000 fans and selling out big arenas, on TV all the time and top players are millionaires.
It's all about finding the right ingredients to grow the fan base, from that comes TV, sponsors, advertisers and more media coverage.
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Post by johnmc on Dec 3, 2022 20:46:11 GMT
Presumably he's at least a basketball fan, so I don't think it matters if he has no experience with the sport professionally. Most NBA team owners didn't either before buying their teams. Ok that's not the same as running a league but all 30 owners get to vote on key league decisions and actually, running just one NBA franchise is probably a way bigger operation than the entire BBL. And of course the one owner with as much basketball experience as you could ever want, a certain #23...well his team perennially sucks!🤣 Looked him up on LinkedIn. He actually worked for 3 years in the NBA commercial team early in his career ahead of joining some of the media firms. Looks like a strong fit. |
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Post by dexter on Dec 5, 2022 17:19:31 GMT
His interview is on YouTube. He clearly is a basketball fan and seems to approaching this in the right way, by trying to understand the British sports culture.
A very interesting statistic is that 70% of people watching BBL (watching online, on TV etc) are aged 13 to 34 years. That is quite incredible considering so many fans at the arenas are old folks or little kids.
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Post by erj14 on Dec 6, 2022 0:58:10 GMT
This all looks very promising, he seems like a perfect fit when you look at his background.
I've tried not to get my hopes up too much with this whole 777 thing. I'm starting to see the light with it.
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Post by docker on Dec 6, 2022 11:21:41 GMT
Impressive appointment- 777 did well to find him. I really like the content-driven approach he outlined in the YouTube interview. Hope he gets the chance to make this happen.
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Post by D44 on Dec 6, 2022 12:15:10 GMT
I feel like appointing a reasonably high profile guy to that role gives 777 some more credibility. Shame he's American as he's probably a total douchebag, like every other successful American businessman that's ever lived.
My friend has applied for the Chief Content Officer role that's been advertised, have to send this over. He might have second thoughts 😂
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Post by SamH on Dec 6, 2022 15:19:10 GMT
And as fans, what do you think his top 3 priorities should be?
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Post by D44 on Dec 6, 2022 16:30:54 GMT
And as fans, what do you think his top 3 priorities should be? 1. Attract long term commercial sponsorship so that teams can attract and retain the best talent. 2. Two more teams within the next few years would be nice. 8 from 12 into playoffs feels about right. 3. Retaining free to air games and a TV Deal (sky or otherwise). Although personally I'd happily pay if the quality was good, having it locked behind some kind of paywall may put some off. (4. No more aggregate score games) |
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Post by gardielo on Dec 6, 2022 16:59:23 GMT
From the interview it seems to me that getting Lions success in Europe is aimed at attracting more investment to teams that gives bigger budgets that drives standards up.
If I was investing I would go for Newcastle. Own arena, large fan based, city based, huge community programme. Better club than London TBH. Not sure how this helps smaller market teams though.
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Post by dexter on Dec 6, 2022 17:36:37 GMT
And as fans, what do you think his top 3 priorities should be? It’s difficult to answer that because I don’t understand how it all works financially, but in my uninformed opinion the priorities should be: 1. To increase revenue and funding from sponsors, match day income, government funding, investors and benefactors, and broadcasters (but not at the expense of the current free to view situation). 2. To use this bigger budget to improve the quality of players. 3. To get the BBL, London Lions in EuroCup, and GB teams talked about on the BBC and in other media. Newspapers’ online sports sections don’t even have a section for “Other Sports”. They all have about ten of their favourite sports that they cover and there is nowhere to put British basketball. I don’t know what the answer is to that but it is a barrier that needs to be overcome. British ice hockey is in the same position; blocked from being in the media. But I think this is worse for basketball because the ice hockey teams rely on fans going to the games. I see basketball as having more of a broad national appeal with people watching from home, following the league online etc. |
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Post by dandayr on Dec 6, 2022 17:39:25 GMT
From the interview it seems to me that getting Lions success in Europe is aimed at attracting more investment to teams that gives bigger budgets that drives standards up. If I was investing I would go for Newcastle. Own arena, large fan based, city based, huge community programme. Better club than London TBH. Not sure how this helps smaller market teams though. apart from some folks way of trying to wind up riders fans - what is a smaller market team though? do you genuinly think there are smaller market teams in the BBL at the moment? there might be teams with a smaller mindset - but that can be changed. I dont think anyone is truly in a smaller market. Lions may be after an international market with their recent signings and high profile approach, London is bigger but as those that live there have highlighted that doesnt mean all in GLC are your market due to the size and time/distances to get about. I think all the teams are in decent sized market areas. |
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Post by SamH on Dec 6, 2022 18:19:33 GMT
I think smaller market refers to a combination of the town/city itself (and thus potential size of fan base) and also what the location has to offer to potential players. It's much easier in the NBA to define - trends can easily be bucked. Oklahoma, Utah, San Antonio all considered quite small and not very attractive to players who might sign as free agents. Yet they all have fantastic fan bases who remain loyal during bad times. Whereas the Lakers for example, their fans have shown themselves to behave like spoilt brats at times when things haven't gone so well. Miami fans turn up late and leave early, including the infamous game 6 of the 2013 finals when they left early only for the Heat to win a thriller and go on to win the championship in game 7.
In the BBL it may be harder to define but certainly back in the day the likes of Thames Valley and Worthing were small market teams compared to most others, and Chester I'd say too. Yet all had considerable success at times and not bad sized crowds/loyal fans.
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Post by docker on Dec 6, 2022 18:20:19 GMT
And as fans, what do you think his top 3 priorities should be? 1. BBC putting Basketball in the main menu on their sports pages with regular coverage of BBL games and news 2. BBL clubs getting regular sell-out games at all venues 3. British team(s) competitive in Europe |
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Post by SamH on Dec 6, 2022 18:22:50 GMT
Personally I think getting more teams (but decent ones with sustainability for the long term) should be his priority. It was looking very close to being only 9 teams this season and 10 is not enough anyway. We've had this discussion and whether 16 will ever be realistic and competitive, it may just be a fantasy. But at least 12, 13 teams would be good.
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Post by dexter on Dec 6, 2022 20:10:49 GMT
And as fans, what do you think his top 3 priorities should be? 1. BBC putting Basketball in the main menu on their sports pages with regular coverage of BBL games and news 2. BBL clubs getting regular sell-out games at all venues 3. British team(s) competitive in Europe You’re right. It has to start with the BBC. BBC has pushed women’s sports hard. Now one of the Telegraph’s 10 sports headings is women’s sports. If the BBC leads at least some of the newspapers will follow. |
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