The UK’s British Basketball Federation (BBF) governing body has awarded a consortium of British basketball clubs a new three-year license to operate the domestic men’s professional top-flight.
In June, the BBF terminated the license previously held by Basketball League Ltd to run the British Basketball League following breaches in the license concerning the league’s finances that put the competition’s future into doubt, most notably that BLL has entered into arrangements with two major creditors.
There had been concern that the 2024-25 British Basketball League season would not be going ahead, but now the new consortium, known as Premier Basketball Limited (PBL), has confirmed that the league will get underway in September with fixtures to be announced shortly.
This license, effectively an interim license with a much shorter length than the 10-year license initially awarded to BLL, means that PBL will have to look to find stakeholders to take over a longer-term deal to secure the future of the competition.
Companies House listed the PBL’s sole director as Sarah Backovic, the general manager of the Sheffield Sharks team, and Sharks' new majority shareholder Vaughn Millette spoke for the consortium, saying: “Since the license was revoked, we (the clubs) have all worked together to sustain the elite professional pathway in the UK.
“There has been a huge amount of work undertaken in a very short amount of time to enable this to happen. We are pleased that the British Basketball Federation has made the decision to award the men’s professional license to our newly formed operating company ‘Premier Basketball Limited’.
“Our fans will appreciate there is a huge amount still to be done and more details will be released shortly – including the fixture schedule for the forthcoming season.”
Despite the intervention of PBL in taking over the league license, there is still uncertainty over the makeup of the coming league, as three of the British Basketball League’s 10 sides, including the champion London Lions, have been taken over by the league itself due to financial mismanagement.
Whether the league will be made up of 10 teams or seven, if it will include the biggest team from the largest city in the country, and whether or not the Women’s Basketball League will also go ahead, remain as question marks that the new body must answer sooner rather than later.
