The Chief Executive of the English Basketball Association, Simon Kirkland as openly questioned the amounts of television rights money spent on Soccer as the BBC announced the loss of ‘Match of the Day’ last week.

Basketball is one of many teams sports that are attractive to television but lose out to Soccer and individual sports such as snooker and darts.

Basketball receives little or no rights fees for televised games and this is a severe draw back to the development of the sport. However Basketball in the Olympics is the highest grossing income generator for the IOC yet in the UK it would appear to be left behind by the National obsession with football Kirkland said:

‘The sums of money talked about for the right to televise Premier League Football highlights could buy a number of sports lock, stock and barrel. It appears that only traditional ‘English’ sports attract considerable rights fees. When you look at the millions pumped into football with the current results of the National team you can see the needs for a world team sport like Basketball to get to a similar standard.’

Basketball is hugely popular with young people in Britain yet the game seldom receives any television coverage in this country compared to the United States and mainland Europe. This lack of television revenue is clearly a draw back to build on the large base of young peoples participation. For example last year the EBBA recorded over 11 million visits to Outdoor Courts.

There is an opportunity for great television from Basketball and the EBBA would like to see the BBC and other television companies look very hard into how they can assist in the development of team sports, other than football in England and the rest of the British Isles.

For For Further Information Please Contact:

Simon Kirkland
Tel: +44 (0)113 236 1166