This time last year we were talking about a ‘new era’ for the professional league in the UK, and ended that article asking not whether the league can raise capital, but if it can become profitable and self-sustainable.

The answer to that question, turned out to be a resounding no.

Twelve months later and the British Basketball League no longer exists, having had its operating licensed revoked by the British Basketball Federation before all staff were made redundant without pay, leaving what is effectively a zombie organisation that still owns the IP to both Plymouth City Patriots and Manchester Giants.

“We were learning about things in the news or on social media, the same way as everyone else,” said Dan Clark, owner of the newly formed Surrey 89ers, reflecting on the instability of 777 Partners’ involvement. “By the time the decision was made by Chris [Grant, Chairman of the BBF] and the BBF to revoke the license, the writing was pretty much on the wall.”

When US-based private equity firm 777 Partners took a 45% stake in the league for £7million in December 2021, no-one could have predicted what would transpire.

At the time, 777 had very little track record with sporting investments – the Lions and the League were amongst the first and there were no indications of financial issues, or what was later described as 777 “operating a giant shell game at best, and an outright Ponzi scheme at worst”.

It wasn’t until last year, almost two years later, when they attempted to buy Premier League club Everton that investigative reporters at Josimar Football began to uncover issues and news of late payments to a number of their investments started becoming public.

Those late payments included a reported £900,000 sum to the league, while debts were piling up, a sum that was around seven figures by the time the license was pulled.

“I’d always want to see the league operating in the same way that I operate my club,” Eagles’ Paul Blake replied when asked about the biggest lessons learned from the whole debacle.

“We have to be sustainable. There’s no question that investment can move things forward and more quickly open up other opportunities.

“But ultimately, there’s a responsibility that we have to the basketball community and supporters and fans to make sure that we’re around. And one part of that is, in my view, making sure that we’re making sensible decisions and working on as sustainable a basis as we possibly can.”

The intervention by the BBF and Grant – who, Hoopsfix is told, had been threatening to remove the license since September 2023 – was pivotal.

“Without Chris and the BBF’s intervention, there’s no way we would’ve had a season this year,” Vaughn Millette, interim chair of the new Super League Basketball (SLB) told Hoopsfix.

Vaughn’s comments were echoed by other clubs.

“I’m grateful for how strong the governing body have been,” Bristol Flyers’ Jon Lansdowne said.

“For one that’s probably not the biggest governing body in sport in this country. I don’t think we’d be playing basketball if they hadn’t revoked the license.”

The BBF’s decision wasn’t just about removing 777; it was about doing it early enough to save the 2024-25 season and giving the clubs a fighting chance of landing on their feet with a new league.

In a frantic ten-week period, the clubs that once formed the BBL united to create a new league: Super League Basketball.

“Extremely difficult,” is how Blake describes the past 10 weeks.

Owners were assigned to different management committees; governance & operations, communications, branding, broadcast, finance and commercial, to move nimbly and allow swift decision making.

Things were allegedly not made easy by the previous equity holders in the league, who Leicester Riders’ owner Kevin Routledge said were either “consciously or unconsciously making it more difficult”.

Despite threats of legal action, the clubs forged on.

“We had to build everything from scratch — new governance, new bank accounts, new company structures. It was chaos, but somehow, we did it,” Millette said, reflecting on the effort it has taken for the league to a place it can tip off this week.

“I’ve been blown away by the amount of work that everybody was A, willing to put in, and B, were able to put in,” Caledonia Gladiators’ owner Steve Timoney said.

“Who would have thought that a brand new league, starting only 10 weeks ago, which if anybody told me in my 40 year business career, you could put a whole organisation together in 10 weeks – I would say it’s not a chance, and that’s exactly what’s happened here.”

The league has reverted to its previous format with four competitions; Cup, Trophy, Championship, and Playoffs — despite receiving criticism.

Given the time constraints, it was the easiest choice.

“That was the one thing I couldn’t spend time on,” Vaughn Millette said. “It just wasn’t possible. And I think as we look towards next year, we’ll spend a lot of time on things like that.”

Regardless of the chaos and the many unresolved challenges, the league could be heading toward the strongest position it’s ever been in.

It might sound bold, especially with the first SLB game still yet to be played, but for the first time, the league is on course to achieve both profitability and long-term sustainability.

A rights deal has been signed with DAZN (Hoopsfix is told it is worth over seven figures), along with an apparel deal with Reebok, plus more commercial deals to be announced, says Millette.

There will be significants distributions to the clubs for the first time in in over two decades, a far cry from the BBL’s financial struggles that led to them losing their license.

“We’ll take those distributions and force everyone to spend them,” he added. “Higher minimum salary thresholds, more investment in academy. And I think we can do this in a way where it really does help the whole ecosystem in a really drastic way.”

It is not just a new league by name, but also by ownership, with five of the nine franchises (Sheffield, Manchester, Surrey, London, Cheshire) having new owners.

The injection of new faces, ideas and capital has given a lot of optimism.

“If you have all the clubs being financially stable and with extra cash to invest in things, we can finance a league,” Millette said.

Denise White, a US-based investor with SDSSports is one of the new faces, having recently acquired the Cheshire Phoenix.

“I’m very bullish on, on the direction that we’re (the league is) going, the people who are involved and what we think we can build together,” she told Hoopsfix at the SLB media launch day on Monday.

“But we are starting from scratch, and so there will be some challenges, but I think we’re on the same page and I believe that we’re heading in the right direction.”

The only new owner that is British (with three of the other four being American, plus one Lithuanian group) is Surrey 89ers’ and former GB international Dan Clark, who never thought he would have the opportunity to own a professional franchise within two years of retiring.

He has been the GM of the Surrey Scorchers for the past two seasons.

“We heard rumblings in the background about the (financial) situation of higher education across the country,” he said. “And given Surrey sports were solely owned by by the University of Surrey, from one day to the next, we were informed that the university was no longer able or willing to fund professional sport.

“I think it was something that was going to happen at some point in time in the foreseeable future (but) we obviously didn’t expect it to happen two months before the start of the season.”

It was the uncertainty around the BBL operating license being removed that accelerated the process.

“When I hung my playing shoes up a couple of years ago, I didn’t imagine that within two years that I’d have the opportunity to own a franchise,” Clark enthused.

“But sometimes opportunities come across your plate that you have to take and take advantage of. You know, I think myself and Jodi (Jackson – co-owner) have done that and I’m really confident we can make the most of this situation.”

The league has also seen new US-based ownership buy the Manchester franchise (“great people” who “are more than capitalised” says Millette) while the London Lions, who were wholly owned by 777 Partners have been taken over by Tesonet/Zalgiris and controversially, installed former VP of 777, Lenz Balan, as CEO.

“Quite honestly, I still do understand the (negative) perception very, very, very well,” Millette said.

“…Lenz did everything he could to save that club. I wasn’t around in the 777 days, so I can’t tell you everything prior to that. But in my experience, did everything he could to save that club and anything that was asked of him.

“The adventure with the Lions was 45 days of just absolute chaos to get that club into the hands of Zalgiris/Tesonet, who I think will be very good owners for the Lions. They’re smart, measured, intelligent people who know basketball. But the twists and turns were just daily.”

But while the Lions and the league are moving forward, not all clubs made it.

The Plymouth City Patriots, unable to find a viable owner or sustainable venue, were forced to drop out.

“It was a blow to lose Plymouth, but we just didn’t have the time to pull it together,” Millette said.

Despite the disappointment, there remains hope that Plymouth could return in the future.

If they are going to return, one of the things they will need to resolve is their lack of venue; it was revealed the Patriots were losing £8,000 a game night (“tough business model” says Millette), indicative of just how important it is that clubs get their own arenas.

“Facilities are everything,” said Millette.

Teams like Newcastle Eagles, Leicester Riders, and Sheffield Sharks are already ahead of the curve, owning their venues and controlling their revenue streams.

Riders have just extended their facility to add another two courts, while Eagles are also looking to extend, a testament to how much a club controlled venue works, if it can get built in the first place.

One of the clubs who are having difficulties getting it over the line are the Bristol Flyers, who announced their plans in 2018 but ran into issues around planning permissions.

“From experience, it’s hard to build anything, certainly at the moment in the country,” Bristol Sport Chairman Jon Lansdown said, adding the Flyers situation is not sustainable as it is, being at near maximum capacity every week in the 750-seat SGS College Arena.

“The systems aren’t working as they should.

“But we are getting there. We’ve had good news; we’re probably a couple of weeks out from any potential appeals process where we can say, right, we’ve got all our permissions and are good to go.”

Millette hinted that SLB may establish a league-wide fund to help teams build or acquire their own venues​.

Aside from facilities, another of the things fans have been vocal in their desire for, is increased transparency.

“There needs to be more transparency and understanding,” Clark agreed, while Millette would like to get to place where the league is completely open about team budgets, along with the rules and regulations.

“I really firmly believe it’s (budgets are) going to grow very rapidly,” he added.

“I think that will be a great story for us as we let it grow. So we have to be transparent about what it is, for that to be a great story in three years.”

This renewed commitment saw the league share with Hoopsfix that the salary cap is set at £400,000 in net salary payments to players this season, excluding the top paid British player, while teams are allowed to sign up to six imports, in line with rules that the previous regime had brought in.

That number of imports is too high according to some, but will stay that way until more and better homegrown players are produced, with pathway development becoming more of a focus across the league.

Millette, making it clear he was speaking for himself and not the league, would like to see an SLB-managed pathway that includes U16s, U19s and U23s, with a draft system for U16s to help profile and inspire younger players coming through.

“We need to develop more British talent, and we need to develop British role players…I think a core focus on why we’re all so focused on getting to a point of distributions is so that we can then really mandate how they’re spent; they’re gonna be spent in the academies and higher level coaches for the academies and developing talent.”

He added the SLB would like to eventually exclude all players that have come through a club’s own academy system from the salary cap to incentivise investment in homegrown talent.

That reality is still a long way off, with impatient fans needing to be reminded that the SLB are only 10 weeks into piecing everything together.

It has been so rushed in fact, the broadcast deal with DAZN was only signed on Saturday – six days before the season begins.

Enthusiasm for the DAZN deal comes from having a a singular place they can direct everyone towards to see all the games, in stark contrast to last season where so many different broadcast deals were negotiated it was hard for fans to work out where to watch.

As SLB looks to the future, growth is top of mind. Nine franchises is just not enough to run a serious league.

Rumours are swirling about potential new franchises in Brighton, Belfast, Nottingham, Cardiff and adding another London team, after part of the conditions of Lion’s admittance into the league was losing the exclusivity over the entirety of the capital as a franchise area.

“There is a definite focus now on franchise development, franchise strategy, and doing all the prep work that needs to be done” Routledge said.

“I’m very confident over the next few years, we’ll get a number of them over the line in which order. I don’t know yet.”

Millette confirmed that the league is not short of interest.

“I have a list of probably 60 people that have inquired about teams and I’d say 20 to 30 of them are very, very viable, great owners,” he exclaimed.

“A lot of them wanted teams this year. We weren’t going to make any hasty decisions and that has to go through a proper process and that will have to be after we have a long-term license.

“But there was tremendous interest in teams. I think people see this as, from an investor perspective, the last untapped market for basketball in a proper location. I think there’s real genuine excitement.”

The SLB is doing all it can to gain a long-term license, as they currently are operating on a 3-year interim license, which was agreed to get the league off the ground as soon as possible.

Gaining that long term license means working with the BBF, ensuring that professional basketball in the UK is aligned with what’s in the interests of the game from top to bottom and not just the top flight.

“It would be fair to say that this is as close as we’ve been (the BBF and the professional league),” Blake commented.

“I think all of the basketball nations understand that there’s no federation without a successful professional basketball league, but there’s also no successful basketball league without a federation,” Clark, who also works for the BBF as the GM of the GB Senior Men’s team, said.

“So it’s that understanding that one can’t exist without the other…(Professional) Basketball in this country can’t be a standalone product, it has to work in cooperation and collaboration with a lot of other areas of the game.

“And I think we’re starting to get there and understand that.”

As Super League Basketball enters its inaugural season, the league feels different from anything that came before it.

“I feel for the first time since I’ve came into basketball that this strategy makes sense,” Timoney, who sold his previous business and now has a net worth reported to be between £60millon and £100million, added.

“…For me, it’s (now) a proper business. When I look at how the strategy’s been laid out and the governance that’s gone into place, it just feels, to me, familiar territory. It’s a very well looked after business.”

New ownership, newfound financial stability, and a commitment to long-term growth have breathed life into British basketball.

For British basketball, this isn’t just another season. The SLB represents a new beginning – one built on sustainability, growth, and, for the first time, profitability.

After years of uncertainty, British basketball finally seems ready to turn potential into something lasting.