British Basketball Association to launch in 2014

The popularity of basketball in the UK has grown recently and the British Basketball Association (BBA) intends to capitalize on it. It intends to start a high-level league composed of eight teams from various UK cities in its first season, with an option to expand to 14 teams later on. The development of the league will be spearheaded by the BBA Chief Executive Officer, Ron Scott, and newly-appointed Chief Commercial & Operating Officer David Paton. Paton goes on to say,

“We’re extremely excited about realising our ambitious but realistic vision to create the UK’s leading professional basketball league. The BBA league will deliver the sport in a new and exciting way and make basketball more accessible than ever before nationwide, to live and televised audiences. ”

The BBA hopes to have its first regular season tip-off in November 2014 with pre-season games slated in October. BBA Chairman Ken Olisa also adds,

“We’re passionate about complementing what the NBA stands for globally and we have the right management team in place and an inviting business proposition that we hope will attract considerable interest.”

“Learning from the successful US model, the BBA intends to do for basketball what the Premier League has done for soccer.”