Promotion and Relegation

I've been giving some thought to the concept of promotion and relegation in European basketball. For people reading this in North America who are unfamiliar with this practise, professional team sports are created on a pyramid system that lets lower league (minor league) teams to move up to higher leagues depending on end of season standings. We are talking here about the equal of the Trenton Thunder (Eastern League AA in baseball) moving up to the International League or the Pacific Coast League (AAA) one year and even moving up to MLB the next. In order for this to be possible, it means that teams from the PCL and MLB would go DOWN levels if they finished last or next to last amongst all teams.

It is a remarkable concept and one that not many Americans are familiar with. As our games are structured now back home, this would simply entail economic meltdown in the short term and would be impossible. It would also be impossible in the NFL because there are no minor leagues of American football. The same would apply in basketball. It could only work, perhaps, in ice hockey. In baseball, on its face, it is possible, but as the MLB teams own the registration of the minor league players, it is not realistic to generally discuss it. An open baseball cup competition would be stellar though, as I've often said.

However, in Europe this is the norm and as the years have gone by, economic meltdown is now what transpires when the equal of the Chicago White Sox or the Cubs gets relegated. In the UK, Leeds United have just been relegated again to the equal of AA baseball. A team that can count on 25,000-30,000 weekly turning out will play teams that struggled to attract 5,000. It's a nightmare. And one that can go on for years and years; ask any Nottingham Forest supporter.

Of course, one could argue that teams such as the NY Yankees or Boston Red Sox would never be the ones to go down as they earn too much money; relegation would be reserved for the Milwaukee Brewers or other small market teams. And this is true. But someone has to go down each year and it's not one team, it's two or three.

Which leads me to European basketball, in which, as far as I know, all the major leagues subject themselves to relegation and promotion. The British Basketball League is not a major league but it does have the distinction of being a "closed league".

I heard the phrase "closed league" used quite a bit in Brussels, I think, as a euphemism for the NBA. Closed leagues are seriously frowned upon, again I think, by the leading minds of European basketball. And since we of the BBL operate a closed league, I have been given to thinking more and more about it.

Of all people to feel partial to a closed league, it shouldn't be me. First of all, after nearly 11 full years, I understand how important this concept is to the die-hard supporters of football. Second and most of all, as a supporter of a team that has climbed all 4 rungs of the Football League during my time in England, I have promotion and relegation to thank for supporting a Premier League club today.

But I can't seem to bring myself to liking the idea of promotion and relegation in the BBL. While I am sure, or I think I am sure, the big-wigs at the other league offices could frankly care less what the BBL does at this stage, I would hope a day will come that they WOULD care and therefore it is something that is on my mind; particularly as we are in promotion and relegation season and Fulham Football Club narrowly escaped it this year.

The BBL today is comprised of, I think, 12 clubs; having expanded in the close season with the addition of a brand new club in Birmingham and the promotion of London Capital from England Basketball League 1. They were not first, second or third as far as I know in their league, the positions from which promotion should be gained. Birmingham didn't even exist.

Worcester were promoted from 6th place last season and lost 36 of 40 games. If the league had relegation, Worcester would have come up and gone straight back down. Would this have been worth it to them?

Financially, I struggle to understand how our league could cope with clubs coming into the league, making an investment and then being relegated to a league that I have to believe suffers from less income than we do.

And to make matters worse, none of the 3 best teams in EB1 applied for promotion this year. As the marketing guy for the Guildford Heat, my personal disappointment that Reading Rockets did not apply to the BBL is easily my biggest disappointment for the season that hasn't even started yet.

Having a new local rivalry--strike that, having any local rivalry, would be such a huge boost to both clubs in every respect. I am utterly sure that BBL games between the two teams would be the highest attended for either club. Reading are only about 20 miles away.

The goal of the BBL is to apparently be a league of 16 teams. The ACB has 18. The NBA, of course, has 30.

I am personally very keen on seeing the league increase to 16 or even 18 teams; ten was just too small. We played the same teams over and over again. A league of 20 broken into two conferences would be quite astounding.

But I struggle with how this can happen. The league needs stability. It cannot have a situation where teams come and go (disappear) so frequently, as has been happening the last few years. Or worse, nearly disappearing during the season. But I do not understand why Reading Rockets would choose not to go into the BBL. They seem well-funded and well-organised. We need them, or I should say teams like them, in the league in order for the league to improve.

I am now wondering if our 'closed league' system is part of why they didn't apply. To join the BBL, you leave the lower league system of England or Scotland that DOES have promotion and relegation. And to join the BBL, you have to pay a franchise fee. The fee and the manner it is paid in can be defered and apparently not even paid for a few seasons, but at the end of the day, the fee is apparently £90,000 spread over nearly a decade.

When the BBL was on Sky Sports, every team in the league got distribution income from the league. Sponsorship and TV revenue was paid OUT by the league TO the clubs. But now there is no distribution. The payment is one-way, from the clubs to the league. I wonder if this is the essence of the problem for clubs like Reading.

I wonder what it cost to join the BBL in 1996; back in the 'glory years'? What would anyone who was interested in UK basketball purely as an investment view as the value of a BBL franchise today?

How do we get there from here?

And when you look at nearly half the teams in the Spanish ACB; when you look at the year they were founded, you see something more remarkable than you could ever imagine:

Nearly half of them were founded less than 25 years ago; some less than even 15. One, Bruesa GBC of San Sebastian incredibly (unbelievably), was founded in 2001. Now they play to tens of thousands on national and international TV.

And this is WITH promotion and relegation.

Knowing this makes me even more intrigued to learn the history of the ACB. Knowing how a league has grown itself in the same time period as British basketball, in a country where football is the national sport just as it is in Britain, surely must have some things to teach us here.

At the end of the day, learning is probably what interests and concerns me most: How do we of the BBL learn what we do not know, how do we learn what mistakes were made in the past and how do we use all of this knowledge to move away from the culture of defeat while embracing the risks of trying to succeed?