The Great Britain basketball team were formed on December 1st, 2005 when the home nation’s respective governing bodies England Basketball, Basketball Scotland and Basketball Wales joined forces to field a competitive team for international competition after London secured the 2012 Olympics.

However, basketball is one of the few sports in the Olympics where the home nation doesn’t get an automatic qualification. FIBA President Bob Elphinston in April 2010 announced that in order for Team GB to secure a place in the Olympics they would need to qualify for Eurobasket 2011, a campaign that begins with their scheduled games this coming August.

Whilst basketball is the third largest participation sport in the UK Team GB have struggled to build a fan base and attract fans to games and I’d like to have a look at why, and how we can change this.

Are basketball players actually basketball fans?

I recently read this great post “Are Soccer Players True Fans?” By Ryan Knapp, in which he discusses soccer in the US and the fact that not all US soccer players are soccer fans and I think we have a similar situation over here with Basketball.

Let me explain.

Just because someone plays basketball doesn’t necessarily make them a fan of the game. They may go down to local court for a game and go to practice every week, but that’s where their involvement in basketball finishes – there’s a huge disconnect between being a basketball fan and a basketball player, and as Ryan states in his article, one does not imply the other.

Note: I’d highly recommend reading Ryan’s article as a lot of what he says can be directly applied to basketball in the UK.

Now, whilst people playing basketball is great, not having fans of the game is not so great especially for Team GB, without the fans it’s hard for the game to develop over here. I feel that one of the key problems when it comes to basketball and attracting fans to games is exposure, if people aren’t aware of games they won’t go. It’s as simple as that.

Exposure

Football was my first sport, I grew up playing and watching it – being a football fan here in the UK is easy, football is everywhere; on TV, in newspapers, online, in fact it’s hard to avoid! You’re constantly connected to it, and you don’t have to make an effort to find out the latest results or news.

In basketball we don’t have that; the sport gets very little coverage other than Hoopsfix.com, Basketaball24/7 and FadeAway Magazine, and most mainstream coverage of basketball focuses on the NBA. This makes being a British Basketball fan hard, and by hard I mean you have to make an effort to follow the sport and with so many distractions both online and offline nowadays many people just don’t keep up with it.

How can we change this?

The developments of technology and social media have made massive changes to the way we consume information and content, it has also opened up the doors for content creators to reach out to new people and share their content easily. Team GB no longer need to worry about mainstream media not showing highlights or games, the opportunity to reach an audience is there, they just need to take advantage of it.

If GB Basketball wants to turn players into fans and start selling out games they need to reach out to us, give us the content we want and build up a relationships with us. After all one of the keys to success for any sports team is the relationship between the organisation, players and fans.

In mainstream sports we know the players personalities and to some extent we feel connected to them because we read about them and see them all the time, the same cannot be said about basketball players. By utilising social media, Team GB could take us inside the team and let us get to know the players and start to build a relationship with them.

This would also give Team GB the opportunity to give the younger generation of player’s role models to look up to at a young age. Just as I looked up to David Beckham as a kid, the next generation of British basketball players and fans could look up to Ben Gordon or Luol Deng.

Back British Basketball

Since I started writing this article Sam Neter, basketball fanatic and Editor of Hoopsfix.com, has launched his own campaign to bring GB Basketball to the forefront of our minds.

‘Back British Basketball’ is a campaign to promote Team GB and get people in the UK supporting the team and attending this summer’s crucial Eurobasket 2011 qualifiers. The campaigns tagline, “Our Team, Our Olympics, by any means necessary” sums up the campaign, the 2012 Olympics is our party and our basketball team needs to be there.

Sam explains; ‘The fact that Team GB has met and exceeded every goal FIBA has set out for them so far; yet they still don’t have a guaranteed place in 2012 is outrageous particularly given the fact that the UK is the host nation. As a committed fan I intend to drive this campaign and do everything in my power to get the nation on board and increase Team GB’s following ensuring their every chance of success in August’

It’s great to see someone as passionate as Sam trying to get the UK behind our team and I’ll definitely be backing British Basketball this summer. If you’d like to show your support visit www.BackBritishBasketball.com, or connect on Facebook and Twitter.

What do you think the future holds for British Basketball?