A future for British–Scottish basketball: factors constraining the sport

Abstract

With the creation of the Mayor of London’s Basketball Taskforce in 2024, investment from the NBA in 2025, Glasgow hosting the 2026 Commonwealth Games 3 × 3 event, and two British professional teams from London and Manchester proposed to enter the NBA Europe League in 2027, basketball in Britain is growing. However, since the British professional basketball league’s licence termination in 2024 alongside the British Basketball Federation’s liquidation and basketballscotland’s appeal to the government to honour their funding commitments in 2025, British basketball is also currently enduring a period of difficulty and its future facing uncertainties. While such developments highlight increasing interest within the UK, the recent problems allude to deep-rooted issues existing within the British–Scottish basketball system. Through drawing on real-life insights from the British–Scottish basketball community before qualitatively analysing them through capability theory, this study outlines the key overarching factors constraining basketball’s potential whilst providing recommendations to help British–Scottish basketball build-back-better through more inclusive and sustainable growth. The findings highlight five key issues impeding British–Scottish basketball: funding, system, fragmentation, exclusivity and diversity. They also recommend six resolutions: repositioning, collaboration, opportunity, inclusivity, innovation and proactiveness. Providing the system is properly restructured, given the increasing developments and growing interest in British–Scottish basketball today, basketball in Britain can achieve its potential, becoming more mainstream and the UK an international hub for basketball. However, if the issues are left unaddressed, British–Scottish basketball will return to its former challenging ecosystem and continue to operate insecurely, creating further internal disparities between stakeholders.