IMPORTANT UPDATES: MEMBERSHIP FEES, OFFICIATING FEES, AND THE BBF
During the past three years, Basketball England has increased efficiencies at head office and put plans in place to drive the sport forward. One example is the downsizing of our office space, saving £60k per annum.
In September 2018, we launched our strategic plan, with ambitious plans to make basketball accessible to everyone. Partnering with members and advisory groups, we have taken a number of steps toward this goal.
In order to support this, Basketball England will increase membership fees for the 2019/20 season -- for only the third time in 11 years. The fees will increase by £2 for adults and £1.50 for children.
We take seriously our obligation to hold fees as low as possible. The decision to raise fees was taken after careful consideration and has been done as part of a Sport England initiative to make NGBs more financially sustainable and less reliant on grant income. Even with the increase, fees remain much lower than other sports.
For a list of initiatives that additional membership fees will be used to support:
Officials Expenses and Game Fee Changes
Basketball needs more officials and increased training and support to raise standards. The game fees for match officials have not increased since the 2007/08 season. Officials in some other sports are being paid considerably more. Some local league and education-based basketball competitions are also paying more than our flagship NBL competition.
We acknowledge that a modest increase in officiating fees will have a financial impact on clubs, but this has to be balanced with the need to maintain a supply of officials coming into the game. In addition, there has been no uplift in fees to compensate inflationary increases in recent years. Please note the fees per referee for Three Person Officiating are significantly less than Two Person Officiating, keeping the impact to clubs as low as possible for competitions that use Three Person Officiating.
Continued support for our National Teams
The BBF has experienced a period of unprecedented instability, with the risk of insolvency and the reformation of the organisation’s Board of Directors. Resources from Basketball England, Scotland and Wales, have been redirected to supporting the BBF, which has no staff and a modest income, which is not enough to operate junior national age group teams and the senior teams. Basketball England has allocated £150,000 for three years running to assist these teams. Basketball England is underwriting the GB age-group teams up to £150,000 for 2019/20.
We are working with the home nations and the BBF board to generate the £150,000 and the remaining financial shortfall.
We are pursuing multiple avenues for raising the money needed to support the national teams, including sponsorship, key funders, and potentially revenue from members. As we seek alternate funding, we also will be consulting with clubs about the potential for an additional temporary fee increase to support the national teams.
