Women's British Basketball League

Women's British Basketball League (WBBL)
Current season, competition or edition:
Current sports event 2014–15 Women's British Basketball League season

The WBBL logo, featuring the Molten GG7 match ball
Sport Basketball
Founded 5 June 2014
CEO Ed Percival
Inaugural season 2014–15
No. of teams 10
Country United Kingdom United Kingdom
Continent European Union FIBA Europe (Europe)
TV partner(s) BBL TV
Related competitions British Basketball League
Level on pyramid 1
Official website www.WBBL.org.uk

The Women's British Basketball League (WBBL) is the top-level women's professional basketball league in the United Kingdom, founded on 5 June 2014 as the women's counterpart to the British Basketball League (BBL). Like the BBL, the organisation uses a franchise-based system so there is no promotion and relegation between the WBBL and the English Basketball League, which forms the lower divisions.

Along with the WBBL Championship and the post-season Play-offs, it also runs the WBBL Trophy – a knockout competition featuring all ten WBBL member teams. Alongside these, member club's also feature in the National Cup and the Betty Codona Classic.

The current chairman is Ed Percival and the league's headquarters are based in Leicester alongside the offices of the men's BBL. League play will commence in autumn 2014.

History

Officially approved by the British Basketball League and England Basketball, the newly created Women's British Basketball League was announced to the public on 5 June 2014. The initial line-up included pre-existing teams from England and Wales, competing in a franchise-based organisation similar to the men's British Basketball League model, with no promotion or relegation in operation with the lower leagues.[1] All eight teams from the pre-existing English Basketball League Division One (Women) competition were selected as member clubs, whilst the two finalist's from the 2014 Division Two (Women) Play-off's, Brixton Lady TopCats and Leeds Force, were also drafted in.

Corporate structure

Board members

The British Basketball League is an independent company owned by its member clubs. Each club – or franchise as it is known – has an equal shareholding in the BBL and a representative on the board of directors,thus is part of all decision-making regarding League policies, issues, and rules. Ed Percival is the current elected chairman. The following club representative's on the board of directors are:[2]

Franchise Representative
Barking Abbey Crusaders Mark Clark
Brixton Lady TopCats Steve Vear
Cardiff Met Archers Lucy Power
Leeds Force Matt Newby
Leicester Riders Joe Pinchin
Manchester Mystics Joe Forber
Nottingham Wildcats Chris Prior
Sevenoaks Suns Len Busch
Sheffield Hatters Betty Codona
Team Northumbria Paul Blake

Chairperson

Competitions

WBBL Championship

The WBBL Championship is the flagship competition of the Women's British Basketball League and features all member teams playing an 18-game regular season (in a round robin format), from October through to April. Matches are played according to FIBA rules and games consist of four-quarters of 10 minutes each. Two points are awarded for a win, with overtime used if the score is tied at the final buzzer – unlimited numbers of 5-minute overtime periods are played until one team is ahead when a period ends. At the end of the regular season, the team with the most points is crowned as WBBL Champions. If points are equal between two or more teams then head-to-head results between said teams are used to determine the winners. In the case of a tie between multiple teams where this does not break the tie, the winners are then determined by the points difference in the games between said teams.[3] Following the completion of the Championship regular season, the top eight ranked teams advance into the post-season Play-offs which usually take place during April.

Play-offs

The post-season Play-offs usually takes place in April, featuring the top eight ranked teams from the WBBL Championship regular season compete in a knockout tournament. Teams are seeded depending on their final positioning in the Championship standings, so first-place faces eighth-place, second versus seventh-place, third against sixth-place and finally fourth plays the fifth-placed team. Both the Quarter-finals and the succeeding Semi-finals are played over a two-game series (home & away) with the higher seed having choice of home advantage in the either the 1st or 2nd leg – an aggregated score over the two games will determine which team will advance to the next stage. As with the Quarter-finals, teams in the Semi-finals are also seeded, with the highest-ranking team drawn against the lowest-ranking team in one Semi-final and the two remaining teams drawn together in the other Semi-final. The culmination of the post-season is the grand Final, a one-off game played at the end of April, where the winner's will be crowned as Play-off Champions.[4]

WBBL Trophy

The WBBL Trophy is an annual knockout tournament featuring all WBBL member clubs with pairings drawn completely at random – there are no seeds, and a draw takes place after the majority of fixtures have been played in each round. When there is an uneven number of member clubs in the Women's British Basketball League, some pre-selected teams receive byes into the next round. The first ever Trophy final will be played at the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham, on 11 January 2015.[5]

Betty Codona Classic

The Betty Codona Classic is an annual three-day tournament named in honour of Betty Codona OBE, a stalwart of women's basketball in Britain for over 50 years and founder of the country's first women's team, Sheffield Hatters.[6] The inaugural competition was held at Nottingham Wildcats Arena from 3 January to the 5 January 2014, featuring all eight English Basketball League Division One (women) teams with the host-team Nottingham Wildcats claiming the title. With the inception of the Women's British Basketball League later that year, the competition now features the top eight-placed WBBL teams after the first 9 games of regular season play.[7]

Teams

Crusaders
TopCats
Archers
Riders
Wildcats
Suns
Northumbria
Locations of the 2014–15 WBBL teams

Future teams

Possible expansion teams
BBL teams with no WBBL team in their city

See also

References

  1. ↑ Mark Woods (2014). "WBBL to upscale women's top tier". MVP 24-7. Retrieved 5 June 2014.
  2. ↑ "WBBL Board members". WBBL.org.uk. 2014. Retrieved 20 August 2014.
  3. ↑ "WBBL Championship". WBBL.org.uk. 2014. Retrieved 20 August 2014.
  4. ↑ "WBBL Play-offs". WBBL.org.uk. 2014. Retrieved 20 August 2014.
  5. ↑ "WBBL Trophy". WBBL.org.uk. 2014. Retrieved 20 August 2014.
  6. ↑ "Wildcats win big at Betty Codona Classic". GBBasketball.com. 2014. Retrieved 20 August 2014.
  7. ↑ "Betty Codona Classic". WBBL.org.uk. 2014. Retrieved 20 August 2014.

External links