WHITT'S BLOG - UP AND AWAY FOR GB
12/05/2008
COVERING British basketball - well, at least the national team - has been a thrill the past couple of years.
COVERING British basketball - well, at least the national team - has been a thrill the past couple of years.
Don't get me wrong. It has been a roller-coaster ride at times with the odd step sideways, and backwards, to go along with giant strides being taken in the right direction.
But today, with the announcement from UK Sport about increased funding for the national team, might just be the most significant day in the two and a bit year history of British Basketball.
Don't get me wrong, again. Announcement from government quangos about lottery cash don't normally set my pulse racing.
But the fact that UK Sport is backing hoops to the tune of £8.7 million over the next four years is, to me at any rate, recognition that the sport is finally being treated seriously in this country.
And that is a huge feather in the cap of Ron Wuotila, Chris Spice and the management types at UK Sport.
I have written often and passionately about the commitment, sacrifice and effort put out by the likes of Chris Finch, Andrew Sullivan and Nate Reinking, who were with GB from year one in 2006, and, of course, the superstars like Luol Deng, Pops Mensah-Bonsu, Andy Betts and Robert Archibald.
It's the nature of sport that the guys working long hours behind desks, working the mobiles and blackberries and playing sports politics behind the scenes, never get the credit they deserve.
But, in this case, they have excelled themselves and possibly pulled off the best result in the history of the sport in this country (alright, second best after our win in the Czech Republic!).
When it was obvious that funding for sports in the lead-up to 2012 was going to fall short of initial projections, the fear was that team sports would bear the brunt of the cuts to be made.
That makes sense. If your cash is limited, what represents a better investment in terms of medal return: fund 20 male basketball players who can compete for one medal, or fund 20 cyclists who can compete in 20 different disciplines?
Even some within British Basketball feared our sport would get hammered. And what happened? Not only did basketball survive the axe, we were given a massive increase - over 50% more this year than last.
Incredible.
Such an outcome would have been unthinkable just a year or so ago. Historically, sports with a direct route to the relevant ears in government - think field hockey, rowing, sailing - have benefited from the most backing thanks to the Old Boys' network.
Recently, sports like cycling have employed brilliant administrators and coaching, beaten the world and, quite rightly, been given a ton of cash to keep going.
But basketball? Thanks to the rank incompetence of old governing regimes, there has never been any way for the sport to lobby the powerbrokers and to make the case that there are thousands of good reasons for basketball to be funded.
Now, that's all changed.
Of course, Finch and his boys have done their part with a stunning summer campaign and a place in Eurobasket 2009 - the facts are there on paper that GB is now a credible player on the Euro, if not world, stage.
But thanks to the performance management team of Wuotila and Spice, we now have people who know what they're doing, not only in terms of putting together a good programme on the court but, more importantly, off it.
There are still large areas where improvement is necessary. I still refuse to believe, for example, that it is impossible to give away GB games to television or to find a paying sponsor for the national team (as an aside, I have it on good authority Sky TV are paying up to £10m a year over the next four years to sponsor British Cycling and they do not even own any broadcast rights for the sport!)
To my untrained eye, the real pressure in the programme now needs to be on those responsible for delivering sponsorship, TV and, generally, marketing the sport in the UK.
As for Wuotila, Spice and their team, I know they will be thinking of little else other than the women's relegation programme next month. But if they have a spare five minutes over the next month, they should give themselves a huge pat on the back for safeguarding the future of our sport for the next four years.
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