Aaron Radin interview: New BBL chief exec on strategy for growth, basketball's challenge and his journey to the UK

As the new chief executive of the British Basketball League (BBL), it might be the perfect blend that finally transforms the second most participated team sport in the United Kingdom into a successful, money-making sports business that creates positive repercussions for the whole game.

There has never been a shortage of passion in British basketball to promote the game, nor a lack of willingness to build on the 232,000 over-16s playing basketball at least twice a month, per the latest Sport England Active Lives survey.

But in a cluttered sporting marketplace, those who have tried have never made the breakthrough.

Bringing in an outsider, in Brooklyner Radin - a veteran of 30 years working in the digital content space for the NBA, NBCUniversal and Facebook among others - might finally be the key to unlock basketball’s potential.

As well as his professional resume he also coached basketball for many years.

“Outside of my family it’s the most fulfilling thing I’ve done,” Radin tells The Yorkshire Post on a zoom call from the BBL’s offices.

“Most of the players were from a low socio-economic background, and we were able to improve their lives through basketball.”

With a career spent working on start-ups and nascent businesses in the digital content space, Radin was ready to put his professional knowledge into his passion.

"When I first heard of this opportunity in the BBL it was like wow, those are all of the things I like doing,” says Radin, who is still transitioning from life in New York to life in the UK.

"I love building stuff, it probably took me too long in my career to work that out. We’re at a point in time in this business where I feel I can make a big impact.”

There is already a platform to build on in the BBL, a league in its fourth decade with fresh investment from 777 Partners in Miami coming in a year ago to grow the product.

There are 10 teams in the league and a healthy women’s league, though the fact Worcester Warriors left the men’s league two years ago because they couldn’t afford to run a team, and Sheffield Hatters stepped aside from the women’s game for a year during Covid for similar reasons, underlines the challenges.

Radin understands that. "Basketball is a popular sport in this country, at least from a playing standpoint. Some will be aware of the BBL and some won’t be.

"The pond is even bigger than just competing with other sports, it’s any form of entertainment, of gaining attention: it’s Playstation, it’s XBox, its Netflix – we have a lot of competition. So how do you carve out a place for yourself in that marketplace?”

Radin comes with a strategy, but one he knows he must be flexible with, responding to what the data tells him.

"What we have got going for us is we have a lot of people who are either playing or consuming the sport in this country,” he says.

"Not all of them are connected to or engaged in the BBL so that screams opportunity to me.

“In terms of the manner of how we present ourselves, storytelling can be improved to create deeper connections.

“There’s an enormous opportunity to lift the level of our content production, everything from the production of the games themselves to our website, to perhaps most importantly telling the stories of who our athletes are, who our clubs are, who our coaches are.

"Sport or any entertainment is about the emotive connections a consumer has to it, it’s very difficult to accomplish that in just showing a game.

"The passion fans have with their sports is because they have an emotive connection with it. Football matches in this country are almost like a religious meeting, because everyone there has a strong connection to the outcome built through years of experiences of how they’ve connected to that club.

"Being able to develop those levels of content production is going to be critical for us and I see it as a big opportunity.

"Those are the types of things brands want to connect with their customers, so creating a vehicle for that will only enable us to grow.

“With the data I’ve seen our audience is young. Our YouTube data suggests 13- to 34-year-olds make up 70 per cent of our audience so that is extremely attractive to marketers because those audiences are typically difficult to reach because they don’t watch television.”

The BBL is in the third year of a broadcasting deal with Sky Sports, one that offers the biggest shop window because for all games are shown on YouTube, and there is an increasing appetite on TikTok and Instagram, for example, "having our product as broadly available as possible is critically important,” observes Radin.

“Being able to present yourself on a large screen is a corridor to most successful sports properties. It’s an important part of our strategy and the best way to show our game in full.”

The passion is there. The knowledge is there. The belief is there in Aaron Radin.

"I’m particularly confident the sport itself will have relevance,” he summises. “Is it a slam dunk? No. This is brick by brick building.”

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New BBL chief executive Aaron Radin says it is unlikely new clubs will be entering the league next summer.

American investment firm 777 Partners put £7m into the league a year ago for a 45 per cent stake and stated they wanted to add “at least four new, high-quality franchises to the League within the next five years”.

Clubs in Birmingham, Reading and Derby have expressed an interest in joining the 10-team league and are looking to raise capital and provide a sustainable business model.

But Radin, who was only appointed chief executive two weeks ago, said the plan was for the league to walk before it can run.

"I don’t necesarily expect next year will be the year to do it because there’s a lot of infrastructure work to be done and I want us to be in a good solid foundational standpoint to add a new club in an efficient and effective way,” he said.

"We’ve got a lot of new systems and processes to get in place, it would be premature to try and add something else to the mix right now.

"But those are ways to increase the marketplace for our sport. I just want to be able to do it on a solid foundational footing.”

He also wants to continue growing the women’s BBL which is home to the Sheffield Hatters.

"There multiple opportunities for us to collaborate through business or licensing partnerships, whether that’s supporting grass roots development,” he said of the broad spectrum of basketball stakeholders.

“I wouldn’t constrain it to the WBBL, we’re involved in conversations with national governing bodies on collaborating on our business interests to see if we can facilitate further growth.”