The "hard-fought campaign to reinstate public funding" for elite basketball in the U.K. "bore fruit" on Friday when the government announced a £1.18M ($1.87M) bailout, according to Josh Burrows of the LONDON TIMES. After a "disappointing showing from the home nation at the London Olympics, basketball became the most high-profile victim" of UK Sport’s policy of funding "only those athletes and teams that were likely to produce a medal." The sport had £7M ($11.1M) of funding removed. However, the £1.18M emergency funding will not come from UK Sport, the organization that distributes lottery and taxpayer funding to elite athletes. Instead, the money "will come from Sport England, which usually allocates funds to grassroots sport, but in this instance will be used" to fund the men's and women's senior and U20 teams. The cash will be put toward travel and coaching for int'l competitions (LONDON TIMES, 11/7). In London, Owen Gibson reported many argued that, despite £9M ($14.3M) from Sport England over four years for grassroots programs in a sport "hugely popular in inner cities, effectively scrapping the elite national sides left talented youngsters with nothing to aim for." U.K. Sports Minister Helen Grant "agreed to try to broker a compromise that has ended with Sport England effectively agreeing to bankroll elite sport for the first time." British Basketball has agreed to invest £592,000 ($939,600) of its own money and, as a "condition of the funding, the women’s team will target a top-12 finish in the 2015 European Championship and the men’s team qualification for the 2017 European Championships" (GUARDIAN, 11/6). The BBC's Dan Roan reported "thanks to this new funding, British Basketball will now be able to send a Great Britain women's team to next year's European Championship" after it qualified in June. Two years on from the London Olympics, the Government had "come under pressure to help broker a deal to help a sport played by nearly 218,000 people each week" and which is now the second-biggest team sport among 14-16-year-olds in the U.K. Sport England Chair Nick Bitel said, "Basketball plays a valuable role in the drive to grow grassroots participation because it has the potential to reach young people and more diverse communities in a way that other sports don't" (BBC, 11/7).
