The Women's British Basketball League (WBBL) is the top-level women's

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

league League or The League may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Leagues'' (band), an American rock band * ''The League'', an American sitcom broadcast on FX and FXX about fantasy football Sports * Sports league * Rugby league, full contact footba ...

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...

, founded on 5 June 2014 as the women's counterpart to the

British Basketball League The British Basketball League (BBL) is a men's professional basketball league in Great Britain and represents the highest level of play in the countries. The league is contested by 10 teams from England and Scotland. There are no clubs howeve ...

(BBL). The league's headquarters are in

Leicester Leicester ( ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city, Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority and the county town of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. It is the largest settlement in the East Midlands. The city l ...

alongside the offices of the men's BBL. Like the BBL, the organisation uses a franchise-based system so there is no

promotion and relegation In sports leagues, promotion and relegation is a process where teams are transferred between multiple divisions based on their performance for the completed season. Leagues that use promotion and relegation systems are often called open leagues. ...

between the WBBL and the

English Women's Basketball League The Women's National Basketball League (WNBL) is a women's basketball league in England, covering semi-professional and amateur levels of the game. This is effectively seen as the second tier of women's basketball in the United Kingdom, along wi ...

, which forms the lower divisions. Along with the WBBL Championship and the post-season Play-offs, it also runs two knockout competitions featuring all WBBL member teams - the WBBL Cup and WBBL Trophy.

History

Officially approved by the

and

England Basketball Basketball England (BE, formally ''England Basketball'')England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

and

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

, competing in a

franchise Franchise may refer to: Business and law * Franchising, a business method that involves licensing of trademarks and methods of doing business to franchisees * Franchise, a privilege to operate a type of business such as a cable television p ...

-based organisation similar to the men's British Basketball League model, with no promotion or relegation in operation with the lower leagues. All eight teams from the pre-existing English Basketball League Division One (Women) competition were selected as member clubs, as well as the two finalists from the 2014 Division Two (Women) Play-offs, Brixton Lady TopCats and

Leeds Beckett University Leeds Beckett University (LBU), formerly known as Leeds Metropolitan University (LMU) and before that as Leeds Polytechnic, is a public university in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It has campuses in the city centre and Headingley. The univ ...

. Since the league's inauguration, both Leeds and Brixton have resigned from the league, but three new clubs have joined in that time, including the league's first member club from

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

Corporate structure

Board members

The Women's British Basketball League is run by a 13-person board, which takes all decisions regarding League policies, issues and rules. The director of each member club – or franchise as it is known – sits on the board, ensuring equal representation. The League is therefore run by these thirteen representatives and is administered by a central office. The current club representatives on the board of directors are:

Commercial Partners

The WBBL has thirteen Commercial Partners which are overseen by the Commercial Director, Bob Hope. The Commercial partners include: * BBC Sport Official Broadcast Partner
Benecos Official Cosmetics and Toiletries Partner
* Genius Sports Live Game Stats Partner * Molten Official Ball Partner * Kappa Official Apparel Partner
Synergy Video Scouting Partner
* Net1 Official Basketball Product Partner

Teams

Former teams

Competitions

WBBL Championship

The WBBL Championship is the flagship competition of the Women's British Basketball League and features all member teams playing a 22-game regular season (in a

round robin Round-robin may refer to: Computing * Round-robin DNS, a technique for dealing with redundant Internet Protocol service hosts * Round-robin networks, communications networks made up of radio nodes organized in a mesh topology * Round-robin schedu ...

format), from October through to April. Matches are played according to

FIBA The International Basketball Federation (FIBA ; French: ) is an association of national organizations which governs the sport of basketball worldwide. Originally known as the (hence FIBA), in 1989 it dropped the word ''amateur'' from its na ...

rules and games consist of four-quarters of 10 minutes each. Two points are awarded for a win, with

overtime Overtime is the amount of time someone works beyond normal working hours. The term is also used for the pay received for this time. Normal hours may be determined in several ways: *by custom (what is considered healthy or reasonable by society), ...

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. 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.

WBBL Playoffs

The post-season Playoffs usually takes place in April, featuring the top eight ranked teams from the WBBL Championship regular season compete in a

knockout tournament A knockout (abbreviated to KO or K.O.) is a fight-ending, winning criterion in several full-contact combat sports, such as boxing, kickboxing, muay thai, mixed martial arts, karate, some forms of taekwondo and other sports involving striking ...

. 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 winners will be crowned as Play-off Champions.

Betty Codona Trophy

The WBBL Trophy, now officially the Betty Codona Trophy, is an annual pool stage and

featuring all WBBL member clubs. For the first two seasons, pairings were drawn completely at random – there were no

seeds A seed is an embryonic plant enclosed in a protective outer covering, along with a food reserve. The formation of the seed is a part of the process of reproduction in seed plants, the spermatophytes, including the gymnosperm and angiosperm pl ...

, and a draw took place after the majority of fixtures have been played in each round. A preliminary round took place between the lowest-finishing teams in the previous league season, so that the tournament proper started with eight teams in the first round. From the 2016-17 season, the format was revamped, splitting the teams into a number of geographical groups. The top teams from each group qualify for the semi-finals, which are played as straight knockout ties.

WBBL Cup

The WBBL Cup is an annual knockout competition featuring all WBBL member clubs. It is a straight knockout competition.

Betty Codona Classic

The Betty Codona Classic was 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 The Westfield Health Sheffield Hatters are a Women's Basketball club from Sheffield, England, who play their home games at All Saints Catholic High School's Sports Centre. The club have been mainstays of the women's game in England for many y ...

. The competition was originally set up as an independent event for the top clubs in Women's basketball and predates the creation of the WBBL by a year, but was adopted as an official WBBL competition after the league was established. The original format featured the top eight-placed WBBL teams after the first 8 games of regular season play. For the 2016/2017 edition, the competition was moved to become the opening event for the WBBL season, resulting in a two-tiered format where the Classic Cup was contested by the top four from the previous season's league, with fifth to eighth placed teams from last year's league competing for the Classic Plate.

Individual Awards

The WBBL concludes each season with a number of individual awards based on overall performance from the year. The three end-of-season awards are; MVP Award (Most Valuable Player - which proposes the player with the best performance over the year); the Young Player of the Year (the best performance of a younger player usually at the age before or during university); and Coach of the Year (the coach with the best performance over the season). The WBBL also awards MVP Awards for the Playoffs, Trophy and Cup finals. In addition, 'Team of the Year' and 'Defensive Team of the Year' places are awarded to demonstrate the best five players in the league as well as the best five defensively players of the year in the league.

References

External links

*Official websites: *
Official WBBL website
*
The WBBL
on

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*
The WBBL
on

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{{Women's professional basketball leagues Basketball leagues in the United Kingdom

Britain Britain most often refers to: * The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands * Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...

Women's basketball competitions in the United Kingdom Professional sports leagues in the United Kingdom 2014 establishments in the United Kingdom Sports leagues established in 2014